Introduction: adaptational pressures and social learning in European regional policy – cohesion (Greece, Ireland and Portugal) vs. CEE (Hungary, Poland) countries

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue concentrates on the theoretical, methodological and conceptual aspects of the research project, as well as on the synoptic presentation of the main research findings of the comparative study. The article draws on the theoretical debate on the impact of Europeanization of regional policy on the EU multi-level system of governance, and discusses the conceptual variation and underpinnings of the learning process, the crucial conceptual tool of institutional and policy adaptation at the domestic level of governance. It presents the methodology adopted for the comparative study, including the logic of the comparison, the choice of cases and ways the results are measured, and draws the main conclusion and lessons for both the Cohesion and CEE countries under investigation.

Acknowledgements

The articles of this volume draw on the research outcomes of ADAPT, an EU Commission (DG XII) project [5th Framework Programme for Research and Development – 2nd Call for proposals – Contract No: HPSE-CT-2001–00097]: ‘EU Enlargement and Multi-Level Governance in European Regional and Environmental Policies: Patterns of Institutional Learning, Adaptation and Europeanization among cohesion countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal) and Lessons for New Members (Poland, Hungary)’. The authors wish to thank the DG Research staff, and especially Dr. Peter Fisch, our desk officer, for his stimulating supervision of the research project.

Notes

• Sources: World Values Surveys (several waves) for Ireland, Portugal, Hungary and Poland; Project-specific survey (Kappa Research, Athens, 2002), for Greece (see Lyberaki and Paraskevopoulos, 2002).

• Question: Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people?

• Source: Eurobarometer 55, Luxemburg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2001.

• Question: I would like to ask you a question about how much trust you have in certain institutions. For each of the following institutions (Political parties; Civil service; The National government; and The National Parliament), please tell me if you tend to trust it or tend not to trust it?

Source: Eurobarometer 55, Luxemburg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2001.

• Note: trust is scored on a 7 point scale where 7 = maximum trust and 1 = maximum distrust.

• Source: New Democracies Barometer V and III (for Civil Service), Paul Lazarsfeld Society, Vienna, Centre for the Study of Public Policy (see William Mishler and Richard Rose, 1995 and 2001).

Although significant variation from one policy area to another is considered as the main feature of the EU policy-making structures and practices, it has been argued that the EU institutional structure is more federal than unitary and its policy-making processes more pluralist than statist (Schmidt, 1997). In that respect, it has been predicted that the more centralized and unitary member states are likely to face stronger adaptational pressures than the decentralized and federal ones (ibid.).

New institutionalism has emerged relatively recently in EU studies, ‘borrowed’ from political science, as a new and perhaps dominant theoretical framework of regional integration (see Aspinwall and Schneider, 2001).

Adrienne Windhoff-Heritier's (1991) notion of institution as ‘restriction and opportunity’ shows the compatibility between new institutionalism and rational choice approach and hence it may be seen as the foundation of rational choice institutionalism (see also Dowding, 1994; Coleman, 1988; Moe, 1990; and Peters, 1999).

The impact of the 1988 reforms of the Structural Funds on the redistribution of power between the levels of government, by strengthening the role of the subnational level and establishing direct linkages between supranational, national and subnational authorities through their role in managing and monitoring Operational Programmes (OPs) of the Community Support Frameworks (CSFs), constitutes a characteristic case of unintended consequences initialized by institutional or policy reforms at the EU level. Moreover, the core of these reforms remained almost unchanged even after the 1993 reform put forward after the negotiations over the 1994–99 Structural Funds programme (see Pollack, 1995).

This point has been particularly strengthened by relatively recent research outcomes showing that the strength of associational culture and regional identity, rather than a funding/resource focusing logic, is the underlying factor of regional mobilization at the European level (Marks et al., 1996b).

R. Axelrod's (1997: 40–68) evolutionary approach to norms is based on a ‘limited rationality’ model which assumes that when actors make choices within complex institutional and social settings, they are more likely to use the ‘trial-and-error’ approach rather than a fully rational choice approach based on short-term calculations of utility maximization. Thus, individual actors tend to make long-term choices based on adaptation of their behaviour to successful paradigms of the environment rather than short-term, methodological individualism calculations-based choices. Within this framework, while norms may emerge through interactions among a small number of players, they endure and become dominant through other actors' adaptive behaviour. In this way, the most effective norms are more likely to survive over time. Among the mechanisms used for the enforcement and strengthening of norms (i.e. law, internalization, dominance) the most important is a specific mechanism called ‘metanorms’. This mechanism is based on the willingness of cooperating actors to punish not only the violators of a norm, but also those who do not enforce the norm, namely they do not participate in the punishment of the violators. Obviously, sanctions and reputation are the most important components of the metanorms mechanism. The function of the metanorms mechanism is better understood by reference to paradigms from the area of international relations (i.e. Yugoslavia).

It should be noted that generalized reciprocity as a form of social capital constitutes the most important prerequisite for the process of political exchange. Given that the norm is rooted in the complexities of the social exchange in a broad sense, it is considered as a crucial function in which the process of political exchange is embedded. Thus, in the field of regional policy, generalized reciprocity, by sustaining the process of political exchange among the actors at the regional level, is viewed as a precondition for network creation and institution-building (see Cooke and Morgan, 1998).

However, the notion of network, as it is employed in the theoretical framework of governance, needs to be understood as a mainly ethnocentric concept, in the sense that it is closely related to the country-specific broad institutional environment. Thus its applicability and usefulness may be strongly constrained by qualitative features of the countries' institutional infrastructure in terms of institutional capacity, and therefore its appropriateness as an analytical tool may vary accordingly. In particular, there is evidence to suggest that the degree of validity and hence applicability of the network analysis is rather high in institutionally developed societies and relatively low in the less developed ones. What this implies is that the relevance of the traditional models of social organization, namely state and market, should not be easily overlooked, given that the reform of any of these may have to be subject to careful consideration with regard to the necessary ‘investment’ in institution-building for the participating countries. Moreover, these reforms may involve a combination of traditional and new organizational structures, such as network development. This may be proved a necessity, especially for the CEECs. [We owe this comment to J. Grote's thoughtful contribution to the ADAPT Workshop organized at the LSE in February 2002].

• A 0–3 ratings scale has been used for codifying the strength of ties between actors within networks, according the following criteria:

  	1.	value 3: (a) cooperation in projects; (b) formal (institutionalised) links and relationships; and (c) frequent or infrequent contacts;
  	2.	value 2: (a) formal (institutionalized) links and relationships; and (b) frequent or infrequent contacts;
  	3.	value 1: (a) informal meetings; and (b) frequent or infrequent contacts; and finally,
  	4.	value 0: no contacts at all.