Policymakers frequently seek scientific expert advice to navigate new and complex policy challenges, but the decisions that must be taken to address these problems often require the cooperation of different levels of government as well as state and non-state actors. While existing literature has acknowledged that the political context influences the processes of scientific policy advice, it lacks the formulation of specific expectations or mechanisms on how such multilevel structures affect scientific policy advice. This article explores the key challenges that scientific policy advice faces in multilevel settings and specifies how multilevel structures can both support and hinder effective problem-solving. The study highlights that while the inclusion of diverse governance levels can enrich policy debates with scientific evidence, it can also lead to fragmented advisory structures that question the hierarchy of scientific evidence and hinder science-policy transfer processes. We underpin this argument with empirical evidence from COVID-19 crisis management in Germany, a country that is exemplary for multilevel governance structures both within its domestic context (federalism) and beyond (as a member of the European Union). The findings underscore the challenges for scientific policy advice in contexts that span across multiple scales.

中文翻译：

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多级治理下的政策咨询系统质量：德国 COVID-19 经验


政策制定者经常寻求科学专家建议，以应对新的复杂政策挑战，但为解决这些问题而必须做出的决策通常需要各级政府以及国家和非国家行为体的合作。虽然现有文献已经承认政治环境会影响科学政策建议的过程，但它缺乏关于这种多层次结构如何影响科学政策建议的具体期望或机制的制定。本文探讨了科学政策建议在多层次环境中面临的主要挑战，并阐明了多层次结构如何支持和阻碍有效的问题解决。该研究强调，虽然纳入不同的治理级别可以用科学证据丰富政策辩论，但它也可能导致碎片化的咨询结构，从而质疑科学证据的层次结构并阻碍科学政策转移过程。我们用德国 COVID-19 危机管理的经验证据来支持这一论点，德国是一个在其国内（联邦制）和外部（作为欧盟成员国）多层次治理结构的典范。研究结果强调了在跨越多个尺度的背景下科学政策建议面临的挑战。