Developing European Regions? Comparative Governance, Policy Networks and European Integration
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Book Review Developing European Regions? Comparative Governance, Policy Networks and European Integration Maura Adshead Aldershot, Ashgate, 2002, 197 pp. GBP 42.50 ISBN: 0 7546 1965 6. Acta Politica (2003) 38, 365–368. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500024
What really is the impact of EU policies, or more precisely, what effect do EU policies have in the different European states and how can differences therein be explained? This is a question not uncommon in contemporary research in political science and public administration. The major challenge in answering this question, of course, is in developing designs to tackle it. In Developing European Regions? Comparative Governance, Policy Networks and European Integration Maura Adshead faces this challenge. Adshead’s central question is twofold: do national governments lose control as a result of EU policies and can we witness further integration of national and European policymaking? The policy field she puts to the test is that of regional development — more specifically the EU Structural Fund Objective One regions. At issue here is promoting the development and structural adjustment of regions in Europe lagging behind. To answer her questions Adshead focuses on developing (multilevel) policy-networks in this field. She selected three regional cases each in one of the EU-member states: Thu¨ringen (Germany), Limerick (Ireland) and Merseyside (Britain). Network approaches in policy research have often been criticized for their lack of explanatory power. Adshead acknowledges this comment. She opts for an network methodology used as a neutral heuristic devise. By interviewing experts and individuals involved in the policy process in one of these cases, she gathered material to display the actor-configuration and formal institutionalization of the policy networks. In each case, she relates the specific network setting to the more general tradition of subnational or multilevel policymaking in each country. Advancing in this way, she delivers an estimation of the changes in the controlling position of central governments as indicators of integration Adshead brings four neo-functionalist criteria into play. Further integration is taken to be realized: if EU’s direct involvement in policy was facilitated by institutional development; if the behaviour of key policymakers changed in favour of integration; if the government provided continuing support for integrationist measures and if further expansive tasks were taken on that would advance the
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integration process. Referring to the displayed changes in the policy networks, Adshead estimates the level of integration in each of the selected cases. Adshead shows that the EU Objective One measures were taken up in the three countries in very different settings. In Germany, sub-national government traditionally is formally integrated in the federal system. The EU objective, demanding the development of a system of multilevel cooperation, fitted easily into the existing institutional structure of coordinated policymakin
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