Mixing multi-level and network governance : how do local actors relate to the policies, steering mechanisms and resources of higher-level actors?

Welfare state research has focused on national welfare reforms, national social policies and national income protection schemes as its main object of study for a long time. Much current reasoning, however, indicate that national welfare states are both under pressure ‘from above’ as well as ‘from below’. Current research stress that welfare states have been circumscribed by new international regulations stemming from the EU and other international organizations. Economic globalization, the construction of an internal market within the EU and labour market mobility across borders have made it more difficult for welfare states and national governments to make autonomous decisions and retain capacity to enforce decisions taken. Whereas these investigations address the dynamic relations between national and supra-national levels, other acclaim that sub-national levels have become an even more important level for welfare policy regulation. Issues of decentralization, re-scaling and localism are on the agenda and some authors have even acclaimed that what we are witnessing is a new trend in welfare state developments in terms of a push towards ‘austerity localism’. However, local welfare systems are not a reflection of central regulation and implementation of national reform processes. Local welfare systems – their elements and actors – are embedded in wider vertical and horizontal relationships which influence how these systems function, what they deliver and for whom. This chapter seeks to contribute to these academic debates by addressing a topic that recently has not been analyzed to any greater extent. We explore a bottom-up approach to governance and steering issues and hence seek to avoid identifying local level actors as bound by the decisions taken at higher political and administrative levels. We compare the design and orientation of local strategies to combat poverty and social exclusion in five European welfare states (ITA, UK, SWE, POL and GER) and in five larger cities and how local actors (public and non-public) in practice react and/or adjust to policies, steering mechanisms and resources seen as stemming from higher-level actors and structures. The chapter is guided by three research questions: First, we seek to identify the type of strategies (compliance, avoidance or confrontation) that local actors explore in relation to national regulation within the areas of poverty and social exclusion policies. Second, the chapter also aims to analyze whether these strategies imply a greater involvement of non-public actors in order to find new/additional resources and the emergence of a new multi-stakeholder model of governance. Third, of particular interest is also to analyze whether local actors perceive the EU as a (direct or indirect) source of policies, steering mechanisms and resources of relevance for combating poverty and exclusion in the local context. If local actors see the EU as having this role, the chapter will discuss how they seek to use the resources offered and cope with policies they disagree with or the steering mechanisms they would like to evade, with reference to the analytical framework.