Accountability and Multi-level Governance: More Accountability, Less Democracy?

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain why the trend towards more cooperative forms of policy-making, though in all likelihood necessary for policy efficiency and even at first glance promising with respect to inclusiveness and pluralism, can have negative consequences for democratic accountability. The paper first explores the properties of multi-level governance that lead to a deficit in democratic accountability (lack of visibility, uncoupling from representative institutions, composition of networks, and ‘multi-levelness’ itself) before coming to more general conclusions on the characteristics and limits of accountability mechanisms in multi-level governance and on their consequences for democracy.