Participatory Governance In The Europe Of Cross Border Regions

This policy analysis examines geopolitical and sociocultural bordering practices in Europe's cross-border regions and their impact on civil society participation and governance in state peripheries. The normative hope of democratisation and the legitimisation of European politics in European Union border regions are connected with a greater degree of cross-border citizen engagement in Euroregional institutions and politics. Using the example of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation, this study analyses and compares four cross-border Euroregional case studies: Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino, Galicia-North Portugal, SaarMoselle and the planned German-Polish TransOderana EGTC.

The "deepening and widening" of the EU has thrown its changing internal and external borders into sharp relief. This work demonstrates that borders are key spaces within which issues such as identity, memory and trust, and communication between states continue to be played out and transformed.

Während der Governance-Begriff wissenschaftlich als konsolidiert gelten dürfte, gibt es Probleme bei der praktischen Umsetzung der mit ihm verbundenen Idee. Das englischsprachige Buch misst einige der im "Whitebook on Governance" der EU-Kommission angesprochenen Problemfelder aus und trägt so zur Operationalisierung des Begriffes bei.

This volume attempts to draw debates on governance, at both of these levels, into spaces of cross-border regionalism in Europe today. Embodying both supra-national and sub-national dynamics of contemporary forms of governance, cross-border regions (or euregions) enable observation of the fitful progress and contradictions of the multilevel polity that is contemporary Europe. Including case studies from throughout the EU as exemplars of specific "border regimes", the volume identifies the practical and theoretical importance of governing in Europe's new cross-border territories as part of a newly reinvigorated 'regional question'. In Europe's euregions, it is argued, issues of democracy, identity, sovereignty, citizenship and scale must be rethought, when a border runs through it. This book utilises a diversity of perspectives and a range of selected case studies to examine modes of governance emerging across the nation-state borders of Europe. It will interest students and researchers of European Union borders.

Highlights some of the problems involved in the integration of regional, national, and supranational levels of governance in the European Union.

An empirical assessment of whether participatory governance reforms within the EU enhance or endanger democracy. Many consider allowing civil society to take an active role in EU policy-making to offer the most effective means of enhancing democracy in the EU, whereas others argue that such attempts deepen the EU's democratic deficit.

The book addresses theoretically and empirically the question under what conditions innovative and sustainable policies can be achieved through participatory governance.