Naslov
Regional Governance in Croatia’ s New European Regions

Autori
Đokić, Irena ; Sumpor, Marijana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u zbornicima skupova, cjeloviti rad (in extenso), znanstveni

Izvornik
Bridging The Divide: Celebrating The City / Hibbard, Michael ; Ache, Peter ; Davoudi, Simin ; Winkle, Curt ; Jaffee, Martin - Chicago (IL) : University of Illinois at Chicago, 2008

Skup
Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) and Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), Fourth Joint Congress

Mjesto i datum
Chicago (IL), Sjedinjene Američke Države, 06.07.2008. - 11.07.2008

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Regions; European regional policy; governance; institutions; EU accession

Sažetak
The focus of this paper is on understanding regional governance and new institutional relations and local responses to European regional policy requirements that are being imposed upon existing and future members of the European Union (EU). The EU accession process has political, economic and social implications, and involves significant changes. Croatia as an EU candidate country is an interesting example for analysis. Croatia is geographically, historically and culturally a part of the European territory. Regions, as specific units within a national territory, are defined differently on EU level than in Croatia, where counties are far too small to be considered as regions in EU terms. The implementation of European regional policy requires “ comparability” of territories, which is done on the basis of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS). After long discussions with the European Commission and Eurostat, Croatia has three “ new” NUTS II regions (March, 2007): Adriatic, North-Eastern (Pannonian) and North-Western Croatia including the capital city of Zagreb. These regions are now acceptable for EU regional policy and funds. The main problem of Croatian regional policy, which will be discussed here, is that there are no institutional structures for managing regional development on this new regional level, as well as legislative framework necessary to implement policies, strategies, plans or projects prepared at the respective levels. While at the same time very interesting developments from the bottom-up can be observed. Regional development agencies established by the counties (i.e. regional self-governments) initiate development processes without a formal legal and institutional framework on this new regional level. The empirical description of the complexity of relations between the existing institutions and the new institutional requirements of regional policy in Croatia will be enriched by a review of contemporary regional development, planning and governance theory. In this way empirical and theoretical insights will contribute further to confirming the main idea of the paper, which is based on the thought that regional development has to evolve from the bottom, but the initial push or supporting incentives have to come from above. Here we speak of a mutually enhancing development process, where efforts from above (EU and national level) and bellow (regions, counties, and local units) merge and contribute to overall development.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Ekonomija

POVEZANOST RADA