A Preliminary Critique of the Best and Good Practices Approach in European Spatial Planning and Policy-making

Abstract

“Good practices” are found everywhere, particularly in European policies. They are usually taken for granted as familiar events in daily life. For actors involved in policy-making, it seems quite natural to produce, disseminate and use repertoires of good practices. This article discusses this phenomenon, arguing that “good practices” are one of the main tools in Europeanization processes, particularly for the European idea of “good governance”. Analyses of the Interact, Interreg and Urbact programmes of production of good practice repertoires lead to an examination of a number of characteristics of “good practice”: as a kind of regulation through sense-making processes, as a standardization tool in order to compare and measure performances in different situations, as an object of self-reflection and constitution of communities of practices, as a strategic representation and as an advocacy device.

Acknowledgments

This article is partially based on a report produced for the Cultplan research project, funded by the European Programme Interact. Thanks are due particularly to Pier Luigi Crosta, Roel During, Francesca Gelli, Joerg Knieling, Frank Othengrafen and Rosalie van Dam for discussions and suggestions.

Notes

For a discussion of the genesis and meanings of the policy instruments, consistent with my account, see Lascoumes and Le Galès (2004).

See the website http://www.s3-interreg.net/allegati/synoptic_and_comparison_data.pdf (accessed December 2008) for a description and manual of good practices. The partnership included public authorities located in Objectives 1 and 2 (Business Innovation Centre, Greece; South Yorkshire, UK; Campania, Latium and Emilia-Romagna Regions, Italy; Madrid, Spain), regional development agencies (from Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Hungary and Lithuania). Lead partner was the Emilia-Romagna Region.

S3 has been selected as one of the case studies in the Cultplan Research Team (2007a, 2007b).

See the website: http://europa.eu.int/comm/leaderplus.

For materials about projects and best practices, see the website http://www.urbact.eu/projects/medint.

See materials included in the website quoted.

See Cultplan Research Team (2007a, 2007b) for Interreg projects and Vettoretto (2006) for those of Leader II.