Multi-level Governance and Multi-level Metagovernance Changes in the European Union as Integral Moments in the Transformation and Reorientation of Contemporary Statehood.

Jessop, Bob (2004) Multi-level Governance and Multi-level Metagovernance Changes in the European Union as Integral Moments in the Transformation and Reorientation of Contemporary Statehood. In: Multi-Level Governance :. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-925925-9

Abstract

Bob Jessop seeks to criticize the �principal theoretical approaches to EU government and/or governance from the viewpoint of a strategic-relational approach to the state�. In particular, Jessop considers the rival approaches for understanding multi-level governance in the EU that can be conceptualized as �state-centric� and �simple governance� perspectives. The failure of these approaches leads him to propose an alternative account �in terms of the strategic selectivity of the state as a social relation, issues of governance failure, meta governance, and meta governance failure�. From this critique, Jessop suggests that what we are perhaps witnessing is the �re-scaling of the sovereign state or the emergence of just one more arena in which national states pursue national interests�.