The General Track on Multilevel Governance invites contributions that examine how authority, coordination, and democratic legitimacy are being reconfigured across local, regional, national, and supranational arenas in an increasingly uncertain global context. In line with the theme of the 29th IPSA World Congress, Uncertain Democracies: Rethinking Governance in a Changing Global System, the track explores how democratic institutions and different types of governance arrangements respond to mounting pressures generated by political polarization, territorial inequalities, climate change, geopolitical realignments, digital transformations, migration, and overlapping crises.
The track welcomes theoretical, comparative, and empirical research addressing the institutions, actors, and processes shaping governance across levels/scales under conditions of uncertainty and democratic strain. Themes may include intergovernmental relations, decentralization and recentralization, metropolitan and regional governance, fiscal federalism, policy coordination and integration, democratic innovation, crisis governance, public participation, environmental and climate governance, and the role of international organizations and transnational networks. Contributions examining governance asymmetries, informal arrangements, contested authority, and tensions between democracy, efficiency, and territorial representation are particularly encouraged.
We invite qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and interdisciplinary approaches from diverse regional perspectives, especially research that advances conceptual innovation and promotes dialogue between Global North and Global South experiences.
