Multilevel Governance and Partnership for Effective Regional Development Policies: Lessons from EU Cohesion Policy
Abstract
The 1988 reform of the structural funds (SF) set the
foundations for European Union (EU) cohesion policy
(CP), arguably one of the most innovative and
large-scale, if controversial and often criticised, policies
addressing uneven economic development and
territorial disparities. The reform reflected the shift
towards new regionalism (Amin and Thrift, 1995;
Cooke and Morgan, 1998; Storper, 1995, 1997), an
approach considering the regional scale as key for
economic development underpinned by robust
regional networks and site-specific ‘relational assets’
such as trust and social capital...