Call for Papers: The Governor’s Dilemma: Law, Courts, and Rules

Much modern governance, and particularly the governance of the EU, involves the sharing of authority between governors and intermediaries in a complex web of interactions. Governors often cannot fulfil their tasks and so enlist intermediaries for aid, i.e. because intermediaries are better resourced, have better knowledge, or have greater legitimacy. The first element of the governor's dilemma is therefore the drive for capacity. The second is the drive for control. Governing through intermediaries involves a trade-off in the sense that overly strict control of the intermediary risks endangering the very capacities they carry; yet overly loose control risks deviation from the governor’s own priorities. Governing in multi-level systems thus involves what international relations theory calls the governor’s dilemma. We need intermediaries to achieve our goals yet this very need makes intermediaries difficult to effectively control (or even requires the governor to share power with the intermediary).

The starting point for this special issue is that the governor’s dilemma is of significant relevance for understanding the relation between national and EU law. EU law is also driven by capacity concerns – both the EU institutions and the Member States rely on each other to deliver capacities they cannot achieve on their own. They also, however, seek to control each other, creating trade-offs between capacity and control. EU law may therefore empower national Courts to apply EU rules but must strike a balance between empowerment and emasculation of those very Courts; Treaty rules may empower the Commission to adopt delegated and implementing acts but with controls that risk the effectiveness of delegation; the Member States may hand-over law enforcement capacities to new EU agencies but risk those agencies drifting from their mandates, and so on. In simple terms, EU law lives in the world of the governor’s dilemma.

The aim of this call for papers is to bring together contributions that consider how courts, and other institutions tasked with enforcing, using and interpreting rules, deal with the trade-offs the governor’s dilemma implies. We are interested in what is special or unique about legal rules and institutions, producing different trade-offs between capacity and control. We welcome contributions that explore these questions through three broad perspectives: 

• Theoretical
• Empirical/ doctrinal
• Normative

Workshop: Authors of selected papers will be invited to present their work in progress at the Hertie School on 12–13 November 2026. The aim of the workshop is to further develop papers for a special issue devoted to the Governor's Dilemma. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by the organisers.

Important Dates 

• Abstract submission deadline: 1 August2026 
• Notification of acceptance: week of 15 August 2026 
• Workshop: 12-13 November 2026 
• Final papers: to be submitted Spring 2027

Contact 

The workshop is part of the project ‘Reconfiguring Europe’, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). For further information, please contact Dr Ana Bobić ([email protected]) and Professor Mark Dawson ([email protected]).

Please find futher details in the document linked below.

^{Photo: CC Mel Poole, Source: Unsplash}