The National: Comparing Subnational Policies in a Multilevel Environment

Taking into account several policy levels has methodological implications for comparative frameworks that are barely dealt with in the literature. We argue that studies comparing subnational policies have to address the impact of national characteristics. The central issue of this paper can be summarized by the following question: How do we identify influences of the national framework when comparing subnational policies? We first present two main approaches that combine subnational and national levels in comparative frameworks. The first is characterized by the domination of the national level. Subnational cases are used to grasp implementation issues or to refine national patterns. In the second case, mainly inspired by urban governance literature, the characterization of the subnational entities prevails. Taking into account these two ways of comparing subnational policies, we then present a third way to combine these perspectives through the observation of actors evolving in a multilevel environment.