This panel integrates collaboration with COST Action CA20123 Intergovernmental Coordination from Local to European Governance-Working Group 3
.
The effectiveness and legitimacy of democratic governance in modern States depend crucially on their coordination ability. There is still a serious lack of knowledge among scholars and practitioners on how to organize and process intergovernmental coordination in those various instances. Coordination, vital for organizational efficacy, involves aligning efforts toward common goals. Despite challenges, it's crucial for governance and successful development initiatives (Bouckaert et al., 2010; Trein et al., 2021). Public administration scholars emphasize its significance (see in Bouckaert, Peters, & Verhoest, 2022). Effective coordination necessitates synchronizing policy formulation and action within public financial management frameworks. National development strategies must ensure policy coherence by aligning with financial management frameworks. Proper coordination among public organizations at the national level enhances efficiency and facilitates successful implementation of development policies and programs, fostering progress and sustainable governance. Achieving coordination between executive actors of territorial units is one of the major challenges of today's politics (Begum, & Momen, 2019; Peters, 2018). External effects and thus the interdependence of political actions beyond borders of sovereign authority have increased dramatically, necessitating better coordination of decision-making and actions across territorial units as well as across levels of government in an increasingly complex environment (Peters, 2015). Marume and Jaricha (2016) present coordination as the synchronization of efforts, but conceptualize it from both positive and negative perspectives. On a positive note, it means bringing about cooperation and teamwork among the persons and units of an organization. But in negative terms, it means removing conflicts, values, inconsistencies, overlapping, and working at cross-purposes among persons or units of an organization. Hence, the above conceptualization with respect to coordination makes it clear that coordination is much more than cooperation of one person with another or others toward a common goal (Marume and Jaricha, 2016).

This panel aims to delve into the intricate dynamics surrounding policy coordination, exploring its implications for effective democratic governance. By scrutinizing both failures and advantages, we seek to unravel key insights into optimizing policy coordination mechanisms within democratic frameworks.