Adapting to EU Multi-Level Governance: Regional and Environmental Policies in Cohesion and CEE Countries

The main theme of this book is the adaptation process of the new EU member states from Central-Eastern Europe (Hungary and Poland) to the multi-level system of governance in public policy, particularly in the regional and environmental policy areas. The work conceptualizes policy learning and institutional and policy adaptation within the EU system of governance and draws lessons from the experience of previous waves of enlargement-cohesion-countries (Ireland, Portugal and Greece). In doing so, the book makes an important contribution to the literature on the transformation of domestic policy-making structures, as a result of the increasing Europeanization of public policy, as well as on the conceptual tools, explanatory variables and mechanisms determining this process.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Theoretical Framework and Methodological Approach: EU enlargement and multi-level governance in European public policy-making: actors, institutions and learning, Christos J. Paraskevopoulos. Domestic Governance Structures in Regional and Environmental Policies: National Case Studies: Multi-level governance versus state centralization in Greece, Leeda Demetropoulou, Panagiotis Getimis and Markantonis Vasilis; The challenge of multi-level governance and Europeanization in Ireland, Nicholas Rees, Bríd Quinn and Bernadette Connaughton; Portugal: domestic patterns of governance, societal forces and the limits of Europeanization, Helena Rato, João Salis Gomes and Miguel Rodrígues; Governance in regional and environmental policies in Hungary: challenges of Europeanization and adaptation, Péter Futó, Ilona Pálné Kovács and Tamás Fleischer; Between institutional legacies and the challenges of Europeanization: governance and learning in regional and environmental policies in Poland, Aleksandra Jewtuchowicz and Malgorzata Czernielewska-Rutkowska. Europeanization of Regional and Environmental Policies and Domestic Policy Change: Comparative Perspectives: Europeanization of policy-making and domestic governance structures in regional policy: cohesion and CEE countries, Nicholas Rees and Christos J. Paraskevopoulos; Europeanization of policy-making and domestic governance structures in environmental (waste management) policy: cohesion and CEE countries, Markantonis Vasillis, Panagiotis Getimis and Christos J. Paraskevopoulos. Coping With Multi-level Governance: Policy Implications: Coping with multi-level governance: patterns of learning and adaptation in public policy-making in cohesion and CEE countries, Christos J. Paraskevopoulos. Conclusions: Domestic governance structures and policy learning East and West: the limits of Europeanization, Panagiotis Getimis, Christos J. Paraskevopoulos and Nicholas Rees; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Christos Paraskevopoulos is Research Officer in the Department of European Institute at the London School of Economics, UK. Panagiotis Getimis is Professor at Panteion University, Athens, Greece. Nicholas Rees is Professor at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

Review :
’Anyone interested in patterns of institutional change and policy learning in the new EU member states will be stimulated by reading this book. The contributions in this volume are based on a commonly adapted neo-institutionalist approach and present a multitude of well-structured research findings from Greece, Ireland and Portugal as examples of the cohesion countries, as well as Hungary and Poland as examples of the new accession countries.’ Professor Dr Hubert Heinelt, Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany ’Europeanization is a slow, complex and varied process. There are many interesting lessons to be learned from the experience of earlier members of the EU for those who have more recently joined. This book does so successfully, and it digs below the institutional surface: a valuable contribution to our understanding of the adaptation process of new member states.’ Loukas Tsoukalis, University of Athens, Greece ’There is a solid theoretical and methodological framework in place that has effectively bound together the research carried out by several scholars in five different countries regarding two different policies...The national case studies have been compiled in a truly comparative manner, which makes it easy to compare and contrast them...this is an interesting and well-researched piece of work...’ Political Studies Review