Multi-level Governance, Policy Implementation and Participation: The EU’s Mandated Participatory Planning Approach to Implementing Environmental Policy Jens Newig and Tomas M. Koontz This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article submitted for consideration in the Journal of European Public Policy (accepted for publication) [copyright Taylor & Francis]; The Journal of European Public Policy is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/. Abstract Innovations in European Union policy making have produced a distinctive, novel mode of policy that combines components of participatory and multi-level governance for policy implementation. In this manuscript we provide a conceptualisation of what we term the EU’s ‘mandated participatory planning’ (MPP) approach. This approach is increasingly used to implement EU directives, mandating the explicit formulation of certain plans or programmes on mostly subnational or cross-national levels. Drawing on three empirical examples from (mostly) environmental policy, we argue that analyzing MPP as such is useful to help identify challenges and possibilities for EU policy making. Our framework provides a means to organize inquiry and compare disparate policies, and to more broadly understand the integration of policy, planning, and implementation. This perspective, in turn, sheds fresh light on familiar concepts at the intersections of multi-level governance, policy implementation and participatory governance, namely multi-layer implementation, participatory implementation and polycentric governance. Key Words: EU Air Quality Directives, EU Floods Directive, EU Water Framework Directive, federalism, nested policy cycle, policy delivery. Introduction In recent years, a novel mode of European Union policies has emerged that mandates participatory governance across multiple levels for policy implementation. This new mode, which we propose to call the Mandated Participatory Planning (MPP) approach to policy implementation, is mainly visible in environmental policy directives. It represents the pinnacle of a development from technical towards procedural standards over the past decades (Knill and Lenschow 2000). Reaching well beyond early approaches to proceduralisation, MPP mandates the explicit formulation of certain plans or programmes on a national, subnational or even cross-national level. As a rule, member states (or the respective competent sub- or cross-national authorities) are obliged to assess the current state of the policy issue, and then formulate measures and monitoring programmes to attain the substantive objectives of a directive, typically through involvement of non-state organized interests or the larger public. The proto-typical example of MPP is embodied by the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which we will discuss below in some detail. The approach also has been realised for other recent directives such as the air quality directives (Busch et al. 2012), Environmental Noise Directive, and Floods Directive, and it has been part of the proposed Soil Protection Framework Directive. While earlier directives1 had 1 institutionalised certain planning imperatives to complement traditional regulatory instruments, the plans and programmes according to MPP function as the essential element of policy implementation (Durner and Ludwig 2008). Speculating on the rationales behind this shifting mode of policy implementation, it is plausible to assume that the EU seeks to compensate its notorious perceived lack of democratic legitimacy and responsiveness by involving citizens and private actors not only in the drafting of legislation but also in its implementation (Newig and Fritsch 2009b). Second, recent history from the Mandelkern report on Better Regulation (Mandelkern Group 2001) up to the current attempts to drive ‘smart regulation’ (European Commission 2010) document how, more than ever, the EU is concerned about the effective delivery of its policies. Third, iterative planning may serve as a learning mechanism similar to that of the ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (Kerber and Eckard 2007), albeit in a stricter legal framework and with very different overall objectives compared to those of the OMC2. This new approach to implementing European public policy entails a number of implications of theoretical as well as practical relevance. Thus it is surprising that MPP has not been recognised in the literature as a conceptually new and general phenomenon. Only very recently, a ‘paradigm shift’ has been noted (Durner and Ludwig 2008; Busch et al. 2012). Yet sectoral literatures typically deal with the concrete implications of mandated participatory planning but seem to take the more fundamental shift in governance and public policy-making as given3. Therefore, we feel it is time to identify this new mode of governance and explore implications across policy areas. What, then, is new and challenging about MPP? Why should this be so important? Conceptually, it is yet unclear in what terms to describe the phenomenon of MPP. It could certainly be regarded as an expression of a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’ (as has been noted for the Water Framework Directive by Kaika and Page 2003 and Moss 2004): It fosters the participation of private actors and other non-elected bodies in decision-making, creates new levels of governance, and requires an increased horizontal and vertical co-ordination of various levels of public administration. Public decision-making is shifting towards involving broader society and moving from ‘center’ (member state) to the ‘periphery’ (sub-national levels) (Piattoni 2010). MPP is, however, more than that: Rather than the shift in the locus of existing