Rethinking Federalism: Network Governance, Multi-Level Governance and Australian Politics

There has been an explosion of interest in governance and multi-level governance (MLG) over the past 20 years. The literature on governance has drawn attention to the use of networked, collaborative and partnership-based approaches, whilst the concept of MLG has combined these concerns with a related set of questions about scale, including the dispersal of decision-making authority from the local to the global level. This combination of state transformation at both the vertical and horizontal levels has proven to be particularly successful at capturing the imagination of scholars both within and beyond the European Union (EU). At the same time, the literature on Australian federalism and intergovernmental relations has shown relatively little interest in directly engaging with the concept of MLG and associated debates.