Europeanization and EU funding in Italy and England. A comparative local perspective

Abstract

An increasing amount of attention has been devoted to understanding the process of Europeanization, although little has been done to identify its implications for local government. Since local government organizations have been increasingly involved in EU funding, this provides an interesting setting for an analysis of Europeanization. This article describes the EU funding process in a series of ten in-depth case studies of European local governments (five in England and five in Italy). It identifies changes within local government, which emerge from the EU funding competition. It then shows how the above changes represent part of a phenomenon of Europeanization. The main research proposition derived from the inductive empirical research is that the EU funding process is a driving force of Europeanization. The study contributes to the Europeanization literature by focusing on the local government level. It also provides some understanding of Italian local government, which represents an under-researched subject.

Keywords:

• EU funds
• Europeanization
• Italy
• local government
• Structural Funds