decision-making, MPP is characterized as primarily new decisions to be taken in the course of policy implementation. Moreover, these new decisions are of a novel kind, namely state-mandated planning (Bunnell and Jepson Jr 2011). MPP could also be regarded as a novel type of policy instrumentation, the main ‘instrument’ being institutionalised participatory planning (see Busch et al. 2012). Yet rather than being just another policy instrument, larger-scale planning in the context of environmental policies has been considered to be of strategic importance (Janicke and Jorgens 2000). In fact, the ‘policy instrumentation’ perspective misses the point that the required plans entail much more than merely carrying out a policy by specifying certain elements or adapting to local conditions. Traditional implementation is about administrators carrying out policy provisions made by others in the political sphere. But MPP implementation requires the creation of plans that are in themselves political programmes (if on a smaller scale). MPP thus comes closer to mandated self-governance than to classical policy implementation (Durner and Ludwig 2008). In other words, implementation of EU policy is being ‘politicised’ from the top. A political decision-making processes results, which we describe in terms of a secondary policy-cycle nested within a larger cycle of European public policy making and implementation. From a more practical point of view, MPP poses another set of issues. Legally speaking, it is generally unclear to what extent the mandated plans and programmes are binding and who is entitled to take court action against final plans and programmes (Cancik 2011). From a democratic perspective, MPP raises important questions of legitimacy. Required by European law, but drafted involving non-elected bodies and private actors, these plans may lack or vary substantially in their input-oriented legitimacy. Moreover, and ultimately, MPP must ‘work’ in order to be legitimate in an output-oriented sense. First, plans must be produced at all. Second, they must be pro- 2 duced at the required levels of governance (e.g. river basins in the case of the Water Framework Directive). Third, they must be meaningful in the sense of actually contributing to the aims and goals of the respective EU policy (rather than remaining merely symbolic documents). We seek to contribute to a better understanding of MPP as follows. We begin by comparing three different EU directives that typify different varieties of MPP, demonstrating the extent to which this mode of public policy has already impacted on the activities of local administration. Drawing on this empirical basis, we then discuss how MPP shares aspects of multi-level governance, policy implementation, and participatory governance. Doing so, we embed the new phenomenon into the relevant streams of scholarly literature and show how MPP differs from existing conceptualisations. Subsequently, we explore MPP at the intersection of these three concepts. We conclude by outlining research gaps that follow from the identification of MPP as an increasingly important concept in (European) public policy. The Empirical Basis: The EU’s Mandated Participatory Planning Approach to Policy Implementation as Institutionalised in Current EU Directives The piece of legislation that embodies MPP in a proto-typical manner is the Water Framework Directive. In order to explore the breadth of MPP variants, we shall also sketch the specific approaches of the Floods Directive and the Air Quality directives, acknowledging that similar approaches have been taken by other directives e.g. in the fields of noise protection, waste management or nature conservation (Durner and Ludwig 2008). Table 1: Varieties of MPP as institutionalised in different EU policies. Water Framework Directive Floods Directive Air Quality directives Name of plans River Basin Mangement Plans and Programmes of Measures Flood Risk Maps and Flood Risk Management Plans Air quality plans (long-term) and short-term action plans Geographical focus River Basin Districts and sub-units Flood risk areas within River Basin Districts and sub-units Zones and urban agglomerations Cyclical planning Six-year cycles Six-year cycles aligned with those of the WFD No cycles but planning required on occasion of exceeding air pollution threshold values Set goals Good water status for all ground and surface waters by 2015 Abstract goal only, no concrete objectives Concrete air quality standards defined in daughter directives Public participation requirements Access to information, formalised three-stage consultation, active involvement of interested parties Access to information, active involvement of interested parties Access to information, limited participation in public hearings; citizen rights to enactment of plans (Germany) 3 Water Framework Directive The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC − WFD) requires all EU member states to achieve “good status” of water quality of all inland ground and surface waters by 2015. As the central vehicle of implementation, member states must develop River Basin Management Plans and Programmes of Measures that assess current water conditions and define actions to be taken to achieve the Directive’s targets. These plans4 had to be submitted to the European Commssion by the end of 2009. Subsequent six-year planning cycles will follow with deadlines for submitting plans in 2015 and 2021. The WFD details the general procedure of drafting plans, their content and their spatial jurisdiction. Plans must be produced on the level of River Basin Districts, that is, covering hydrological spatial units rather than political-administrative jurisdictions, to overcome spatial ‘misfits’ and internalise negative