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Abstract
Polverari L. Does devolution increase accountability? Empirical evidence from the implementation of European Union Cohesion Policy, Regional Studies. The period from the late 1990s to the early 2000s witnessed trends of decentralization, deconcentration or devolution of competencies from the national to the sub-national levels in a variety of countries. Implicit or explicit in many of the discussions about devolution is the assumption that by bringing the design and delivery of policy ‘closer to the people', it increases accountability. The main proposition of this paper is to test this common assumption. Focusing, as a test case, on the implementation of European Union Cohesion Policy in two meso-level territorial units with recent experience of devolution, the paper investigates empirically whether the new, devolved institutional framework within which the policy operates is indeed more conducive to accountability.
Polverari L. 地方分权会增加可问责性吗？欧盟凝聚计画执行的经验证据，区域研究。1990年代晚期至2000早期的阶段，见证了诸多国家从国家转移至次国家层级的去中央化、去集中化，或权责的地方分权化。在诸多有关地方分权的讨论中，直接或间接的预设是，透过让政策设计与传递更“贴近人民” ，将增加可问责性。本文的主要论点，便是对此一普遍的假设进行测试。本文将聚焦欧盟凝聚政策在两个中等层级、并具有晚近地方分权经验的领域单位中的执行情形，作为测试案例，以此在经验上检视政策施行的崭新地方分权制度框架，是否的确更有助于可问责性。
Polverari L. La dévolution, est-ce qu'elle augmente la redevabilité? Des preuves empiriques suite à la mise en oeuvre de la politique de cohésion de l'Union européenne, Regional Studies. La période allant de la fin des années 1990 jusqu'au début des années 2000 a fait témoin des tendances à la décentralisation, à la déconcentration et à la dévolution des compétences du niveau national à l’échelle sousnationale dans divers pays. Beaucoup des débats sur la dévolution laissent supposer implicitement ou explicitement que ‘le rapprochement des citoyens’ de l’élaboration et de la mise en oeuvre des politiques augmente la redevabilité. La proposition principale de cet article est de tester ce préjugé. Portant, comme étude de cas, sur la mise en oeuvre de la politique de cohésion de l'Union européenne dans deux unités territoriales au niveau méso ayant récemment vécu la dévolution, l'article examine d'une manière empirique si, oui ou non, le nouveau cadre institutionnel dévolu, au sein duquel fonctionne la politique, est en effet plus propice à la redevabilité.
Polverari L. Erhöht sich durch Dezentralisierung die Rechenschaftslegung? Empirische Belege von der Umsetzung der europäischen Kohäsionspolitik, Regional Studies. Zwischen dem Ende der neunziger Jahre und den Anfang des neuen Jahrtausends waren in verschiedenen Ländern Trends der Dezentralisierung, Dekonzentration oder Devolution von Zuständigkeiten von der nationalen auf die subnationale Ebene zu beobachten. Vielen Diskussionen über diese Dezentralisierung lag implizit oder explizit die Annahme zugrunde, dass sich durch die Entwicklung und Umsetzung einer Politik, die 'den Bürgern näher' ist, die Rechenschaftslegung erhöht. Mit diesem Beitrag soll in erster Linie diese häufige Annahme überprüft werden. Als Testfall dient die Umsetzung der europäischen Kohäsionspolitik in zwei territorialen Einheiten der mittleren Ebene mit aktuellen Dezentralisierungserfahrungen; im Beitrag wird auf empirische Weise untersucht, ob der neue, dezentralisierte institutionelle Rahmen, in dem die Politik wirksam ist, tatsächlich eine verstärkte Rechenschaftslegung gewährleistet.
Polverari L. ¿Aumenta la responsabilidad con el traspaso de competencias? Evidencia empírica desde la aplicación de la Política de Cohesión de la Unión Europea, Regional Studies. El periodo entre finales de los noventa y principios de los 2000 fue testigo de tendencias de descentralización, desconcentración o traspaso de competencias de los niveles nacionales a los subnacionales en varios países. En muchos de los debates sobre el traspaso de competencias existe la suposición implícita o explícita de que al elaborar y aplicar políticas que están ‘más cerca de las personas’, aumenta la responsabilidad. El principal objetivo de este artículo es comprobar esta suposición frecuente. Examinando, como ejemplo práctico, la aplicación de la Política de Cohesión de la Unión Europea en dos unidades territoriales de nivel medio con experiencias recientes de transferencia de competencias, se analiza empíricamente si es cierto que el nuevo marco institucional transferido en el que funciona la política garantiza más responsabilidad.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank sincerely the four anonymous referees for their constructive and helpful feedback, John Bachtler and David Charles for providing comments on a preliminary version of this paper, and all interviewees for their time and precious insights.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This paper focuses on devolution, defined as the ‘the transfer of power from a superior to an inferior political authority' (Bogdanor, Citation1999, p. 2). Devolution does not equate with traditional federalism because of, among others: the lack of constitutional and fiscal autonomy for the devolved units; the absence of a second chamber of parliament representing them (through which they participate in decisions over federal affairs); and the residual attribution of unlisted competences to central government rather than to devolved units and others (Ventura, Citation2008, pp. 7–26). Devolution is also different from administrative decentralization, which relates to the transfer of competences to units that have no political bodies and associated powers (Loughlin, Citation2000).
