From a descriptive to a prescriptive notion of Multilevel Governance

Abstract

The paper aims to reconstruct the evolution of the notion of multilevel governance, which, born as a descriptive formula, seems to have later become a legal principle, investigating the causes of such transformation. More specifically, after tracing the evolution of the concept in the field of political science, the study focuses on the strictly legal aspects of multilevel governance, by analysing the progressive inclusion of this expression at first in the political debate, and afterwards in the legislative acts of the European Union