externalitites (spillovers) (Moss 2004). Thus, member states have to collaborate with neighbouring countries in international river basins. The WFD moreover requires authorities to consult with stakeholders and the general public in a three-step procedure to draft plans, and it encourages authorities to promote active engagement in planning processes, thus giving rise to growing influence of nonelected bodies (Kaika and Page 2003). A document drafted as part of the ‘Common Implementation Strategy’ (CIS) to the WFD gives detailed guidance on how to conduct public participation in the planning process (EU 2002). Member states − or rather, the respective planning authorities on riverbasin level − are given substantial flexibility in operationalising the goal of ‘good water status’, defining exemptions from this goal for certain water bodies, and most importantly, defining the measures to attain good water status. Given the demands for planning as “a systematic, integrative and iterative process that is comprised of a number of steps executed over a specified time schedule” (European Commission 2003), it is not surprising that the introduction of MPP in the WFD has caused much activity in public administrations throughout the European Union. Floods Directive Aiming at the protection of human health, the environment, cultural heritage and economic development, the Floods Directive (2007/60/EC − FD) is the first not predominantly “environmental” directive to follow the MPP. Like the WFD, it mandates the production of flood risk management plans in six-years cycles on the level of river basins with involvement of the public. First cycle plans must be completed by the end of 2015, aligned with the second-cycle planning of the WFD. There are, however, two notable differences in the planning approach. Compared to the WFD, public participation is less formalised and less extensively required. Moreover and yet more importantly, the FD does not define any substantive goals for flood protection or reduction of flood risk. Next to an assessment of the status quo of flood risk and the extensive requirements of drafting flood risk maps and the designation of flood risk areas, plans only have to define measures of how flood risk will be managed, but not how flood protection will be achieved in any way. MPP here becomes an almost pure exercise in reflexive governance (see Meadowcroft 2007 for this argument): By obliging public administrations to intensively engage with local flood risks, it is hoped that flood protection will be enhanced, too. Air Quality Directives The MPP variant taken in the field of air quality policy differs in some respects from that of the WFD but is still typical of the overall approach (Durner and Ludwig 2008; Busch et al. 2012). The Air Quality Framework Directive (96/62/EC) mandates that air quality plans be developed for zones or urban agglomerations that exceed the concentrations of airborne pollutants as specified primarily in four ‘daughter directives’5. The plans must define concrete measures of how to reach the target values specified in the directives. In cases of immediate risks to human health, short term action plans are to 4 be issued in order to reduce pollution levels through short-term measures. The successor directive 2008/50/EC integrates most of these regulations and introduces a few new elements. The most important difference to the WFD and FD approach is the absence of a fixed planning cycle but the approach to formulate plans only where necessary if air quality limit values are exceeded6. The second important difference is that public participation is limited to information rights and the extensive obligations to publish information on air quality situations. Still, this “increased transparency and openness” can be judged as “a potentially empowering gateway for awareness raising, politicisation, public participation and democratisation at the local level” (Busch et al. 2012: 9). As an indication of the political nature and relevance of these plans, German courts have granted citizens the right to demand the establishment of a plan in case of exceeding limit values, which indeed has been made use of (Cancik 2011). The Mandated Participatory Planning approach to policy implementation through three lenses: Multi-level governance, Policy implementation, Participatory governance As a novel phenomenon in public policy, MPP shares features of policy implementation, multi-level governance, and participatory governance. Multi-level governance Perhaps most obviously, MPP can be characterised in terms of multi-level governance (MLG), relating to both the structure of a multi-level system and the interaction among levels of governance (Benz and Eberlein 1999). In structural terms, MPP implies granting decision competencies to supra- and sub-national levels at the expense of the national level. Political authority that has been granted to the EU for passing directives is maintained and strengthened by installing central competencies within the Commission to monitor planning efforts within the member states. At the same time, parts of that authority are passed back to sub-national levels of decision-making to perform the mandated planning, thus bypassing the national level of the member states (whose task is reduced to legal transposition of directives into national law). In Piattoni’s (2010) terms this concerns the dimensions of both ‘domestic-international’ and ‘center-periphery’7. Since governmental structures are actually strengthened by MPP, albeit typically on sub-national levels, it does not, howerver, fit the phenomenon of the “hollowing out of the state” (Rhodes 1996). Research on multi-level governance based on federalism examines which existing level of government is best