Pulling things together: regional policy coordination approaches and drivers in Europe

ABSTRACT

Coordination is a long-term issue for regional policy that has gained traction in academic and practitioner circles in recent years. The capacity challenges of responding to a broadening set of issues that cut across sectoral and administrative boundaries focus attention on regional policy coordination. Various concepts have emerged to study policy coordination processes, but efforts are ongoing to bring these together into overarching analytical frameworks. This paper contributes to these efforts by disaggregating coordination mechanisms according to different components of regional policy design and delivery (rule-based coordination, organisational arrangements, strategic policy coordination and policy instrument coordination) and by identifying cognitive, political and institutional factors that drive their use. The paper explores the relationship between coordination mechanisms and these drivers in the regional policy systems of three countries: Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom. It assesses the different dynamics at work and notes the importance of administrative capacity as a prerequisite for effective coordination.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional policy paradigm
• coordination capacity
• federal
• unitary

1. Introduction

Coordination is a perennial challenge in public policy that is gaining prominence in academic and practitioner circles. There are several definitions of policy coordination but for the purposes of this paper it concerns the management of cross-cutting issues that transcend the margins of traditional policy sectors and administrative organisations and require coherent policy responses across scales (Meijers & Stead, 2004). This goes beyond basic cooperation and informal exchange of information among autonomous organisations. Rather, it involves the use of coordination mechanisms. These are initiatives or changes governments introduce to facilitate joint, participative decision making and the pooling of resources to achieve collective policy goals that encompass – and exceed – the priorities of individual actors or agencies (McNamara, 2012).

This definition covers a broad range of policy coordination mechanisms and research is responding to a perceived delay in catching up with policy practice (Tosun, 2013). These efforts are ongoing and challenges remain for academic and practitioner communities exploring coordination. First, there is a need to address substantial conceptual variety and fragmentation to support systematic analysis of policy coordination mechanisms. Second, there is a need to strengthen understanding of the factors driving the adoption of different mechanisms: the factors that explain why a type of policy mechanism is prominent in one country and not another, in one policy arena but not another, or at one time period but not another (Trein et al., 2020).

Coordination is a central concern for contemporary regional policy which is the state’s policy to boost development in specific territories of a country. Although taking a variety of forms, the emphasis in many countries has evolved in recent decades from top-down, compensatory policy provided by the state for ‘lagging’ regions, towards a broader family of place-based measures defining new objectives, new units of intervention, new strategies and new actors (Iammarino, Rodríguez-Pose, Storper, & Diemer, 2020). Regional policy makers are moving beyond broad equity-efficiency or core-periphery perspectives to identify a fine-grained mix of investment priorities relevant for specific places. These can involve, for example, complementing investment innovation support for firms in a region with measures to strengthen local capabilities and skills, and developing tertiary and vocational education to match enterprise demand. Thus, place-based regional policy coordination has both vertical and horizontal dimensions (Glückler & Lenz, 2016). National-level coordination aims to break down ‘silos’ in sectoral policy-making, involving ministries as partners in determining the optimal mix of priorities for integrated regional development measures. Regional-level coordination facilitates the participation of sub-national partners from public, private and civil society organisations in regional policy. The vertical dimension concerns the coordination of national and sub-national contributions (Duranton & Venables, 2018).

This paper aims to contribute to a more systematic understanding of how regional policy is coordinated and what factors inform the choice of coordination mechanisms. It does this by first classifying coordination mechanisms in the regional policy context (covering rule-based coordination, organisational arrangements, strategic policy coordination and policy instrument coordination) and, second, by exploring factors identified in the literature (cognitive, political and institutional) that drive the use of these mechanisms. The paper adopts a qualitative comparative approach, using a most different research design approach to explore use of coordination mechanisms where there is significant variation in these drivers (Thomann & Maggetti, 2020). It is based on longitudinal empirical analysis and observation of the governance of regional development policy across Europe, covering the period 2007 to 2019. This includes annual, semi-structured interviews with senior officials from government ministries and agencies responsible for regional policy in twelve countries, undertaken over those twelve years as part of the long-running EoRPA consortium by the author and colleagues at the European Policies Research Centre.¹ A series of interviews were carried out in spring 2019 in these government ministries and departments as part of EoRPA research on the coordination of regional policy (Ferry, 2019). Interview data were cross-checked against secondary source information from official reports, and the professional (EU, regional and local development) and academic literatures to triangulate perspectives.

Section 2 of the paper assesses the conceptual foundations of policy coordination in the public policy literature. It takes a ‘processual’ approach to link types of coordination mechanism to different components of policy design and implementation. It also identifies factors highlighted in the literature that drive and inform the adoption of these different mechanisms. Section 3 applies this framework to analyse regional policy coordination in Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom. What regional policy coordination mechanisms are used and what factors explain this use? The paper concludes by highlighting key trends and comparative insights.

2. Conceptualising regional policy coordination

2.1. Classifying regional policy coordination mechanisms

Governments introduce different mechanisms to advance policy coordination and academic studies have produced a variety of concepts and classifications to strengthen analysis, with different theoretical bases (institutionalism, network theory etc.) (Tosun & Lang, 2017). Comparisons are made between government and governance centred coordination. The former assesses structural measures to integrate different government branches. Governance-based coordination focuses on strengthening the integration of different policy objectives or overarching goals that cut across sectors (Braun, 2008). Distinctions in the literature between ‘hard’ or formal and ‘soft’ or informal coordination somewhat mirror this dichotomy. ‘Hard’ policy coordination is typically based on the ‘top down’, hierarchical establishment of legal rules or enforceable regulations. The higher level introduces a legally binding policy objective translated into individual targets. Policy implementation is reinforced by regulations and non-compliance entails sanctions (Marra, 2014). In contrast, softer forms of coordination facilitate iterative exchange of views and information through networks or negotiation (resulting in compromise or consensus through joint strategies, deals or agreements). These different components and dimensions present a range of potential coordination mechanisms and research has struggled to develop systematic approaches to classify and analyse them (Trein et al., 2020).

