Subnational Governance Approaches on the Rise—Reviewing a Decade of Eastern European Regionalization Research

Abstract

This article reviews the past decade of decentralization and regionalization research on the new Eastern European member states of the EU (EU-10). We classify the existing literature according to focus of analysis, explanatory programme and methodological preferences, and propose a distinction between three different research agendas: system transformation, EU conditionality and subnational governance. We argue that with respect to the EU-10, scholarly interest in the perspectives of state transformation and conditionality is waning. By contrast, the subnational governance approach is growing in relevance because it represents the cornerstone of a multi-level governance perspective that is able to integrate what have up to now been separate debates about regionalism in Eastern and Western Europe.

Keywords:

• Decentralization
• regionalization
• new EU member states
• transition
• conditionality
• subnational governance

Acknowledgements

The support of the German Science Foundation (DFG) and of the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

We are conscious that the term ‘decentralization’ usually describes the transfer of political authority not only to the regional, but also to the local level of government. For the purposes of this article, however, the local dimension of decentralization is left aside. Moreover, if we find more than one level between the national and local levels, we primarily focus on the one with an elected assembly, that is, the level with subnational self-government. In countries with a subnational level without elected assemblies, we focus on the highest level of subnational decentralized government. This selection results in a broad heterogeneity among the subnational entities under review. For instance, in Poland we focus on voivodships, which fulfil the criteria applied to many regions in Western Europe; Hungarian megye, by contrast, as subnational entities with an elected assembly, are comparable to the county level in more populous Western European states.

The main reason is that most journals publishing on regionalization and decentralization in CEE are not listed in databases like the SSCI.

NUTS: Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics.

The specific classification of the individual studies in one of the three different approaches is indicated in the reference list at the end of this article. Transformation studies are marked with ‘T’, conditionality studies with a ‘C’ and subnational governance studies with a ‘G’. We are fully aware that some studies could be assigned to more than category. For pragmatic reasons we decided, however, to classify them ‘unambiguously’ in accordance with the major research topic each addresses.

Historical institutionalists usually apply a broad concept of institutions. Hall (1986: 19), for instance, defined institutions as “… the formal rules, compliance procedures, and standard operating practices that structure the relationship between individuals in various units of the polity and economy”.

The conditionality debate itself is too complex and too multifaceted to be summarized easily here (see Hix and Goetz, 2000; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004; Schimmelfennig, 2007). The regional dimension, which is the main interest of this section, is just one aspect of the broader debate and simplifications are therefore unavoidable. For more comprehensive accounts, see Hughes et al. (2004a, 2004b) and Jacoby (2004).

Phare is a programme initiated by the European Community in 1989. Its aim is to support accession states through the establishment of a functioning administration and institutions and through financing investments. Originally the programme was designed for Poland and Hungary, but it was gradually extended to all Eastern European accession states. In 2000, Phare was supplemented by ISPA, which provides financial aid in the environmental and transport sectors, and SAPARD, which focuses on agriculture. For the period 2000–06, the EU allocated €10 billion to Phare (http://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/programme_phare_en.htm, accessed on 5 Feb 2008).

Viewed from a functionalist perspective, it did not make sense for smaller states, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, to establish a fully institutionalized level below the national and above the local level of government (Kettunen and Kungla, 2005).

There are two competing views along this line of reasoning (Marks et al., 1996). Some scholars attribute mobilizing powers mainly to those regions with a solid financial basis (Bookman, 1993; Harvie, 1994). Others suggest that it is the less privileged regions that want to strengthen their financial basis and are therefore more involved in European policy making.