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06/13/2024 - 06/14/2024 | Darmstadt

Vertical & Horizontal Coordination: Tools, Mechanisms and Barriers to Solving Complex Policy Issue

TU Darmstadt is host of the second COST Action IGCOORD conference. The conference brings together established and early-career scholars, experts and practitioners to examine opportunities and potential pitfalls of various forms of coordination, their normative basis and empirical operation, and questions of their effectiveness in providing solutions to complex policy issues. This includes forms of vertical and horizontal coordination.

The second IGCOORD Conference "Vertical and Horizontal Coordination: Tools, Mechanisms and Barriers to Solving Complex Policy Issues" is organized by COST Action 20123 - Intergovernmental Coordination from Local to European Governance (IGCOORD).

Many challenges in public policy today are multi-level in nature. From climate change and
disaster management, migration and integration, to transport networks, agriculture, food
security and public health, the policy responsibilities and policy levers lie with a complex
network of governing institutions. In many cases, although each government may have their
own responsibilities and mandate, policy challenges can be met effectively only by
coordinating executive and legislative action between governments. Understanding the
challenges, opportunities and dynamics of intergovernmental coordination is thus crucial to
understanding policy making and public problem solving.
Coordination can be horizontal, among governments of the same level (between regional or
municipal governments). Or it can be vertical, between the European/ central/ federal
government and different constituent units – territories, regions, or municipalities.
Coordination may be bilateral, between two governments, or multilateral, between several
or even all governing administrations. Intergovernmental coordination is not limited to
governments or actors within the same country. Empirically, we find examples of cross-border coordination between local or regional governments to manage issues affecting people on either side of the border, or city networks within or across countries.
Intergovernmental coordination may be not only beneficial, but even essential, to solving
complex policy issues and so called "wicked problems". These often reach beyond the
constitutional allocation of powers across governmental tiers, with decisions taken by one
government having direct consequences for others. By involving various stakeholders with
their respective information and perspectives, coordination is generally expected to result in
better solutions and to generate greater legitimacy than decisions made by individual
governments in isolation.to Conversely, increasing the number of governments involved in
policy development makes decision-making more time-consuming, cumbersome, and
increases the risk of tension, conflict, and stalemate. Lines of accountability may become
blurred, providing incentives for governments to engage in strategies of blame-shifting
whenever a negotiation outcome it not fully in line with their own agenda or promises to their
voters.
It is the aim of this conference to discuss the variety of issues of intergovernmental
coordination from a multiplicity of perspectives, to unpack the intricacies of coordination in
theory and practice in order to enable mutual learning by understanding the mechanisms
behind successful examples.

Panel topics:
• Navigating Albania’s democratic landscape: insights into electoral dynamics, political dichotomy, local governance, and transparency
• Local autonomy and administrative capacity
• Intergovernmental meetings and central government policy-making
• Legal regulation of multilevel policies
• Intra- and inter-municipal coordination
• Patterns and strategies of intergovernmental lobbying
• Territorial politics
• Crisis management and resilience
• Politics in vertical relations
• Governance coordination in cross-border cooperation: organization and challenges
• Blame attribution strategies in multilevel systems
• The Bundesrat as a model for shared rule?

Plenary lecture: Sean Mueller (Université de Lausanne): Shared rule in federal theory and practice. Concept, causes, consequences

Information on participating / attending:

Date:

06/13/2024 08:30 - 06/14/2024 12:30

Event venue:

TU Darmstadt
S3|13
Residenzschloss 1
64283 Darmstadt
Hessen
Germany

Target group:

Journalists, Scientists and scholars

Relevance:

transregional, national

Subject areas:

Politics, Social studies

Types of events:

Conference / symposium / (annual) conference

Entry:

05/29/2024

Sender/author:

Silke Paradowski

Department:

Science Communication Centre - Abteilung Kommunikation

Event is free:

no

Language of the text:

German

URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event77067


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