suited for particular management tasks. A common conclusion is that the optimal governance level is a function of the scale of the problem and those affected by it, taking into account externalities (Oates 1972; Young 2002; Benson and Jordan 2010). MPP deviates from the established system of governmental levels by introducing task-specific levels, mandating planning on hydrological scales (WFD, FD), noise-related scales (Environmental Noise Directive) or air pollution-related scales (Air Quality Framework Directive). These biophysical governance scales are thought to internalise negative externalities across territorial boundaries (Benson and Jordan 2010). An optimal spatial ‘fit’ (Young 2002; Moss 2004) of the planning unit to the relevant policy issue is sought. Thus, MPP adds additional levels of governance to the existing MLG system. The resulting MLG arrangements bear resemblance to the concepts of ‘Functional, Overlapping and Competing Juristictions’ (FOCJ) (Frey and Eichenberger 1996) and the task-specific, intersecting and flexible jurisdictions of ‘Type II’ MLG (Hooghe and Marks 2003). However, MPP differs in some important respects 5 from these concepts (see Table 2). Both FOCJ and Type II MLG assume a self-organizing, polycentric system of competing, fluid governance arrangements that allows citizens within these jurisdictions to choose. This is not the case with MPP, which is centrally introduced by the EU. MPP may be more ‘fluid’ than classical territorial MLG systems (‘Type I’ according to Hooghe and Marks 2003), but normally the created planning structures are assumed to stay for multiple planning cycles, so MPP arrangements are certainly not “lean and flexible” as Type II MLG systems (Hooghe and Marks 2003: 236). Furthermore, MPP jurisdictions are not ‘competing’ because the whole MLG arrangement is centrally EU-induced. And finally, the governance levels within each directive’s MPP are in fact not overlapping. Rather, as in the case of the WFD and FD, the whole of Europe is divided into geographical river basin districts and sub-districts or flood risk areas. These, by the logic of hydrogeomorphology, do not intersect but are instead nested as in ‘Type I’ MLG. Table 2: Comparing MPP to existing typologies of Multi-level Governace, drawing on Hooghe and Marks (2003) and adding to their typology the category of initiation, which further distinguishes MPP from both Type I and Type II MLG. Type I MLG Type II MLG / FOCJ MPP Purpose General purpose Task specific Task specific Membership Non-intersecting, nested Intersecting Typically non-intersecting and nested Number of levels Limited Unlimited Not strictly limited, but key levels are emphasised Flexibility Very low (systemwide architecture) Flexible design Systemwide architecture with certain flexibility Competitiveness Non-competitive Competitive Non-competitive Initiation Pre-existing Typically ‘bottom-up’ ‘Top-down’ In terms of interaction among levels of governance, MPP requires ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ interactions (European Commission 2003). In complex multi-level systems, there is a need to coordinate interactions ‘vertically’ across different levels. In water policy, federal systems often engage higher levels of government in addressing large spatial scale issues, to account for externalities and spillover effects (Benson and Jordan 2010). Lower levels of government may be tasked with developing and implementing solutions with greater detail and smaller spatial scales, and in cooperation with non-state stakeholders (Hardy and Koontz 2008). Following this logic, work at smaller scales informs larger scale planning processes. Subsequently, higher levels of government work through lower levels for implementation. Such interaction up and down levels of government has been described for federal systems generally, as actors in different jurisdictions interact through resources and institutions (Peters and Pierre 2001). Moreover, due to partly shared competences of jurisdictional levels, MPP entails coordination across levels (Benz and Eberlein 1999). ‘Horizontally’, the introduction of biophysical planning units requires coordination among riparian territorial jurisdictions. Neighbouring jurisdictions (e.g., counties, federal states, nation states), that continue to be the loci of most democratic decision-making must collaborate in producing coherent river basin management plans. Cooperative arrangements may include territorial jurisdictions from different hierarchical levels. In the WFD case, for instance, the body charged with river basin planning for the river Ems is constituted by the two German federal states of Northrhine-Westfalia and Lower Saxony as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 6 Policy implementation EU institutions increasingly are concerned with the effective delivery of their policies. Policy implementation is about how and to what extent public policy, once passed, is put into practice, changes behaviour and ultimately reaches its stated goals. Research on policy implementation has had a substantial history, ranging from the classical works of Pressman and Wildavsky 1984 [1973], who sought to explain ‘deficits’ in top-down policy implementation, to more recent approaches reconciling ‘topdown’ and ‘bottom-up’ thinking and incorporating a greater variety of explanatory factors in implementation research (e.g. O'Toole Jr. 2000; deLeon and deLeon 2002). The important conceptual debates seem to have been made, which has led observers to ask “whatever happened to policy implementation?” (deLeon and deLeon 2002). Saetren’s (2005) analysis shows that whereas ‘core’ publications of implementation research have become less frequent since the 1980s, ‘non-core’ publications