Structure, tools, discourse and practices: a multidimensional comparative approach to EU territorial governance

The concept of "EU territorial governance" has been recently adopted by planners and decision-makers to indicate the occurrence of a complex, multifaceted and largely undefined process of spatial planning and development activities guided, at various levels, in the European Union's institutional context. Building on a EU territorial governance conceptual framework elaborated by the authors in previous work, which individuates the specific „channels‟ of interaction that convey change in European countries, on the one hand, and institutional progress at the EU level, on the other hand, the contribution aims to shed some light on the differential impact exerted by such channels as they manifests in relation to different Member States domestic contexts. It does so by adopting three different national contexts as case studies, representative of as many „ideal types‟ of planning system traditions existing in Europe - namely , „comprehensive integrated‟ (Germany), „urbanism‟ (Italy), plus a supposed „Central and Eastern European socialist transition‟ type (Poland) - and providing a comparative analysis of the elements that, in relation to each of them, influence the evolution of European spatial planning and spatial planning domestic contexts within the complex framework of EU territorial governanc

European Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning Practices

Territorial governance is an extremely heterogeneous activity. Each European country is characterised by a complex system of legal acts, tools, discourses and practices that had consolidated through time, as a consequence of peculiar path-dependent processes. At the same time, since more than 30 years the European Union is developing territorially relevant actions and interventions, ultimately aiming at achieving the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the continent. The mutual relations entangling domestic and supranational territorial governance remain unclear: on the one hand, the European Union is required to produce a framework for delivering its policies that is flexible enough to accommodate domestic differences; on the other hand, domestic territorial governance and spatial planning systems should adapt in order to allow room for cross-fertilization with supranational interventions. This contribution builds on the evidence collected by the research project ESPON COMPASS to frame and explore this issue. In doing so, it serves as an introduction for this special issue that, in the following contributions, presents a number of concrete examples of interaction between EU spatial policies and domestic territorial governance and spatial planning

Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning in the Western Balkans between Transition, European Integration and Path-Dependency

The article inquiries into the evolution of territorial governance and spatial planning systems of the Western Balkan region, since 1989. More in details, it takes a close look at the cases of Croatia, Albania and Bosnia Herzegovina. The authors shed light on the impact of the transition period and, in particular, on the consequences that the shift from a centralized economic and administrative model to free market rules had over spatial planning legislation and practice. Similarly, they focus their attention on the various modes of Europeanization triggered by the EU pre-accession process and reflect upon the different integration phases that the aforementioned countries are going through. Through these interpretative lenses, the contribution aims at sketching out the specific spatial planning systems’ patterns of change that characterize the selected countries

Spatial Planning in the Balkans between Transition, European Integration and Path-dependency

The proposed article aims at inquiring into the evolution of territorial governance and spatial planning systems of the Balkan region, since 1989. The first part sheds some light on the impact of the transition period and, in particular, on the consequences that the shift from a centralized economic and administrative model to a decentralized model based on free market rules had over spatial planning legislation and practice The second part focuses on European integration and on the Europeanization processes triggered by those policies undertaken by the EU during the pre-accession period, in relation to the different integration steps that the aforementioned countries had to go through. Finally, the last part explores more in details the role of the various actors that were/are involved in the process that led to the development of new spatial planning systems in the selected countries, their capability to influence the spatial planning systems’ patterns of change and the channels through which this influence was delivered

CHANGING INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SPATIAL PLANNING IN THE WESTERN BALKAN REGION. EVIDENCES FROM ALBANIA, BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA AND CROATIA

The contribution aims at providing a preliminary insight on the evolution of the institutional framework for spatial planning in the Western Balkan Region since 1989. It does so by proposing a conceptualization of spatial planning domestic contexts as dynamic objects subject to continuous change, and by identifying the main driving forces that contribute to shaping their patterns of change in the geographical area at stake: (i) domestic transition from a centrally planned economic model to a decentralized model based on free market rules, (ii) process of European integration and the Europeanization mechanisms triggered by the latter. On this basis, the authors explore the territorial administration reforms and evolution of spatial planning legislation specific for Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia in the last 25 years in more detail manner, highlighting and discussing both similarities and differences

A conceptual device for spreading (good) territorial governance in Europe

Is it possible to spread good territorial governance in Europe and, if so, in which ways can such aim be achieved? This paper presents a conceptual device, developed within the ESPON project TANGO (Territorial Approaches for New Governance), usable to manage the spread of examples or "features" of good territorial governance in Europe. It is worth clarifying that this paper does not face the issues of defining what is "good" in territorial governance, nor of what can or should be transferred in this complex domain; problems thatthe aforementioned research project has also met. It focuses rather on modalities of transfer, particularly on "paths and means" through which (good) territorial governance might pass from one place to another or others, and on their major strengths and weaknesses. In order to achieve this aim vis-à-vis the well-known complexities of policy transfer (see, amongst others: Dolowitz & Marsh 1996, 2000; James & Lodge 2003), the proposed framework builds on the authors' previous reflections about Europeanization of territorial governance (Cotella & Janin Rivolin 2010). This approach welcomes the assumption that, for institutional matters, policy transfer in the European Union (EU) and Europeanization are arguably two sides of the same coin (Wishlade et al. 2003).The EU is indeed an institutional context in which «the apparatus of policy diffusion and development has transnationalised in such a profound and irreversible way as to render anachronistic the notion of independent, "domestic" decision-making» (Peck 2011: 774). The institutional nature of territorial governance and of its changing is thus a fixed point of the proposed conceptual device: therefore, whereas potentially generalisable and adaptable to other institutional contexts, its application is here tailored on the EU's contex