Full Description
Based on a multidisciplinary analysis, the book presents a contemporary view of the main challenges facing regional development and regional policy in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly considering to what extent domestic and non-domestic legacies have affected the regionalization process in this area. The volume mainly focuses on the institutional arrangements at regional level, analyzing the motives, procedures and outcomes of either political or administrative reforms introduced in the latest years. The focus are the former communist countries, both members of the EU and not (case studies selected: Romania, Hungary, Poland and Serbia), with a specific chapter concentrating on a case study from the West - England - whose process of regionalization provides a useful point of reference for the experiences of its Central-East counterparts.
Contents
Introduction Sara Parolari
PART ONE - Framework
Chapter I. Central and Eastern Europe regional reforms: from dismantling a Soviet model to Europeanizing a national one Anatoliy Kruglashov
1. Introduction
2. Soviet model of regional governance: ideology, practice, institutional design and legacy in Central and Eastern Europe
3. Post-revolutionary period: debates and allowances of central governments to change regional policy and system of self-government
4. Impact of European integration on regional reforms and development in Central and Eastern Europe
5. Concluding remarks about Central and Eastern Europe countries' regional policy upon accession
Chapter II. EU regional policy and the process of institution-building in Central and Eastern European Countries Ekaterina Domorenok
1. Introduction
2. EU strategy for institution and capacity building: what is it about?
3. EU Structural Funds: the myth of multi-level governance?
4. Pre- and post-accession institutional pressures
5. The Structural Funds implementation in Central and Eastern European Countries: between challenges and changes
6. Conclusion
Chapter III. Decentralization and local development: antecedents, challenges and current organizational forms Gert Guri and Bruno Dallago
1. Introduction
2. Looking back at the institutional and economic transition processes and the (re-) naissance of decentralization
3. Main challenges to decentralization
4. Framing local development
5. Conclusions and Future Perspectives
Chapter IV. The English prototype. Non-political and non-administrative decentralization as a model for Central and Eastern European Countries? Sara Parolari
1. Introduction
2. The asymmetric nature of the British constitutional settlement and the consequences for England
3. The regionalization process in England: the role of Regional Development Agencies
4. Concluding remarks
PART TWO - Case studies
Chapter V. Decentralization and regional development in Romania. An unfinished reform in search of a "European" model Marius Suciu
1. Reflections on the sense and difficulties of decentralization in ex-communist countries of East Central Europe
2. Decentralization and regionalization in Romania. The challenges and ambiguities of a new model of regional governance
3. Conclusions
Chapter VI. The Recentralization of Economic Development in Hungary Zoltán Pogátsa
1. Introduction
2. Decentralization after transition
3. Recentralization after 2010
Chapter VII. Securing growth and cohesion in Europeanized conditions. The role of regional development bodies in Poland Krzysztof Szczerski
1. Position of the regions in Poland
2. The role of public administration in regional development
3. Conclusion
Chapter VIII. Regionalization and Regional Development in Serbia Chiara Guglielmetti and Sonja Avlijaš
1. Introduction
2. Legacy of sub-national institutions developed during the socialist Yugoslavia (1945-1991) and Milošević's era (1989-2000)
3. Macroeconomic and legislative framework for regional development
4. Regional development during Serbia's Transition (2001- )
5. Case study of Eastern Serbia
6. Concluding remarks
Concluding remarks. New regionalism in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Traditional models and beyond Francesco Palermo
1. Introduction. The end of regionalization or just the wrong approach?
2. Is regionalization desperate, necessary or imperative?
3. The dilemma of political regionalization in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European Countries
4. The way forward: asymmetry and institutional innovation