In recent years, a ‘processual’ approach has emerged in different strands of the literature to classify coordination mechanisms across different components of policy systems. The intergovernmental relations literature identifies a set of mechanisms for policy coordination across government tiers, based on four headings: economic instruments (e.g. coordinated provision of subsidies, shared investments etc.), regulations (legal provisions for interaction of government structures etc.), administrative practices (including shared strategic programmes with negotiated performance) and organisations (inter-government or inter-sector networks or associations etc.)(Agranoff, 2007). Environmental policy integration literature, though focusing on a specific field, has broadly similar classifications of coordination mechanisms: rule-based frameworks (e.g. obligatory environmental reporting), economic instruments (e.g. environmental subsidies and taxes), strategic frameworks (e.g. strategic environmental assessments) and organisational arrangements (e.g. environmental units within sectoral departments) (Runhaar, Jordan, & Lenschow, 2010). Other studies use comparable categories to operationalise policy coordination (Candel & Biesbroek, 2016; Cejudo & Michel, 2017).

Drawing on a processual approach, this analysis focuses on four types of mechanism: rule based coordination, organisational coordination, strategic policy coordination and policy instrument coordination. These are applicable to the regional policy context (see Table 1).

Table 1. Regional policy coordination mechanisms

Category	Policy coordination mechanism	Indicators in regional policy context
Rule based coordination	Constitutional, legislative or regulatory provisions to facilitate coordination across policy sectors and/or administrative jurisdictions.	Formal legal competences, use of administrative orders, eligibility rules and criteria. Mandatory regional ‘proofing’ or appraisal of sectoral policies.
Organisational coordination	Coordination through organisational mechanisms to foster joint working, horizontally or vertically.	Inter-ministerial committees coordinate shared regional policy objectives ‘Superministries’, inter-ministerial committees, multi-level structures
Strategic policy coordination	Setting joint objectives of shared policies with, determining which take priority in the event of incompatibility.	Regional development strategies include cross-cutting objectives and goals for multiple policy sectors.
Policy instrument coordination	Action plans pursue cross-cutting strategic goals, pooling resources for coordinated measures.	‘Bundling’ of instruments in specific territories, sometimes based on multi-level negotiations.

Source: author’s elaboration based on literature review

Rule-based coordination is pursued through formal legislative standards or regulations. These ensure common practices in the design and implementation of policies and instruments and establish procedural mechanisms that strengthen coordination (Hansson & Nerhagen, 2019). Governments can, through regulation, demand or encourage policy makers and stakeholders to work together, creating ‘functional regulatory spaces,’ which span several policy sectors, governance levels, and institutional territories (Varone, Nahrath, Aubin, & Gerber, 2013). Rule-based coordination is a basic feature of traditional regional policy. Historically, ‘command-and-control’ type regional policy instruments focused on the provision of business aid and hard infrastructure investment to less developed regions. The mode of organisation is essentially top-down and the role of sub-national levels in implementation closely governed by rules and criteria determined from above. Another example of rule-based coordination in regional policy is to make consideration of regional impacts mandatory in the development of sectoral policy initiatives, so-called ‘region proofing’. For example, in Norway government departments proposing major initiatives must undertake regional impact assessments, ensures that regional policy considerations are included.

Organisational coordination concerns coordination through structural or organisational mechanisms to foster joint working in the management of a cross-cutting policy problem across administrative or portfolio boundaries (Trein, Meyer, & Maggetti, 2019). Contemporary regional policy uses organisational arrangements extensively for horizontal and vertical coordination. Numerous structures have been established to coordinate regional policy across sectors and administrative levels: ‘superministries’ that integrate regional policy and other policy fields under one portfolio, inter-ministerial committees, multi-level bodies etc. Several examples can be identified across Europe. To take just one case, in Italy, the Cabina di Regia is a committee designed to coordinate shared objectives comprising ministries involved in regional policy, the Presidents of three regions and the President of a metropolitan city designated by the association of Italian municipalities.

Strategic policy coordination. Integrated strategies coordinate the individual objectives of different actors in addressing a cross-cutting issue (Candel & Biesbroek, 2016). In the field of environmental policy integration, environmental impact assessments provide a strategic framework to coordinate environmental considerations alongside other priorities in a proposed policy, plan or programme. Coordination is pursued by pulling together different policies under a joint frame of reference, making explicit their contribution to overarching strategic objectives. Regional policy coordination has addressed this through integrated strategic programming to achieve consensus on problem definition, set joint objectives and specify the priorities of shared policies (Bachtler & Yuill, 2007). For example, in Switzerland’s New Regional Policy, the main strategic framework, there is a pillar dedicated to coordination and synergies with sectoral policies, especially innovation and tourism policy.

