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Are there any improvements in governance after a decade of regional strategic planning in Croatia?

European cohesion policy has been inspiring Croatian policy makers for a decade in the attempt to prepare institutional structures for new ways of designing and implementing modern regional development policy. Emphasis has been put on the design of strategic development documents, while their implementation represents still a challenge. The authors assess a decade of modern strategic planning processes on regional level in Croatia based to a large extent on the new public management and top-down bottom-up policy discourse of the 1990ties, and the more recent advancements in regional governance theory. The attempt to introduce more advanced policy processes enriched the complexity of regional governance. Consequently, formation of national regional policy in Croatia took eight years ending with the adoption of the legal and strategic framework in May 2010. The main intention was to prepare the regional institutional structures on time for EU accession and structural and cohesion funds. All counties (NUTS 3 level) formulated and adopted three year strategic programmes based on the methodology prescribed by the Croatian ministry in charge of regional development. However, most of the regions were engaged in programming long before, either supported by EU or other international donors, or through the former Croatian Regional Development Fund. As the planning process is based on the EU partnership principle, partnership councils are established in all regions. Though the regional strategic planning documents will serve as the basis of analysis, the primary focus of research is on the planning processes on one side, and the outcomes of the implementation processes on the other. The authors question the effectiveness of the new planning approaches using quantitative development indicators and qualitative insights. The paper concludes with positive and negative aspects of the new public management culture in strategic planning processes on regional level.

EU Cohesion Policy; National Regional Policy; Strategic Planning; New Public Management; Regional Governance

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