2. Scotland and Tuscany were chosen for a number of reasons. Both have recently experienced a transition towards what has been defined as a ‘holding together' type of federalism (Ventura, Citation2008, p. 16, borrowing from Alfred Stepan). Even though the pre-devolution institutional set-ups, administrative traditions and types of devolution reforms introduced in each context differ, these two realities seemed more comparable than alternative combinations of regions from other member states (e.g. Belgium, France or Spain, which have undergone very specific types of territorial reform). In particular, a common feature of Tuscany and Scotland, which justified their selection as case studies, is that they were both amongst the first European recipients of EUCP support, having been beneficiaries of the ERDF since 1985 and 1975 respectively. Both have faced the crucial challenges of industrial reconversion and rural restructuring, which they have tackled with support from EUCP, emerging as cases of European excellence in the management of EUCP funds. They also have had comparable levels of administrative capacity and similar European Union orientation, having been amongst the first meso-level authorities to open representation offices in Brussels.
3. The empirical research undertaken highlighted that the word ‘accountability' is used with varying, not always clear, understandings in both Tuscany and Scotland. Interviewees were asked to provide their own definitions of accountability and answers varied considerably both within and across the two case studies.
4. Whilst an extensive amount of research has been carried out on the accountability in the framework of European Union governance as a whole (Kohler-Koch, Citation2010; Puntscher-Riekmann, Citation2007; Harlow, Citation2002), the accountability of EUCP remains relatively unaddressed. Assessments of accountability within this policy have been mainly indirect, through research on the issues of partnership, inter-institutional relations and additionality, thus neglecting the accountability implications of many of the key processes through which EUCP is delivered (that have fundamental bearings on accountability; an exception is Davies and Polverari, Citation2011). Literature on partnership in the context of EUCP policy is especially rich. However, the focus of this literature has tended to be on the processes for stakeholder involvement and their limitations, the effects of partnership on decision-making and partnership as a vehicle of Europeanization. Accountability has generally not been a main focus.
5. This does not imply that devolution as a process has not been affected by parallel developments in the field of EUCP implementation. However, because the aim of the investigation was to understand the impact of devolution on the accountability of EUCP, devolution was presumed as the independent variable, thus ignoring any possible double-loop effects.
6. This is a hybrid system between parliamentary and presidential, whereby the president of the regional executive is elected directly and has the faculty to choose and recall individual regional ministers, and a no-confidence vote against the president or their resignation/personal impediment determines the fall of the entire executive (Baldi and Baldini, Citation2008, p. 93).
7. Devolved competencies, over which the Scottish Parliament has full or partial primary legislative competence, include: education, training and lifelong learning; economic development and enterprise; tourism; local government and planning; housing; agriculture, fisheries and forestry; environment; transport; health; social work; justice, home affairs and most criminal law; sports and the arts; and related research and statistics (Keating, Citation2010, p. 35).
8. This extract from the interview of a Scottish civil servant is illustrative: ‘The regulations charged the Managing Authorities [ … ] with developing an evaluation plan, and we developed the evaluation plan and informed the Monitoring Committee. If there were ad hoc evaluations, one-off thematic evaluations, then it's perfectly open to Monitoring Committee members to propose and we would reflect on that, but [ … ] kind of in keeping with this idea that we take more control, [ … it is a] Managing Authority responsibility, so we get on with it' (SCO11, emphasis added).
9. Interviews indicated that there might have been a degree of politicization of the partnerships, particularly with regard to one of the PMEs. An interviewee noted that this was ‘not a case of people personally profiting from the resources, but about misuse of resources in order to do things that people wanted to do [ … ] kind of combination of politicisation of the Structural Funds at local level and also the culture, which was “these were the partners' programmes, it's the partners money”. In that period in particular [2000–06], to some degree there was often carve up of resources amongst the partners and what is accounted in politics as “logrolling” where people agree – “I support your application as long as you support mine” – and deals getting done inside decision-making bodies. And people would say, “you know, that's just the nature of politics, it's the way things are”’ (SCO8).