SPECIAL ISSUE: PUBLIC AUTHORITY & INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS Cross-cutting Analyses International Composite Administration: Conceptualiz- ing Multi-Level and Network Aspects in the Exercise of International Public Authority By Armin von Bogdandy & Philipp Dann ! A. Introduction The administration of the traditional nation-state used to operate as a rather closed system to the outside world. Today, cooperation between the public authorities of different States and between States and international bodies is a common pheno- menon. Yet the characteristics and mechanics of such cooperation can hardly be understood using the concepts domestic public law or public international law currently on offer. Conventional concepts, such as federalism, confederalism or State-centered "realism" hardly fathom the complexity of interactions or reflect the changed role of the State, while more recent concepts, such as multi-level systems or networks, seem to encompass only parts of the phenomena at hand. Given this void, we propose to explore the notion of "composite administration" (Verbundver- waltung) and argue that it offers a concept which can combine more coherently the seemingly diverging legal elements of cooperation and hierarchy that distinguish administrative action in what often is called a multi-level administrative system. 1 Even though the concept of composite administration was originally designed 2 and further developed 3 with respect to the largely federal European administrative ! We are grateful to Ute Mager, Christoph Möllers and Eric Pickett, as well as the members of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and Public International Law participating in this project for their critical and helpful comments on an earlier version. Email: bogdandy@mpil.de; pdann@mpil.de. 1 Eberhard Schmidt-Aßmann, Der Europäische Verwaltungsverbund und die Rolle des Europäischen Verwaltungsrechts, in DER EUROPÄISCHE VERWALTUNGSVERBUND 7 (Eberhard Schmidt-Aßmann & Bettina Schöndorf-Haubold eds., 2005). For a similar approach, see GIACINTO DELLA CANANEA, L'UNIONE EUROPEA. UN ORDINAMENTO COMPOSITO 6, 146 (2003). 2 ARMIN VON BOGDANDY, SUPRANATIONALER FÖDERALISMUS ALS WIRKLICHKEIT UND IDEE EINER NEUEN HERRSCHAFTSFORM 11 (1999); Sabino Cassese, Der Einfluß des gemeinschaftsrechtlichen Verwaltungsrechts auf die nationalen Verwaltungsrechtssysteme, 33 DER STAAT 25 (1994). 3 Gabriele Britz, Vom Verwaltungsverbund zum Regulierungsverbund?, 41 EUROPARECHT 47 (2006); Jens- Peter Schneider, Verwaltungsrechtliche Instrumente des Sozialstaats, 64 VERÖFFENTLICHUNG DER