Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning Vol. 5, No. 3, September 2003, 235–254 Environmental Governance and Transnational Municipal Networks in Europe HARRIET BULKELEY, ANNA DAVIES, BOB EVANS, DAVID GIBBS, KRISTINE KERN & KATE THEOBALD ABSTRACT The nature of environmental governance within Europe is increasingly considered to be multilevel – involving actors and institutions at local, national and international levels, and from public, private and civil society spheres. One interesting feature of the development of multilevel governance is the emergence of transnational municipal networks (TMNs). This article examines why and how TMNs have emerged in the arena of European environmental governance, and the ways in which they can be conceptualised. Some specific examples of TMNs concerned with urban sustainable development are examined in order to explore the structure and capacity of networks, the development of new forms of governance within such networks, and the nature of co-operation and competition between governments and networks. From these preliminary analyses, three key themes relating to the role of such networks in environmental governance emerge: the impact of networks on policy making; their influence in multilevel governance; and issues of representation and legitimacy. In the final section, issues for future research are considered. Introduction The analysis of environmental governance, where governance is “the sum of ways that individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their affairs” (O’Brien et al., 2000, p. 2), has traditionally focused on the development and implementation of policy at discrete levels—the international, national and local (Adger et al., 2003). However, it is increasingly clear that, in Europe, environmental governance includes complex rela- tionships between different tiers of government—local, regional, national and supra- national—and public, private and civic spheres of governance. This conceptualisation of governance, which is frequently termed ‘multilevel’, suggests that no one tier or sphere is necessarily dominant in any particular case, and the ensuing policy outcomes will be a result of the processes which occur within and between arenas of governance. This article argues that the emergence of multilevel governance in Europe demands that Corresponding author: Harriet Bulkeley, Department of Geography, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK. Email: H.A.Bulkeley@durham.ac.uk 1464-9357 Print/1470-000X Online/03/030235-20  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1523908032000154179