Policy instrument coordination. Coordination can also be pursued at the level of substantive policy instruments (e.g. advice and training, grants, loans, regulatory or fiscal incentives etc.) addressing a dimension of the same problem (Cejudo & Michel, 2017). There is an increasing research focus on the mixing or layering of policy instruments, particularly when activities in otherwise distinct policy subsystems transcend old boundaries and where policymaking has a multilevel governance arrangement (Capano & Howlett, 2020). Research has explored the scope for re-calibrating policy instruments to strengthen coordination, including through the negotiation of programmes or agreements that combine resources from different stakeholders (Urwin & Jordan, 2008). Several European countries have introduced deal-based mechanisms to coordinate regional policy instruments across sectoral themes and administrative levels (OECD, 2007). They generally involve a negotiation stage during which objectives are defined; an action plan, and agreed commitments concerning the contributions by partners to bundles of policy instruments. For example, in Italy ‘Pacts for Development’ are signed by the national government and the Presidents of the regions or Mayors of the metropolitan cities. Guiding principles for the Pacts include their synergy with EU CP and the strategic nature of interventions. They combine support under a range of headings: infrastructure and environmental quality, economic and business development, administrative capacity etc.

2.2. What factors drive the choice of regional policy coordination mechanisms?

There is growing research on why different approaches are taken and why certain coordination mechanisms are favoured in different country contexts. What factors drive policy coordination choices and facilitate or hinder their adoption? The literature highlights three key drivers (see Table 2) that are discernible in the regional policy context (Jordan & Lenschow, 2010).

Table 2. Factors driving regional policy coordination approaches

Factor	Description	Regional policy context
Institutional	Sets scope for coordination and participation of actors.	Federal and unitary systems offer different coordination challenges and opportunities.
Cognitive	Understanding of policy problem frames implementation model, including coordination.	Traditional, sectoral, ‘top down’ thinking versus place-based regional policy paradigm, championed by EU through CP.
Political/ideological	Ideological views on the role of state in addressing policy problem	Interventionist versus market-oriented governments place varied stress on regional policy coordination.

Source: Author’s elaboration, based on (Jordan & Lenschow, 2010).

The institutional setting onto which policy coordination arrangements are mapped is a key factor. This is highlighted in comparative public administration literature, where the structure of the state and administration and the degree of centralisation or decentralisation is a crucial factor in comparative analyses of public reform (Kuhlmann & Wollmann, 2019). In intergovernmental literature research has posited that coordination approaches are conditioned by institutional relations between government levels addressing a shared policy challenge (Cseshi, 2017). Research has divided institutional systems into groups more or less prone to fragmentation, where the impetus for and choice of policy coordination mechanisms varies (Jacob & Volkery, 2004). A distinction is made between federal and unitary (centralised, regionalised or decentralised) systems. Federal systems face specific coordination challenges as they must manage the constitutional separation of policy responsibilities between federal and sub-national bodies. This creates complicated regional policy-making systems where responsibility lies with sub-national units but where there is a logic or desire for national level coordination (Benz, 2013). Unitary systems, where sub-national powers are more limited and central government has more control over the allocation of responsibilities and resources, face less regional policy coordination challenges. Nevertheless, sub-national administrations can still play significant roles in policy areas relevant to regional development where purely hierarchical policy management may create inefficiencies.

Another driver has a cognitive dimension. A basic hypothesis is that policy issues are embedded in a ‘frame of reference’ or ‘paradigm’ which conditions thinking on how they can be addressed. Coordination is more likely when policymakers share a common understanding or policy paradigm (Zittoun, 2015). The dominant paradigm sets the understanding of the policy problem, the available resources to address it and the implementation roles of actors. Empirical evidence for this hypothesis can be found in the literature on environmental policy integration (Nilsson & Eckerberg, 2007). Research has explored how shifts in the dominant paradigm, prompted for example by policy entrepreneurship, explain why and how coordination mechanisms change (Dowd et al., 2014).

Regional policy coordination has been driven by cognitive factors. The influence of disputes over ‘bottom-up’ regional development perspectives or ‘top-down’ national objectives in creating coordination mechanisms has been noted (Sørensen, 2014). The place-based paradigm has been supported since the late 2000s by the OECD in its regional development research (OECD, 2019a) and advocated by the European Commission (EC), notably through the Barca Report of 2009 which set a revised agenda for Cohesion Policy (CP – EU funded regional policy) (Barca, 2009). There has been a discursive shift in CP around the place-based narrative and EC policy entrepreneurship has increased its popularity among national governments implementing CP (Mendez, 2013). This place-based paradigm emphasises coordination, requiring organisational arrangements and strategic frameworks that facilitate coordination of sectoral policies at the relevant territorial scale and pull together public, private and civil society actors (OECD, 2019b).

A third factor that conditions the use of policy coordination mechanisms is the political context. This focuses on political will and ideological outlook in driving policy coordination, rather than the influence of a specific policy paradigm. The hypothesis is that political pressure from the top of government is crucial in determining the extent to which coordination is pursued (Jordan & Schout, 2006). A change in the ideological approach to government, most obviously as the result of elections, may lead to changes on what the role or ‘size’ of government should be, impacting on policy coordination mechanisms. Studies of efforts to place environmental considerations at the heart of decision-making in sectoral policies indicate the importance of the political composition of the ruling party in driving the process. Centre-left governments tend to be supportive of efforts to put comprehensive policy coordination frameworks in place, whereas centre-right governments have been less committed (Jordan & Lenschow, 2010). Policy coordination can be particularly challenging where ministries are controlled by different political parties or where sub-national administrations are controlled by political parties other than that in control at the national level. Coordination mechanisms must also take into account what Page (1991) calls political localism, i.e. the effective representation of place in national politics and different channels of access for local influence in the centre. The closeness of direct links between national and local politics, alongside legal or constitutional powers, offers opportunities for local political élites to shape policies within their locality through influencing decision-making by national politicians.