have been growing exponentially at least until 2005, indicating that much empirical research is ongoing in a variety of fields. Still, implementation on the ground is not well understood, as has recently been asserted by Jordan and Tosun (2013) with reference to environmental policy. Curiously, MPP, and planning issues more generally, have been ignored in the ‘core’ literature on public policy or policy implementation. For instance, the recent standard volume on environmental policy in the EU (Jordan and Adelle 2013) nowhere mentions the planning obligations by EU directives of the past 15 years. This stands in stark contrast to the multitude of sectoral contributions on national or local implementation, especially the WFD (e.g. Lundqvist 2004; Kastens and Newig 2007; Keskitalo and Pettersson 2012) and air quality directives (Busch et al. 2012). To situate MPP within the concept of policy implementation, three aspects are particularly noteworthy: First, the mandated planning to implement directives constitutes a (new) intermediate step between the original policy goals and any concrete measures (Durner and Ludwig 2008). This step can consist of formulating sub-goals, naming exceptions and working towards concrete measures. This intermediate step makes it difficult to apply standard concepts of outputs, outcomes and impacts to MPP EU policies, because a series of additional sub-outputs or outcomes are produced. The second aspect concerns the political nature of implementation decisions. As a “flexible” rather than “rigid” approach to implementation (Treib et al. 2007), MPP leaves considerably more leeway to the administration than ‘classical’ top-down implementation. Implementation research has acknowledged that implementation is “itself a political process in the course of which policies are frequently re-shaped, re-defined or even completely overturned” (Pülzl and Treib 2007, p. 100). MPP institutionalises this political nature of implementation decisions. In the ‘classical’ model of policy implementation, the more fundamental “collective choice” decisions (Kiser and Ostrom 1982) are made through policies (typically through the legislature), whereas in the implementation phase “operational choice” decisions are the focus (typically through administration). The introduction of MPP blends these categories, mandating and allowing collective choice decisions via planning in the implementation phase as well. Third, this politicisation can be described in terms of the policy cycle model. Introducing a political element into the implementation phase can be regarded as introducing a policy cycle of its own. Planning according to MPP typically involves conducting an assessment of the status quo of (environmental) conditions and defining planning issues, which corresponds to the ‘agenda-setting phase’ in the textbook model of the policy cycle. Subsequently, the plan itself has to be drafted, typically involving input from stakeholders and/or the broader public and resolving potentially conflictual issues (policy formulation phase). Plans then must be implemented in terms of carrying out actual measures on the ground. The WFD even mandates a systematic evaluation and subsequent review of plans in a cyclical manner. As depicted in Figure 1, this series of steps can be conceived as a ‘secondary’ policy cycle nested within the primary policy cycle of setting the agenda for a new EU policy, drafting the directive, implementing it and potentially evaluating and/or renewing the policy. Contrary to first-order 7 policy cycles, MPP-triggered second-order cycles typically (have to) pass through all stages of the cycle, including systematic evaluation and revised policy decisions. Water Framework Directive (2000) River Basin Mgmt Plans (2009) Public participation Agenda Setting Implementation (1990s) (2003 - 2015 / 27) ? Inventory, definition of mgmt. issues every 6 years Implementation of measures (2015) Evaluation systematic review Evaluation Figure 1: The Mandated Participatory Planning approach as exemplified in the nested policy cycle for implementing the Water Framework Directive. Adapted from Newig (2008). Participatory governance MPP, finally, shares a lot of elements with participatory governance. The EU has long subscribed to the value of citizen and civil society participation in decision-making. In the realm of citizen participation in environmental policy, the EU signed the 1998 Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. In 2001, after a comprehensive consultative process, the Commission issued the White Paper on Governance (European Commission 2001), in which participation appears as the second of five governance principles. It is, therefore, not surprising that participation figures as a central element in the directives passed after the turn of the millennium. In the EU context, participatory governance has been defined as “the regular and guaranteed presence when making binding decisions of representatives of those collectivities that will be affected by the policy adopted” (Schmitter 2002: 56). In order to classify MPP through existing terms of participatory governance, we shall consider both rationales for and dimensions of participatory governance. Rationales for participation are manifold. Most of them can probably be subsumed under one of the following three: emancipation, legitimacy and effectiveness (Newig and Kvarda 2012). When ‘participation’ became an important public issue in the 1960s, emancipatory considerations dominated, as is manifest in the work of Habermas (1962) and motivating Arnstein’s (1969) influential essay on citizen participation in public planning in which participation is seen to empower the powerless. A recurring rationale for participation has been