"Europeanization and Britain: Towards Multi-Level Governance?"

[From the Introduction]. This paper explores the relationship between Europeanization and multi-level governance. In particular, it assesses the extent to which Europeanization has promoted multi-level governance within Britain. In doing so, the paper draws on contributions to a UACES study group and ESRC seminar series on The Europeanization of British Politics and Policy-Making. This project focuses on Europeanization in relation to the dimensions of polity, politics and policy and addresses a range of questions relating to the domestic effects of EU membership (Bache and Jordan, forthcoming). However, this paper focuses on the specific issue of multi-level governance and draws on just three of the contributions to the project, in addition to the author’s own research and other materials. In each of these cases, the domestic effect of EU cohesion policy is prominent... The paper proceeds in the following way. The next two sections, on Europeanization and multi-level governance, set the conceptual context. The fourth section briefly outlines EU cohesion policy, which is a key aspect of the case studies. The fifth section considers the findings on this topic from the study group discussed above, along with other research. The paper concludes by reflecting on the Europeanization effects on multi-level governance in Britain.