Conference Agenda

Multi-level governance (MLG) is seen as a mean to empower regional and local level communities (Kull & Tatar, 2015; Marks & Hooghe 2004). According with theoretical discussion on multi-level governance the flexibility of the scale of governance influence how well public administration can take account to variability of external challenges even from global to the local level, enable to consider different preferences of citizens and promote their commitment to chosen policies. (Marks & Hooghe 2004). In Europe, multi-level governance is a common model for public administration, but it is new to Finland. A major reform changed the situation in 2023, when responsibility for social-, healthcare, and emergency services shifted from over 300 municipalities to 21 newly established wellbeing services counties (WSCs)

A key issue in multi-level governance is how inter-governmental relations (IGR) between the state and subnational levels of government are defined, what makes them tense or cooperative. Moreover,IGR are largely determined by variations in the functions and tasks with subnational governments undertake, by the discretion which they have in performing the functions and by degree of access or influence which they had with (central) government (Goldsmiths & Page, 2010). Thus, IGRs consist of the connections that bind more or less independent administrative units together and involve interactions that shape political and financial power relations, administrative control and decision-making (Agranoff, 2004). The quality of these relations is influenced by several determinants, and coordination of activities between different levels is a key prerequisite for success highlighted in the multi-level management literature (for example, Briassoulis (2005; Howlett, Vince and del Rio 2017; Hijino 2017).

Finland's recent reform offers a valuable laboratory for examining the challenges and operating conditions of multi-level governance. The early phase of the reform has been marked by conflicts and mistrust, and based on the experiences so far, it can be argued that multi-level governance has failed (Paananen et al., 2024). We specifically ask: what are the key determinants in intergovernmental relations that explain this outcome? What kind of key determinants on intergovernmental relations have emerged in the relationship between wellbeing services counties and municipalities? As a conclusion, we offer refinements to existing theories on the conditions for successful multi-level governance, particularly those proposed by Agranoff (2004) Briassoulis (2005), Hijino (2017), and Howlett, Vince, and del Rio (2017).

Multifaceted empirical research data consists of 1) semi-structured interviews of the CEOs of the well-being services counties (spring 2023 n=17, follow up interviews spring 2025, n=11) and 2) national survey on municipal CEOs (winter 2023-2024, n=77, 25 %), and 3) semi-structured interviews of leading municipal politicians (n=13) in fall 2024. The data is being analysed with qualitative thematic analysis. This study contributes to discussion on how subnational governmental levels navigate in shifting arrangements public administration and further reproduce new kinds of intergovernmental relations. This kind of approach makes the comparability of different governance systems more tangible and enables interesting discussions within the study group.

This paper investigates the complex dynamics between central control and local autonomy within Scottish Health and Social Care Integration (H&SCI), employing collaborative and multi-level governance frameworks to conceptualise these intergovernmental tensions. Using a qualitative, case-study approach with empirical evidence from 21 semi-structured interviews with local political leaders (councillors) and senior officials (health administrators and chief officers), alongside detailed content analysis of policy documents across eleven Integration Joint Boards (IJBs), the research critically explores how local leaders navigate tensions arising from central oversight, financial austerity, partisan politics, and diverse community needs.

Findings reveal significant strategic variation in local political leaders' responses to centralised mandates, demonstrating both resistance and adaptive capacities. Rather than simple compliance or defiance, leaders employ nuanced collaborative, situational, and transformational leadership approaches to balance competing pressures, mediate administrative-political tensions, and maintain local innovation despite rigid central guidelines. The research identifies distinct patterns of negotiated autonomy where leaders strategically leverage local knowledge and political legitimacy to modify centralised performance expectations whilst maintaining formal compliance structures.

The study illuminates critical contextual factors influencing these governance practices, notably the quality of political-administrative relationships, resource constraints, geographical differentiation, workforce expectations, and partisan divisions. Empirical evidence demonstrates that successful navigation of central-local tensions depends on leaders' context-aware capacities—particularly strategic negotiation, coalition-building, and boundary-spanning skills—which significantly affect service integration outcomes and public value creation.