democratic legitimacy (e.g. Schmitter 2002) in that participation serves as a vehicle for more transparent, accountable decisions closer to the citizens. More recently, participation is seen as an instrument to enhance effective policy delivery (Newig and Kvarda 2012). In particular, participatory governance is expected to improve the information basis of decisions by including (local) knowledge, foster collective learning, resolve conflicts and lead to greater buy-in of participants and thus ultimately improved policy delivery (Koontz and Johnson 2004, Newig and Fritsch 2009a). MPP follows this latter instrumental, effectiveness-oriented rationale. Quite clearly, the guidance document on public participation relative to the Water Framework Directive specifies that “Public participation is not an end in itself but a tool to achieve the environmental objectives of the Directive” (EU 2002: 6). Moreoever, public participation is seen as the central element of the WFD planning process (European Commission 2003: 55) and a key success factor for the directive’s implementation (Preamble 14 WFD). 8 Participatory governance can play out in very different forms. To characterise these, three dimensions have been proposed (Fung 2006; Newig and Kvarda 2012): − Representation: Participatory processes can differ on who is included, ranging from a broad involvement of the public at large to small groups with selected individuals or representatives of interest groups, which in the latter case comes close to corporatist structures. MPP allows for different varieties of representation. For the preparation of plans, the WFD mandates the consultation of the broad public in whole river basins districts in three annual consecutive steps. In addition, the “active involvement” of interested parties is to be encouraged. In the practice of WFD implementation, very different groups of private and civil society actors are invited to participate, depending on the respective jurisdictions. − Information flows, too, can differ substantially across participatory settings. Information exchange ranges from direct-democratic procedures such as public referenda, which typically only allow voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’, to access to information, one-way consultation processes and intensive mutual, face-to-face communication in collaborative management. MPP in its different varieties allows for different forms such as consultation and collaboration in the WFD case and mere access to information in the case of air quality directives. − Influence, finally, determines to what extent participants can actually affect decisions on the issues at stake. It ranges from mere advice to co-determination. In MPP, genuine co-decisionmaking is rare, and the amount of influence often rests with the administration. Thus, MPP represents a particular set of participatory governance forms: certainly more inclusive than traditional planning, using a variety of consultative and deliberative forms of decision-making involving private and civil society organisations up to broad opportunities for citizen participation (as hitherto not possible in many member states, such as Germany), but mandated from above rather than bottom-up and self-organised. MPP at the intersection of policy implementation, multi-level governance and participation What is distinct about MPP is that it shares elements of policy implementation, multi-level governance and participation. This combination is depicted in Figure 2, which highlights the intersections of these concepts. This perspective allows us to describe MPP not only as the intersection of all three concepts8, but also to describe related empirical phenomena situated at the intersections of pairs of these concepts. Policy implementation / Multi-level governance: While ‘policy implementation’ refers to the way policies are actually applied by the targeted addressees, transformed into concrete actions on the ground and ultimately yield (or do not yield) tangible outcomes, ‘multi-level governance’ is about the existence and co-ordination of multiple, more or less independent, but interdependent, levels of government. At the intersection of both is what has been termed ‘multi-layer implementation’9 (Hill and Hupe 2003). MLI in a broad sense is not new; at least in federal systems, policies passed at the federal level often have to be ‘implemented’ at the level of states or provinces. That is, operational choice decisions (Kiser and Ostrom 1982) have to be made at lower levels of government. In a narrower sense, including a stronger element of MLG, multi-layer implementation is about collective choice decisions in the course of implementing higher-order policy. Such forms of MLI were embodied in past EU directives such as the early Air Pollution Framework Directive (84/360/EC) with respect to licensing requirements and procedures or the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) as regards programmes of measures and codes of good agricultural practice in vulnerable zones. What sets MPP apart from these more specific interpretations of MLI is the element of public information and participation. This raises an important question about how implementation may affect governance across 9 multiple levels of jurisdictions, both vertically and horizontally. For example, how might participatory planning processes and outputs in one location affect governance in a location that is adjacent or at a higher or lower scale? Policy Implementation Multi‐layer Participatory Implementation Implementation (Hill/Hupe) (deLeon) Mandated participatory planning approach to implementation Participatory Multi‐level Governance Polycentric governance (Ostrom) Governance Figure 2: Mandated Participatory Planning (MPP) and