The links between regional policy change and the political or ideological context have been explored (Ferry & Bachtler, 2013). A distinction is made between ‘free market’ and ‘interventionist’ approaches (Armstrong & Taylor, 2000). For the former, regional policy solutions are primarily found in reform of market regulations. Instead of intervening directly in regional development, the state retains a disciplinary power over allocation of funding and responsibilities. Centralised implementation means that regional policy coordination receives limited attention. In contrast, more interventionist strategies involve a ‘supply side’ role for the state with support to address structural weaknesses in regions. This response is pro-active at regional and local levels, including decentralisation of powers and extensive regional policy intervention, developing channels of access for local interests at national level and requiring strong coordination mechanisms (Beer, Clower, HAUGHTOW, & Maude, 2005).

2.3. Analysing regional policy coordination: mechanisms and drivers

Based on a review of the literature, four policy coordination mechanisms have been identified: coordination based on: rules and regulations, organisational arrangements, strategic frameworks, and the combination of specific policy instruments. The review has also put forward three drivers that inform the varied use of these mechanisms. One driver is institutional, concerning how mechanisms are informed by the existing distribution of policy competences and resources across government levels. The second driver is cognitive, based on the premise that coordination mechanisms reflect how a policy problem is framed or defined by stakeholders. The third driver concerns the political environment: dominant ideological views on the role and extent of state intervention to address policy challenges condition the choice of coordination mechanisms.

This analytical framework has been operationalised through application to regional policy in Europe. Indicators have been developed to illustrate how different regional policy coordination mechanisms are manifested (eligibility rules and allocation criteria, cross-cutting horizontal and vertical structures, integrated regional development strategies and negotiated action plans with re-calibrated instruments). Moreover, drivers of regional policy coordination have been elaborated. From an institutional perspective, the existing allocation of policy competences within federal or unitary systems has implications for the choice of coordination mechanisms. The place-based paradigm is a cognitive construct championed by EU institutions that has a clear vision of regional policy coordination. The political or ideological outlook of ruling parties in terms of market-based or more interventionist regional policy models supports different coordination approaches. This framework facilitates exploration of patterns or linkages between these drivers and different coordination mechanisms. How do institutional, cognitive and political factors shape the use of different regional policy coordination mechanisms?

3. Regional policy coordination approaches and drivers in selected countries

To explore the relationship between types of coordination mechanism and potential drivers for their use, Section 3 analyses three case study examples: Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom (with a focus on England). Case selection uses the most different research design approach, choosing countries that are different in terms of the institutional, cognitive and political variables identified above. The ambition is to isolate the explanatory value of these drivers in the choice of different regional policy coordination mechanisms (Anckar, 2008). The first criterion for case selection concerns the institutional setting driver. It covers variation in the distribution of regional policy competences between administrative levels, particularly the extent of regional autonomy. Regional policy tasks are generally shared between different administrative levels, making some form of coordination necessary. Within this, competences for resource allocation and decision-making vary in different types of government systems, producing different policy coordination contexts. In federal countries such as Germany, the formal equality of regional and national governments conditions the operation of national/sub-national coordination. Poland is a regionalised unitary state where elected regional governments have some limited budgetary and fiscal autonomy but substantial competences still rest at state level and there is still strong dependence on financial transfers from central government. In the UK (England), the system is more centralised: there are no regional administrations and powers and financial resources are mainly transferred from central level.

The second selection criterion relates to the cognitive dimension, considering variation in the status of EU CP across countries. As noted, the EU has become an important motor for coordination through CP, requiring partnership and policy integration among those national and sub-national bodies implementing EU funding. However, the status and influence of CP in relation to regional policy varies across countries. Keating (2008) distinguishes between countries (often older EU Member States) with strong domestic regional policy instruments that incorporate CP and countries (usually newer EU members from Central and Eastern Europe) with traditionally weak regional policy instruments that are in receipt of substantial levels of EU funding and use CP as the basis for their own programmes. Poland is the largest beneficiary in absolute terms, with Cohesion Policy contributing significantly to public investment in regional development in comparison to Germany and the United Kingdom (European Commission, 2014).

The final selection criterion concerns the political dimension and variation in the stability of regional policy in countries. Research identifies critical moments or junctures when the introduction of new policy models creates instability. A typical example of such moments are elections of a new government and changes in the political landscape (Meijerink, 2005). The stability of regional policy implementation systems can arguably build experience and institutional memory that strengthens coordination capacity. In Germany, there is continuity, based on political consensus. Key regional policy instruments organised under the Joint Federal/Länder Task for the Improvement of Regional Economic Structures (GRW) have stayed broadly the same since the late 1960s. In Poland, accession to the EU provided a key juncture. Regional policy in Poland was traditionally weak and under-resourced up to the end of the 1990s but there has been unprecedented expansion of the system up to and following accession to the EU. Regional policy in the UK has experienced considerable instability and disruption, linked to political change. Regional policy expanded in the 1960s, implementing a mix of incentive schemes in designated areas but there has been considerable fluctuation over time, with periods of expansion and contraction in funding levels and territorial coverage (Tomaney, 2013).

The following section sets out the main regional policy coordination mechanisms in these countries and assesses, in turn, the role of institutional, cognitive and political ‘drivers’ informing their use (see Table 3).

