New Governance Arrangements and the Nation State: The Reconfiguration of Public Authority in Developing Countries

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Much of the literature on global policy-making is currently concerned with the evolving patterns of authority in world politics. This is particularly evident in international climate policy where a number of scholars have highlighted the gradual loss of authority by national governments with the emergence of new 'spheres of authority' dominated by other players. Due to the existence of a regulatory gap in this policy area, a number of new 'governance arrangements' operate simultaneously at different levels - some top-down, others bottom-up - in their efforts to address the problem of climate change. Yet, despite several broader descriptions and mapping exercises, and the repeated claim that such arrangements have led to new roles and transformed public authority, we have little systematic knowledge about their workings, let alone their impact on the political-administrative systems. Given these shortcomings, this research project sets out to explore how (and how far) different types of globally operating governance arrangements have led to changes in the distribution of authority within national governments and their public administration. We will focus on two stylized arrangements: one that operates bottom-up (i.e. Transnational City Networks, TCNs) and another that operates top-down (i.e. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, REDD+). The primary objective of this research project is to analyze whether newly emerging climate governance arrangements lead to a reconfiguration of public authority across different levels of political and administrative decision-making within participating nation states, and what the consequences are in terms of actual policy-making.