Opening the black box of metagovernance: The roles of central government in local multilevel networks – the case of the local job centers in Flanders

In this article, we use the concept of metagovernance to explore how local service delivery networks involving public and private partners are shaped and managed by different governments involved. We address the following questions: What is the governance mix in cases of centrally designed local networks, with different public authorities involved in the network and focused on coordinated service delivery? How does that governance mix match the concept of metagovernance as we know it? What does this complexity of relationships and governing styles tell us about the self-governing capacity of local service delivery networks? We bring in the case of the local job centers in Flanders to deal with these questions empirically. We demonstrate the governance instrument mix used by the metagovernors, how dominant one public actor actually is in the network, and the effect thereof on the network dynamics. We also conclude that we need to rethink the concept of metagovernance when analyzing local multilevel networks.