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How can one not applaud the renewed better regulation agenda launched by the First Vice President Timmermans? Finally this fuzzy reform field is in the hands of a strong executive politician with the authority to make substantial progress on an agenda that always appeared good on paper, but somehow did not deliver against the expectations it defined for itself. 'Better regulation for better results' not only promises tangible results, but it combines this with the ambition of 'changing how we work at the European level'. This ambition should provide us – as citizens, stakeholders and scholars – with an opportunity to essentially present a scorecard concerning these results in the near future. And, indeed, experts and other stakeholders in the better regulation game do welcome the initiative.My view on this agenda is that the promise of 'better results' will be hard to deliver, whereas the ambition of 'changing how we work' is more likely to materialize in one way or another.

The article describes policy analysis as regards complex policy making processes in multi-level governance systems & how the principal-agent model typifies governance problems between federal & canton levels. The limit on federal intrusion on the cantons is known as principal-agent problem, & it assumes that every agent tries to use information from the principal to their own advantage. However, the cantons do not only carry out policy recommendations from the federal level but also play a role in governance by initiating public policy. Even though the question of how the existence of different principals impacts the behavior of the executive branch on cantonal level is relevant, it is not an essential factor in the policy formulations of the cantons. In addition, empirical analysis has shown that federal policy initiatives occasionally have unintended results, as described concerning health policy. Thus, the lacking analysis of such unintended consequences, as well as the emphasis on problems of control in the principal-agent model, does not result in such an analytical advantage as to justify neglecting alternative theoretical approaches in multi-level governance, the author contends. 11 References. A. Kallioinen

AbstractAlthough scholarly interest in populism has increased as populist parties have risen across Europe, the subnational level has been largely overlooked. This article adopts an original subnational focus and explores an unlikely but increasingly prevalent political agenda: the combination of technocracy and populism. We focus on technocratic populism as a political and governance strategy at the municipal level and assess how the interaction of populism and technocracy plays out empirically in relation to administration and public policies and how the tensions and synergies between technocracy and populism are solved at the local level. The article argues that the local level is especially prone to this kind of intersection between technocratic and populist ideology. While the article is mainly an exercise in concept development, two illustrative cases at the city level, namely the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S, Five Star Movement) in Rome and the Akce nespokojených občanů (ANO, Action of Dissatisfied Citizens) in Prague are used to support the argument.