related empirical phenomena of public policy at the intersection of multi-level governance, policy implementation and participatory governance. Multi-level governance / participatory governance: A number of different forms of interactions could emerge from blending multi-level governance and participatory governance. In fact, the MLG concept itself, understood quite broadly, embraces participation of non-state actors in decision-making (Piattoni 2010). However, there exists a governance concept that has at its core both the multi-level (‘Type II’) nature of decision-making and the direct participation of non-state actors, or ‘users’ in decision-making. This is the concept of polycentric governance. Originally coined by V. Ostrom et al. (1961), the concept has been established by the Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis and applied to various policy arenas (McGinnis 2005; Andersson and Ostrom 2008). For instance, the Great Lakes Regime in the United States and Canada has been described as multi-level, participatory and deliberative, polycentric governance (Kornfeld 2008). As such, polycentric governance appears well-suited to describe the multiple local, community or watershed-related, often crossscale, partly self-organising planning efforts occurring within MPP – were these not centrally induced and monitored by the EU (in contrast, e.g., to the more ‘messy’ arrangements within the Great Lakes Regime). MPP could thus be classified as a ‘top-down’ version of polycentric governance. Given that a hallmark of polycentricity is the existence of independent sources of power, which characteristics of a polycentric system (e.g., information sharing, competition, efficiency) are most likely to be affected by the top-down mandate inherent in MPP? How might participants interact differently in MPP than in multi-level participatory governance? Do vertical linkages become more important than horizontal linkages? Policy implementation / participatory governance: Participation in a policy-implementation context could be termed participatory implementation. Over a decade ago, deLeon and deLeon (2002) identified “a trend toward a more discursive form of policy implementation, one that recognizes that there is somebody whose behavior needs to be modified in order that implementation will be considered successful, and that those somebodies might be more willing to conform to the new mandates if they were informed, and even more so if they consent, before the decision” (p. 478, emphasis in original). As far as the participation of and collaboration with private actors is concerned, this refers to neo-corporatist patterns (Jahn 1998). In Ostrom’s (1990) work on participatory governance, the inclusion of resource 10 users in implementing rules on the ground is a key factor for success. However, Ostrom’s work focuses on policies developed from local communities rather than those externally imposed from a topdown directive, as is the case with MPP. Is participation likely to have more or less of an impact on implementation in MPP compared to participatory governance that is more bottom up? Will participants’ impact on implementation arise more from influencing the decisions of policy makers in higher jurisdictions, or from influencing local actors to change behaviors? Conclusion The introduction of mandated participatory planning to implement EU directives is consistent with the broader developments in EU policy-making, striving to enhance implementation and citizen engagement. Although not completely new (the proto-typical case of the Water Framework Directive dates back to 2000), MPP has emerged as quite a distinct form of public policy and its implementation in particular. With its unprecedented requirements on new local planning and decision-making processes, MPP has already been heavily impacting public administrations across the Union. Situated at the intersection of multi-level governance, policy implementation and participatory governance, MPP could develop into an important model for future policy-making in the EU and beyond. This article has sought to conceptualise MPP, and its relation to elements of multi-level governance, policy implementation, and participatory governance. From the perspective of multi-level governance, MPP shares aspects of what is now commonly called Type I and Type II multi-level governance, but constitutes a distinct type of MLG. From a policy implementation perspective, the planning requirements of MPP introduce a secondary policy cycle. And from the viewpoint of participatory governance, MPP combines different ‘degrees’ of participation within a centrally steered planning and reporting scheme. The conceptualisation of MPP at the intersection of MLG, policy implementation and participatory governance, moreover, may serve fruitful for further debates about the nature of the empirical phenomena related at the intersections of pairs of these concepts. The identification of MPP as a novel policy concept suggests several avenues for further inquiry. In empirical terms, it will be helpful to compare how MPP plays out in the different directives (including those not considered in this article), and how it is realised in different EU member states. This could help identify constraints and opportunities for MPP across policy issues and contexts. An assessment of MPP in terms of legitimacy and effectiveness will be important to judge its benefits and drawbacks for EU policy-making. For multi-level governance Type II systems, Skelcher (2005) questions how there can be consent for decisions. This is of particular relevance for the mandated plans on non-territorial jurisdictions. Future analyses should consider what role participation and top-down planning mandates can play