Paper presented at the conference of HPS A in 2011 Judit Keller, PhD The Europeanization of sub-national governance: whom to empower in a multi-level system (the case of Hungary) Introduction The last two decades witnessed an increase in literatures analysing less tangible factors of socio-economic development(North 1991, Sen 1999,Evans-Syrett, 2007; Portes-Landolt, 1996; Sabel, 1994; Piselli, 2000, Evans 1995, 1996, 1997, Trigilia 2001, Fung-Wright 2003, etc.). As opposed to monocausal development theories 1 new approaches in economic and development sociology maintain that development is about the transformation of institutions (Schumpeter 1961, Hirschman 1958, North 1991, Sen 1999). According to these studies, development as a multidimensional concept, concerns social cohesion, equitable access to public goods and services as well as to participatory institutions in policy-making. The direction of institutional change thus becomes decisive for ensuring development; integrated forms of policy coordination that distribute authority among heterogeneous stakeholders is argued to contribute to the process fundamentally. This new dynamic understanding of development has also generated new approaches in regional development studies. More dynamic approachesgo beyond explaining successful development strategies by the presence of institutional thickness and a stock of historically inherited social capital(Evans-Syrett, 2007; Portes-Landolt, 1996; Sabel, 1994; Piselli, 2000). New discussionson sub-national development attempt to find answers to the question whether and in what ways politics and policies favour the transformation of social network relations into positive resources for development (Trigilia 2001). This literature stresses the importance of rethinking the role of the state and of external support programsin helping local actors “from above” to mobilize their resources “from below” by creating sets of institutional arrangements that favor distributed authority among stakeholders and provide positive resources for local development. This entails the empowerment of lower level state and non-state actors to have a say in developmental policy-making through “the continual negotiation and renegotiation of goals and policies” (Evans 1995, 1996, 1997). According to these literatures resilience to swiftly changing political, economic and social environment and persistence to the “embedded autonomy” of a community lies in local actors’ capacity to organize alliances in a way that accommodates heterogeneous interests and values of worth through the distribution of authority (Grabher, 2006; Stark, 1999; Grabher and Stark, 1997; Bruszt, 2000; Boltanksi- Thevenot 1991, 2006). Homogenization of the representation of public good (i.e. the capturing of developmental policy-making by particularistic interests), on the other hand, would contribute to the narrowing of the definition and options of economic development, and can decrease the adaptability and development of local economy. Harmonious development that can tackle social and geographical disparities can only be induced by policy frames that guarantee this political accountability for all stakeholders: central- and lower level state as well as non-state actors. 1 Classical, neo-classical theories of development saw development as economic growth and explained the process by tangible factors, such as investment level and industrialisation, measured by hard economic variables. 1
Paper presented at the conference of HPS A in 2011 Judit Keller, PhD The EU’s Cohesion policy and regional development regimewas since its conception defined as one that provides extended political accountability through a system of multi-level governance (MLG). The organizing principles of MLG have been partnership and integration that implied policy coordination across sectors and levels of government and the inclusion of societal actors in decision-making (Bruszt 2008). This latter principle was seen to entail distributed authority in defining the goals and means of development in a way that restrained any state or non-state actor from imposing a single definition of priorities (Bruszt 2008). Although the EU never had the latitude to directly impose the adoption of these institutional elements in governing domestic development policy and implementation, indirectly it could influence domestic balances of power between the center and periphery and between the state and civil society. Through its development programs – pre-accession support programs of Phare, SAPARD, Twinning, etc. and the Structural Funds – it has put local actors in a transnational arena where they could build coalitions and exploit the opportunity structure to make their voices heard in developmental planning and implementation (Bruszt-Vedres 2010). Without direct imposition, through external incentives and social learning, it has shaped the domestic development field by setting who has a say and what counts in developmental planning. Ongoing debates about a necessary reform and the future of the EU’s Cohesion policy (Barca Report, 2009) indicate that something went wrong – or has been since the beginning – with its capacity to overcome territorial and social disparities within the Union. The underlining goals that the Barca report (2009) enlists for a reformed Cohesion policy must be equity in social cohesion and efficiency in developmental policy implementation. Ensuring equity and efficiency at the same time can be achieved by three policy mechanisms that the Report envisages as priorities of a new Cohesion policy. These are: 1) a strengthened multi-level governance system carried out through a contractual relationship between the EU, states and regions; 2) strengthened governance by increased conditionality on the institutional framework and a system of performance monitoring to track progress in meeting targets; 3) more experimentalism and the mobilisation of local actors (Barca Report 2009). The report argues that it is the weakness and inflexibility of the institutional system that has been largely responsible for the failure of interventions. In this paper I argue that encouraging experimentation on the ground in a contractual relationship between the EU, domestic states and the local level can only bring about successful development if a “virtuous relationship”(Trigilia 2001) exists between these levels that guarantees the restraining of attitudes to collusion and rent-seeking. That is, if EU conditionality also involves the horizontal and vertical distribution of authority in developmental networks. The story of the evolution of Hungarian micro-regional governance provides an example of the negative synergies the lack of conditionality on political accountability can have on the empowerment of local state and non-state actors. While in the first half of the 1990s public institutions of the state, influenced by the principles of the EU’s multilevel governance of pre-accession support programs, helped micro-regional actors “from above” to mobilize their resources “from below” through legislation and concerted policy mechanisms, by the end of the decade the same state-level and transnational institutions strengthened hierarchical and asymmetrical relations and fostered collusive coalitions among local actors. The experimentational period of the 1990s in sub-national developmental governance came to be halted by the end of the decade with the redefinition of the Commission’s priorities in regional development policy. 2
Recommend
More recommend