Table 3. Case study features and key findings

	Conditioning drivers in coordination approach			Key findings
	Institutional	Cognitive	Political
Germany	Federal (Constitution gives national and Länder joint regional policy tasks).	Constitutional basis frames regional policy rationale: ‘equivalent living conditions’.	Broad consensus on regional policy status.	Legal frameworks key in intergovernmental coordination. Consensus-based structures have evolved with influence of CP.
Poland	Unitary (regionalised – regional governments have some important policy tasks)	EU place-based paradigm frames development strategy rationale.	Broad consensus on regional policy status but emerging political debate.	Strategic programming for coordination, influence from CP. Contracts used in regionalised setting.
United Kingdom (Eng)	Unitary (centralised – local authorities have limited policy task)	No explicit framework to state regional policy rationale.	Government change limits role of state in regional policy	Shift from strong coordination through strategic frameworks & structures to limited coordination based on ad hoc, bilateral negotiation of instruments.

3.1. Germany

The institutional context is crucial to understanding regional policy coordination mechanisms in Germany, particularly the role of rule-based mechanisms. From an institutional perspective, a key challenge in federal settings is to establish coordination arrangements where autonomous national and sub-national levels share policy tasks. ‘Parallel sovereignty’ in federal systems over a specific issue heightens the transaction costs involved in vertical policy coordination (Adam, Hurka, Knill, Peters, & Steinebach, 2019). This applies to the case of German regional policy. The constitution allocates primary responsibility for regional policy to the Länder. However, it also states that regional policy is one of the areas where there is a need for joint action between federal and Land authorities to ensure the objective of achieving ‘equivalent living conditions.’ Formal, rule-based mechanisms facilitate vertical coordination where such regional policy inter-dependencies have to be addressed. Awareness of the potentially damaging effects of competition for investment between Länder and regions means that a firm legal basis is provided for the federal government to intervene, as long as it does so jointly with the Länder. The 1969 amendment of the German Basic Law saw the Federation being assigned a share in regional policy responsibilities and led to the establishment of the Joint Federal/Länder Task for the Improvement of Regional Economic Structures (GRW). This ‘Joint Task’ creates legal space for the federal government to intervene in this policy area and to work with the Länder. The GRW funds business investment, infrastructure and other initiatives with instruments that are jointly planned between federal and Land levels. Funding is provided in the form of grants or low-interest loans and is financed half and half by the Federation and the Länder.

The rules governing the GRW are set jointly by the Federation and the Länder. This applies to the definition of eligible regions, the type of support, the procedure used to allocate funding, and monitoring and evaluation. The process uses a highly differentiated set of indicators to create a ranking of all of Germany’s regions, starting from the weakest structurally to the strongest. The rules agreed upon by the Federation and the Länder as part of their coordinating function form a framework, within which the Länder have scope to define their own priorities and thus use targeted measures to cater to specific needs. Policy-makers value the certainty and transparency provided by the legal mandate for the Regional ‘Joint Task’ as an instrument that spans federal and Land policy jurisdictions. According to German policymakers, an important factor in this was its value as a rule-based coordination regime.²

The influence of cognitive factors is evident in the development of intergovernmental, consensus-based coordination structures that serve as arenas or venues for regular interaction and negotiation between federal and Land levels. Structural coordination mechanisms involve two coordination committees. The Regional Joint Task (GRW) Committee, made up of federal and Land Ministers, decides on strategic aspects. The GRW Sub-committee, made up of federal and Land civil servants decides on operational issues. The committees make adjustments to the rule-based coordination framework. These specialised organisations are dedicated to facilitating policy coordination and their success goes beyond following set rules, relying on the willingness of the participants to find consensus (Bolleyer, 2013).

Indeed, for CP implementation, informal policy coordination mechanisms that do not include any formal, rule-based allocation of decision-making authority have evolved. Formally, each Länder decides on the content and funding of its own CP programmes. Nevertheless, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy brings together Land-level CP managing authorities to discuss issues of common interest, despite not having formal control or oversight functions for Länder programmes. Committees of federal and Land Ministers (Ministerkonferenz) decide on Germany-wide aspects e.g. the distribution of EU funding between Länder. This serves as a compromise solution to rule-based regional policy coordination arrangements, in the absence of legal or constitutional provisions. Thus, policy coordination based on the achievement of consensus in inter-institutional governance structures operates in parallel with rule-based arrangements and the partnership model championed by CP has supported this evolution. According to German regional policy officials, this consensual approach has become embedded over time and is understood as part of the administrative culture. In repeated rounds of interaction, trust and reciprocity have evolved, strengthening coordination.³

The role of political factors in shaping regional policy coordination in Germany is limited by constitutional commitments. There is ongoing political debate on German regional policy, including its treatment of structurally weak eastern Länder. For example, the principle, held by the federal authorities since 1992, that any new federal institutes or agencies should be set up in the eastern Länder in order to contribute to a more equal distribution of federal entities has attracted political interest. However, broadly speaking, political consensus has flowed from the constitutional order and its commitment to ‘equivalent living conditions’ across the country (Anderson, 1995).

