This issue presents analyses of the emergence of
multi-level governance and other types of changes in intergovernmental relationshops in five
different institutional contexts. Martin Painter’s article on intergovernmental relationships in
Australia is based on two different models of such
relationships. One is the traditional model of institutional
relationships in a federal system,
whereas the other is based in what Painter calls “the imperatives of concurrent competencies” (p
139). This model, which comes close to a textbook
case of multi-level governance, features
collaborative exchanges and joint decision making
between institutions at different levels of the
political system. Painter argues that this type of
intergovernmental relationship will play a more prominent role in the future as a result of what
appears to be an increasing degree of institutional
overlap in terms of competencies and of growing
political, economic and administrative
interdependencies.