Conceptualisations of Territorial Cohesion in Central European border regions

ABSTRACT

Despite decades of spending, Cohesion Policy appears unable to fully address growing national disparities and increasing ‘roll-out’ nationalism. In the present study we discuss regional effects of ‘fuzzy’ policy concepts, such as EU’s policy for Territorial Cohesion, in Central European borderlands from a stakeholder perspective. Identifying how key policy documents have framed the discussion of Territorial Cohesion, we furthermore demonstrate the differing ways regional stakeholders have interpreted this vision. By showing how multiple translations have produced dynamics that create a circular process, we conclude that this process leads towards non-comparable outcomes, increased misunderstanding, while fuelling EU scepticism.

KEYWORDS:

• European Territorial Cohesion
• INTERREG cross-border cooperation
• policy Transfer
• regional dynamics
• Central Europe

Acknowledgments

We thank the research participants for their time, their insights and their overall confidence to support this research. Furthermore, we want to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments.

Demeterova and Goodwin-Hawkins wish to acknowledge the RSA, AESOP, ERSA and the European Committee of the Regions for funding and facilitating their participation in the 2018 European Week of Regions and Cities, where an early version of this article was presented. This article should not be taken to represent the opinion of any of the bodies acknowledged above.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Availability of data

The interview data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author ([email protected]). The data are not publicly available due to GDPR restrictions.

Notes

1 For further information regarding the evolution of INTERREG initiatives see https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/cs/policy/cooperation/european-territorial/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Horizon 2020 Framework Programme [grant number 726950]; Department of Social Affairs of the Federal State of Lower Austria.