in addressing issues of accountability and consent in MPP policy implementation. For implementation studies, the notion of nested policy cycles raises questions about links between planning and evaluation. While the top-down mandate clearly affects the planning cycle, it is possible that the planning cycle subsequently affects the top-down mandate. In the Water Framework Directive, for example, the first planning cycle is complete and its results may lead policy makers to adjust the directive. Moreover, experiences with the WFD planning cycle may affect other directives, e.g., regarding citizen participation requirements. Participatory governance in a multi-level governance arrangement raises important questions about information flows. Prior research has identified challenges with information flowing up and down in organizations with multiple levels; might these challenges be exacerbated by the existence of multiple levels across different jurisdictions? Also, the mandated nature of participation suggests careful consideration of participatory mechanisms. How does the top-down nature of MPP affect the impacts that different degrees of participation have on planning and implementation? Do the degrees of participation that work well in bottom-up processes work less well under top-down mandates, and vice versa? 11 Ultimately, the ‘success’ of MPP will be judged by the extent to which it is more conducive to solving societal problems compared to other policy approaches. To date, there is some empirical evidence that the MPP approach, although formally realised in most member states, does not necessarily function as envisaged (Koontz and Newig, in prep; Liefferink et al. 2011 for the Water Framework Directive). This raises questions about how the MPP approach plays out in practice, in particular as to the identification of the links between participatory planning processes, policy change, and activities on the ground. Clearly, more in-depth and comparative research is needed here. Finally, comparing MPP with similar approaches abroad could be very fruitful for cross-context learning. For example, Habitat Conservation Planning in the United States (Thomas 2001) under the Endangered Species Act and watershed management planning (Hardy and Koontz 2008) could be important reference cases. Likewise, analyses of state-mandated planning (Bunnell and Jepson Jr 2011) and whether they produce ‘good’ plans could be insightful references as well. This initial characterization of the EU’s Mandated Participatory Planning Approach in recent (environmental) directives could be but a starting point for further discussion and inquiry. We hope that these conceptual considerations stimulate debate and prove fruitful for empirical research on implementation of European Union policies and beyond. Biographical notes: Jens Newig is professor of governance and sustainability at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany. Tomas M. Koontz is professor of environmental and natural resources policy at Ohio State University, USA. Addresses for correspondence: Jens Newig, Research group Governance, Participation and Sustainability, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Scharnhorststr. 1, 21335 Lüneburg, Germany. E-mail: newig@uni.leuphana.de. Tomas M. Koontz, School of Environment and Natural Resources, Ohio State University, 210 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Rd,Columbus, OH, 43214, USA. Email: koontz.31@osu.edu. Acknowledgements Parts of this research were conducted within the ERC Starting Grant project ‘EDGE − Evaluating the Delivery of Participatory Environmental Governance Using an Evidence-based Approach’ to JN. 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It is a mechanism of coordination between member-states (whereas the MPP describes implementation of EU policies within the member states); it is supvervised by the Council (and not the Commission); it is not a means to harmonisation but to foster competition. The OMC does not apply to governance modes in regulatory policies such as environmental policy. 3 For instance, the rich literature on implementing the WFD discusses ‘participation’ or ‘river basin management’ in the implementation of the directive but takes the more fundamental obligation to undertake a planning process in the first place as given (Kaika and Page 2003; Moss 2004; Liefferink et al. 2011 and many others). 4 In the following, we will use the term ‘plan’ for all plans and programmes such as River Basin Management Plans, Programmes of Measures or air quality action plans. 5 Directives 1999/30/EC; 2000/69/EC; 2002/3/EC; and 2004/107/EC. 6 In Germany alone, some 140 plans had been established by February 2013 (http://gis.uba.de/website/ umweltzonen/lrp.php). 7 The third of Piattoni’s dimensions − state-society − is also of crucial importance in MPP, and will be discussed in the section on participatory governance. 8 Next to the intersections, the ‘pure’ phenomena empirically exist, too. For instance, ‘pure’ multi-level governance could refer to influencing EU policy from multiple levels (nation state, sub-national units), which is neither participatory nor relates to policy implementation. ‘Pure’ implementation would be non-participatory and through operational choice decisions on the same level of government. ‘Pure’ participatory governance, finally, would refer to participatory decision-making processes on one level of governance, e.g. local policy-making or administrative permitting procedures. 9 The term ‘multi-layer implementation’ (rather than ‘multi-level’) was chosen by Hill and Hupe in order not to confound ‘layers’ of government with ‘levels’ of constitutional, collective and operational choice in the sense of Kiser and Ostrom 1982). 2 15