Regional Policy and Decentralization in the Czech Republic

Abstract

EU accession has had an ambiguous impact on regionalization in the Czech Republic. While EU membership necessitated the creation of regional administrative structures to manage the Structural Funds, the role of new regional authorities was often undermined by the centralized nature of the accession process itself. Developments since accession have created a new dynamic in the debate over regional policy and regionalization in the Czech Republic, however. Most significant are the increased political importance of the new regions and changes in partisan attitudes about regionalization. The impact of these developments is evident in the debate over regional policy planning for 2007-2103. Thus, despite its limited initial impact, EU accession has created the structural potential for increased regionalization in the Czech Republic which has been actualized by the changing constellation of political forces and altered preferences of key political actors in the country.

Policy work at the sub‐national level: Analytical styles of Canadian and Czech directors and managers

“…That both have university degrees suggests that Czech managers are university graduates with lower practical experience. Their arrival into managerial positions might reflect strategies to diversify and strengthen human resource capacities to manage agendas or might be associated with project-based funding aimed at reducing regional disparities and provided by European Union Structural Funds (Ferry and Mcmaster 2005;Baun and Marek 2006). Such dayto-day management of EU projects may require formal education in Note: If the question wording differed for Canadian and Czech sources of information, both options are stated with CAN or CZE abbreviations respectively.…”

Europeanization - Fashionable Notion or Inspiring Conceptual Frames?

“…• state institutions • domestic policies of the MS • parties, party system and political representation in the MS • territorial entities (especially regional and cities) A few years before the biggest EU extension ever (2004) the attention of the Europeanization students was drawn to the new MS (Baun, 2002;Ferry, McMaster, 2005;Baun, Marek, 2006), which were expected to pose a new, fascinating fi eld for empirical research. From the Polish perspective, the rich tradition of Europeanization offers an inspiring and promising conceptual frames for the studies on the infl uence that the EU membership exerts on the domestic structures and practices.…”

Regionalisierung und Dezentralisierung in Mittel- und Südosteuropa 1997–2007

“…Daher verlieren die Fragen der subnationalen Institutionenbildung, welche die Regionalisierungsdebatte in den 1990er Jahren dominiert haben, an Bedeutung. Stattdessen interessieren sich Regionalisierungs-und Dezentralisierungsforscher stärker für die Implikationen subnationaler Beteiligung an der nationalen und europäischen Politikgestaltung (Baun/Marek 2006;Bauer 2004;Ferry 2007;Scherpereel 2007). Dieses im Entstehen begriffene Forschungsprogramm ist daher am besten als subnationaler Ableger der Governance-Debatte zu verstehen.…”

“…Fallstudien zur Tschechischen Republik oder zu Polen zeigen beispielsweise, dass der Dialog zwischen der subnationalen und der nationalen Ebene in Bezug auf regionale Mitwirkung intensiviert wurde und dass die subnationale Ebene insgesamt an Einfluss im innerstaatlichen Kontext gewonnen hat (Baun/Marek 2006;Scherpereel 2007). Die tschechischen und polnischen Erfahrungen können indes nicht vorbehaltlos auf alle mittel-und südosteu-ropäischen Länder übertragen werden.…”

“…Daher sind Aussagen über vorherrschende Forschungsdesigns naturgemäß vorläufig. Qualitativ hochwertige Studien scheinen aber an Strategien der disziplinierten Fallstudienvergleiche, wie sie insbesondere von den Konditionalitätsforschern entwickelt wurden, anzuknüpfen (Baun/ Marek 2006;Ferry 2007;Scherpereel 2007). Eine Zusammenschau der zentralen Aussagen über die drei Forschungsprogramme gibt die folgende Tabelle.…”