3.2. Poland

In terms of institutional drivers, processes of administrative regionalisation and empowerment in Poland have raised vertical coordination issues. This is reflected in the evolution of contractual approaches to coordinate policy instruments, combining different stakeholder inputs into single packages of measures. Vertical coordination is a priority as Poland’s unitary system has experienced significant processes of regionalisation over the past two decades. This was in part driven by the emphasis placed on multi-level governance and the role of sub-national authorities in the implementation of CP, although domestic dynamics were also important (Ferry, 2013). The country’s 16 regions have elected legislatures and regional authorities have significant powers in drafting development strategies and allocating budgets. Regional government executives are managing authorities for CP Regional Operational Programmes. Poland’s new National Strategy for Regional Development includes a strong contractual element to address vertical coordination, ensuring that national-level policy decisions take regional priorities into account and to detail the policy instruments to be jointly financed and implemented between the centre and the region.⁴ It sets out three basic contractual arrangements to facilitate regional policy coordination. The ‘programme contract’ is a platform for arrangements between the state and regional governments, covering the principles, directions and conditions for co-financing of the CP regional operational programmes for 2021–2027, including planned priority projects to be implemented in these programmes. The ‘sectoral contract’ is concluded between individual ministries and regions in order to ensure the implementation of key investments for the region’s development and the contributions from the budgets of these ministries. Finally, the ‘territorial agreement’ is intended primarily for development activities at local level (municipalities, several municipalities or a district), integrating interventions at supra-local level under various available territorial instruments in agreement with central government. This is accompanied by specific measures to build administrative capacity. A Local Development Programme, funded through the EEA Grants and Norway Grants instrument (with a total budget of €117.6 million), includes support for administrative capacity of small and medium cities in the development of integrated strategies and action plans.

Cognitive factors have been fundamental in the evolution of regional policy coordination in Poland. This is reflected in the development of strategic programming, significantly influenced by EU Cohesion Policy ideas and models. Following periods of weak or non-existent regional policy, since accession in 2004 regional development in Poland has been strongly influenced by CP and its associated priorities and implementation principles (Sługocki, 2019). Poland is the largest beneficiary of CP funding in the EU, with €86 billions of investment planned for the period 2014–2020, representing around 50% of public investment in the country. EU influence is clear in the evolution of Poland’s use of strategic programming for coordination. CP uses multi-annual, national Partnership Agreements and national and regional operational programmes with explicit thematic objectives and priorities. Poland’s regional policy objectives are expressed through identifying objectives and then setting priorities and measures based on this CP model, and officials have recognised that CP has had cognitive and operational impact in this respect.⁵ Two years after the publication of the Barca Report that set out a place-based model for CP, one of the priorities pursued under Poland’s EU Presidency was the revision of development policies in line with the place-based paradigm.⁶

The Polish Ministry of Regional Development identified strategic programming as a way to ensure that regional or place-based issues were fully coordinated across policy sectors (Böhme, Doucet, Komomicki, Zaucha, & Świątek, 2011). Indeed, Poland had already launched its own domestic National Strategy for Regional Development in 2010 (relaunched in 2019) that clearly stated its commitment to a new regional policy paradigm following place-based thinking (Ministry of Regional Development, Poland, 2010). It set out how a new hierarchy of strategic programmes would help coordinate development. Alongside this, sectoral or ‘horizontal’ development strategies were planned, covering specific policy fields, to be developed by relevant ministries. These strategies were to be part of what the Ministry called a ‘territorialisation’ process that would coordinate different development activities in a given place. One of the spill-over effects noted from the management of CP was the establishment of permanent meetings between the national Ministry of Regional Development and regional self-governments. This facilitated coordination of these strategies, through inter-ministerial and multi-level working groups established for the development of each strategy.⁷

The latest and most comprehensive iteration of this approach came with the launch in 2018 of a new Development Management System. This established a new system to coordinate strategic documents at national, regional and local levels of government.⁸ It includes a mechanism (based on binding regulations) to ensure that key strategic documents at different levels are coherent in terms of content. The Polish Strategy for Responsible Development, launched in 2017, represents the basic strategic reference point, coordinating sectoral and territorial initiatives. Around this, a hierarchy of strategic documents has been developed. This includes sectoral strategies (e.g. for transport, energy, environment, social capital, human capital, agriculture and rural development), the revised National Regional Development Strategy, 16 regional-level strategies and local integrated strategies.

Political factors have been less apparent in driving regional policy coordination but their influence has grown since the election of the right-of-centre Law and Justice Party (PiS) in 2015. Some regional governments have detected a process of centralisation in the last few years with implications for regional policy coordination arrangements. In September 2017, an amendment of the Polish Act on Implementation of CP 2014–2020 introduced regulations enabling centrally-appointed regional governors to strengthen their roles in implementation of CP Regional Operational programmes (ROPs) alongside managing authorities in elected regional administrations (Gazeta Wyborcza, 2017). However, these issues are framed within an overall understanding of regional policy which has been driven for two decades by CP (Ferry, 2013).

3.3. United Kingdom

Institutional factors have been an impediment to regional policy coordination in the United Kingdom. In this case, regional policy coordination is challenged by a fragmented institutional context that includes elements of devolution (referring to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) within a unitary context that retains centralised characteristics (in England). There is no overarching, UK regional policy and no core legal framework to set individual governments’ decisions in relation to regional policy within the UK, apart from the devolution acts. The overall objectives of regional policy are set by government White Papers or policy papers (England) or in government economic strategy documents (Scotland, Wales).

EU CP has provided a cognitive construct for regional policy coordination in the UK, reflected in the evolution of structural and strategic mechanisms. However, its impact has been limited by the relatively low level of funding involved and undermined by political drivers. Research has identified the influence of CP on regional policy coordination in the UK as some practices of managing the funding became embedded in domestic policy activities and governance structures (Bachtler & Begg, 2017). Particularly at local and regional levels, regional policy coordination was strengthened through strategic programming and the strengthening of sub-national partnership in governance structures, notably around Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) (Parkinson, Evans, Meegan, & Karecha, 2016). Nevertheless, CP funding has represented only a small portion of total regional investments in the UK (Di Cataldo & Monastiriotis, 2020). Moreover, the basic structures for resource allocation under EU programmes (Secretariats, Working Groups, Programme Management Committees), though located within existing administrative structures or acting under their jurisdiction, operated independently of domestic resource allocation structures. These systems were seen largely as distinct and separate and this had an impact on the scope for productive interaction. The change in ideological approach to regional policy after 2010 (see below) undermined strategic and structural coordination mechanisms, including through the abolition of RDAs which were managing authorities for EU regional programmes.