This paper advances theoretical understanding of intergovernmental relations by providing empirically-grounded insights into the mechanisms through which local adaptive capacity operates within centralised policy frameworks. It challenges dominant top-down governance narratives by demonstrating how effective collaborative governance emerges through negotiated interactions rather than structural design alone. These findings carry critical implications for policy architecture in the devolved UK context, suggesting that successful multi-level governance requires institutional designs that explicitly recognise localised autonomy as essential for policy effectiveness, legitimacy, and democratic accountability in complex service integration initiatives.

Nowadays, it is often said that grand societal challenges have no clear boundaries. In contrast, the state does. More precisely, in the Weberian bureaucratic model, which modern Western states are built upon, boundaries are a central pillar. These boundaries take the form of hierarchies, specialization, and division, with clear mechanisms for accountability and delegation. In this context, cross-sectoral policies have always been—and, we argue, still are—an institutional anomaly in organizing ‘the doing’ of politics.

Against this backdrop, the integration of policies aimed at broad goals – such as public health improvement, rural development, and greenhouse gas reduction – is associated with major bureaucratic challenges. In decentralized welfare states, these policies must be implemented at all levels of government, particularly at the subnational level. Additionally, horizontal integration across various traditional welfare policy areas—governed and implemented at all levels of government—is essential. Within this context of vertical and horizontal integration, professionals working in cross-sectoral policy areas often struggle with their own identity and professionalism in relation to established welfare professions.

The aim of this paper is to enhance the understanding of the challenges and complexities of policy integration in decentralized welfare states. The paper synthesizes theoretical knowledge and provides empirical illustrations of governance problems in principle. Furthermore, we explain both how policy integration challenges can be distinguished and how they interact. The conceptual framework presented in the paper is structured around three dimensions: 1) the institutionalization of multi-level integration (the vertical dimension), 2) the institutionalization of cross-sectoral integration (the horizontal dimension), 3) the professionalization of responsible administrators (what we call the agency dimension). The framework is tested on applied in three major cross-sectoral policy challenges: public health, rural development, and greenhouse gas reduction.

By synthesizing knowledge about the different dimensions, the paper provides both a theoretical understanding and an empirical approach to troubleshooting policy integration problems in political systems characterized by independent welfare sectors and significant local self-government.

Inter-municipal cooperation, known informally as "shared services," involves two or more local governments producing one or more public service jointly across their separate jurisdictions (Bel et al., 2023; Hulst & van Montfort; Teles & Swianiewicz, 2018). In effect, inter-municipal cooperation (or IMC) involves partial horizontal or vertical amalgamation of local governments, so that only specific departments responsible for particular public services are merged, leaving other services independent and unaffected in each council. This reform is common in continental Europe and the Americas, but only recently (over the last 15-20 years) began to be used in the UK (Kelly, 2007; Dixon & Elston, 2020; Elston et al., 2023).

We report findings from an impact evaluation of IMC, using micro-level planning-application data and a spatial regression discontinuity design to test whether collaboration between English councils improves productivity in regulatory services. Delays in the determination of planning applications by local governments have grown markedly over the last decade, contributing to housing undersupply and slower economic growth. Central government, the Royal Town Planning Institute, and others have recommended that productivity may be improved by merging planning teams from neighbouring councils in order to provide one, "shared" planning service across multiple jurisdictions – capturing scale economies and improving regional coordination.

We test this hypothesis for 38 local governments that began to collaborate between 2007 and 2022. We scraped 19.43 million planning applications from council websites, and used this dataset to measure a series of attributes, including decision result, decision time, target decision time, application type, location, etc. We then used boundary regression discontinuity design (RDD) and difference-in-discontinuities to test the effect of IMC on the speed of planning determinations.

Contrary to the reform intent, our results show that introducing shared services significantly increases planning-application delays—particularly for minor applications for 10 dwellings or less—and that these extended processing times are not simply driven by strategic deadline-setting by councils. Instead, the data suggest a negative structural impact on their day-to-day workflows arising from the switch to collaborative services / IMC.

In conclusion, we theorise why IMC appears to be less suited to the English local government context than appears to be the case in other countries.