Political change has been the key driver shaping regional policy coordination in the UK, reflected in a shift from comprehensive structural and strategic mechanisms to a fragmented mix of negotiated packages of instruments. Between 1997 and 2010, regional policy was given a high profile by the left of centre Labour government. Economic policy goals included a reduction of regional differences in growth and productivity, and the government believed that an effective policy for regional development required regionally coordinated intervention. A comprehensive coordination framework was created, giving increased administrative responsibilities to regional Government Offices and, later, Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) for strategic planning and economic development. A so-called ‘regional dimension’ was incorporated into the design and implementation of numerous strategies (Ferry & Bachtler, 2013). The 2010 General Election and subsequent formation of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010 significantly changed the political and ideological attitude, prompting an overhaul of regional policy in England. The new government launched reforms which changed the approach to economic development policy,⁹ quickly dismantling the regional policy system (Pugalis, 2011). The government’s assessment of the existing policy model included a strong ideological critique of the functions of the state in regional development. In 2010 it published a White Paper arguing that the previous approach was flawed because it was too interventionist; it criticised the belief that government plans could both determine where growth should happen and stimulate that growth (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS, 2010). The subsequent abolition of the RDAs, despite a broadly positive evaluation of their impact (PWC, 2009), and the scrapping of the network of regional government offices dismantled regional-level strategic and structural coordination mechanisms.

In their place, the government centralised policy instruments, including business support, innovation and international investment while shifting some powers to local communities and businesses, for example, via the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 established the basis for devolving powers and resources to functional urban areas, including the introduction of directly-elected mayors, in England and Wales. This supported the emergence of a plethora of ‘bespoke’ initiatives, with coordination based on the negotiation between central government and different configurations of local actors of packages of instruments. City-Region Deals, Devolution Deals and Growth Deals primarily aim to stimulate long-term economic development through capital investment projects. These are packages of funding and devolved decision-making powers, negotiated between the UK Government and local authorities (and/or LEPs) on an individual basis. They can involve funding grants and loans, requests for regulatory change or the relocation of public agencies to facilitate growth. The government’s Cities and Local Growth Unit coordinates the government’s input, overseeing progress in implementing the Deals’ initiatives. The Unit provides a single point of contact in government, working with the cities to develop their proposals. It then helps to secure funding and support from other government departments for their programmes. Deals vary in scope but can include devolved responsibility for aspects of transport, business support and further education policy delivery. Growth Deals provide funds to LEPs in England for projects that benefit the local area and economy. The 39 LEPS in England have each agreed such deals, allocated from a Single Local Growth Fund based on existing central government budgets for skills, housing and transport.

Thus, the prevailing mechanisms for regional policy coordination in the UK were overhauled due to political change and a significant shift in the ideological outlook of the UK government. The dominant mechanisms moved from strategic policy frameworks and organisational arrangements with a strong regional locus to the ad hoc, bilateral negotiation of a complex array of packages and instruments between central and local or urban levels.¹⁰ Evaluations of these initiatives have emphasised the coordination benefits they offer providing a channel of communication between national and local jurisdictions (NAO, 2016). However, there have been criticisms of the asymmetric deal-making process in different local contexts, the lack of transparency and the absence of overall coordination (O’Brien & Pike, 2015). These deals involve complex governance and negotiated decisions that take different forms in different territories. Nor is there strong evidence of horizontal coordination between regions (Schneider & Cottineau, 2019). There are also issues relating to administrative capacity. The shift in approach was accompanied by a significant reduction in the resources dedicated to coordination. In place of regional government offices and agencies, UK government established six local units to support the delivery of policy ‘on the ground’, but with a fraction of the resources employed in the former regional bodies. LEPs, cities and city-regions entering into deal-making have different levels of experience and capacities.

4. Conclusions

The aim of this article has been two-fold. The first objective was to contribute to refining the scope for comparative analysis of policy coordination mechanisms. A review of academic and practitioner literature identified four types of mechanism: rule based coordination, organisational coordination, strategic policy coordination and policy instrument coordination. There is substantial variation in the use of these mechanisms in different policy contexts and factors that drive this were identified: cognitive and normative framing of the policy challenge, the political-ideological profile of governments and existing institutional systems. The second objective was to apply this framework to the case of regional policy, where coordination has become a fundamental issue due to the broad expansion of its territorial and thematic coverage and the need to manage contributions from a wider range of sectors and actors. Different combinations of regional coordination mechanisms based on these analytical headings are evident across countries. They can be found at various levels, operating vertically and horizontally. However, with regional policy in a state of transition throughout Europe in recent decades, different mechanisms have risen to prominence over time.

The choice of regional policy coordination mechanism has clear implications for centre-periphery relations in countries. Coordination supported by constitutional or legislative provisions, as in Germany, provides a transparent and stable basis for centre-periphery interaction, giving both national and sub-national partners formal decision-making rights and responsibilities. Coordination based on organisational arrangements and strategic frameworks that cut across administrative jurisdictions give sub-national stakeholders more opportunities to shape regional policy. For instance, in Poland the role of cross-cutting working teams in the process of drafting strategies is an important means of defining and agreeing strategic direction. It also presents opportunities for the development of dynamic debates, trust-building and the evolution of reciprocal working relationships between centres and peripheries. Coordination based on the ‘bundling’ or recalibration of different policy instruments helps tailor regional policy support for specific territories but without sufficient legislative, organisational and strategic support this will not change centre-periphery relations. As in England, the state can still determine the instruments to be adopted by lower orders of government. Moreover, in comparison to regulations and organisations, policy instruments are more volatile and can readily be dropped and replaced with ‘more effective’ measures.

By highlighting the role of institutional, cognitive and political factors, this article has explored what is driving the choice of coordination mechanism. Generally, it is clear that domestic institutional orders have the deepest explanatory power in the choice of policy coordination mechanisms, particularly given the broad processes of delegation, decentralisation or devolution of state functions to sub-national levels (Loughlin, 2007). Rather than a clear-cut separation of regional policy responsibilities, most competences are shared among levels of government. This highlights the importance of rules based coordination mechanisms in setting common standards and agreed procedures to make the priorities of autonomous sub-national bodies compatible with the fulfilment of national policy objectives. In federal countries such as Germany, where regional policy tasks are constitutionally shared between Federal and Länder levels, the use of such mechanisms is particularly prominent. In unitary systems such as Poland and the United Kingdom, the decentralisation or delegation of competences are associated with negotiated policy governance.

The role of cognitive factors in determining regional policy coordination mechanisms has been apparent in several European countries over the past two decades. A prominent, place-based paradigm, supported by EU CP, has driven policy coordination, associated with the use of coordination mechanisms based on structural arrangements and strategic frameworks. The new paradigm advocates organisational relationships between policy sectors and across administrative tiers. CP programming involves the establishment of management and implementation bodies at national and sub-national levels and the use of multi-annual programmes that provide organisational and strategic coordination mechanisms. Participation in strategic coordinating committees and partnership groups is now common across Europe. These ‘joint-steering’ structures are apparent across different centralised and decentralised systems, breaking down sectoral ‘silos’, aligning development objectives and providing new opportunities, norms and resources for sub-national actors. Research points to the influence of these CP management and implementation systems on domestic regional policy administration. This is particularly apparent where the levels of associated CP funding are high, as in the case of Poland (Dąbrowski & Graziano, 2016). ‘Spillover’ effects have been noted in other countries, but domestic drivers of policy change, such as administrative decentralisation, usually precede effects that might be attributed to EU influence (Cole & Pasquier, 2012).

Political factors have a significant impact on regional policy coordination. Support from senior politicians as regional policy ‘champions’ can strengthen the status of coordination bodies. However, political change can also downgrade or dismantle structural or strategic coordination mechanisms. In the UK, the election of a government with an ideological agenda for reducing state functions prompted the rapid dismantling of regional policy coordination mechanisms in England. Regional coordination structures were abolished and there is now no national or regional level strategic framework for coordinating regional policy. Instead, a complicated set of instruments are negotiated in an ad hoc way bilaterally, producing a complex array of local packages. In this context, research highlights the periodic instabilities and disturbances that occur in policy evolution (see Rose, 1990). Longitudinal analyses have shown that the political agenda is stable for extended periods of time but is also subject to occasional changes that can have a disruptive impact on policy systems, including policy coordination (Baumgartner & Jones 2009). Such disruption has been absent in the other cases in recent decades. The constitutional basis for regional policy in Germany and its consensus-based approach has promoted stability. In Poland, consensus on the value of accessing CP funding and the multi-annual nature of that funding has supported evolution rather than disruption, although there is evidence of changes to regional policy coordination, following the election of the current government.

The issue of administrative capacity cuts across these points (Christensen et al., 2019). Sub-national governments face a higher workload implementing strategic and structural coordination mechanisms. The cases of Poland and the United Kingdom highlight the importance of ensuring that coordination arrangements take into account resources, experience and competences at different administrative levels. In Poland, the aim to involve local actors as strategic partners in regional policy coordination is accompanied by a dedicated initiative to boost capacities at that level. In the UK, the reduction of administrative capacities following the overhaul of regional policy is reflected in coordination challenges.

This paper does not claim to demonstrate causality between the use of regulatory, organisational, strategic or instrument based mechanisms and institutional, cognitive or political drivers. Nevertheless, the three country examples illustrate how different coordination mechanisms are informed by these factors. A fuller exploration of the empirical relevance of these drivers to policy coordination mechanisms would require more detailed comparative research across more national regional policy systems. Future research could also apply the framework across policy fields to see which types of coordination approaches are favoured and to explore factors that explain variation in efforts to ‘pull things together’.

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the valuable contribution of two anonymous referees.

No potential competing interest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin Ferry

Dr Martin Ferry is a Senior Research Fellow at the European Policies Research Centre, University of Strathclyde. He specializes in regional development and urban policy, including a focus on Central and Eastern Europe and the United Kingdom.

Notes

¹ See https://www.eprc-strath.eu/eorpa.

² Interview, senior official Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, 2010, see also Bachtler et al. (2010).

³ Interview, senior official Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, May 2019.

⁴ Interview, senior official Ministry of Investment and Econonic Development, Warsaw June 2019.

⁵ Interview, senior official Ministry of Investment and Econonic Development, Warsaw June 2019.

⁶ Interview, senior official Ministry of Regional Development, Warsaw May 2011.

⁷ Interview with senior official, Department of Structural Policy Coordination, Ministry of Regional Development, Warsaw, June 2010.

⁸ Interview, senior official Ministry of Investment and Econonic Development, Warsaw June 2018.

⁹ Interview with senior official, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, London, May 2011.

¹⁰ Interview with senior officials at Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, London, June 2016.