Tidying Up? 'EU'ropean Regionalisation and the Swedish 'Regional Mess'

The regional level of governance has been intensively discussed in Sweden since the 1980s. One of the reasons is that Sweden has an obvious national level of administration and an equally obvious local level of administration (with relatively independent municipalities). However, despite the debates regarding change, the county (regional/meso) administration level actually remained incoherent, meaning that the term ‘regional mess’ is frequently used to describe it. Drawing on empirical work, this article evaluates recent attempts to change regional governance in Sweden that have resulted from domestic and international (and especially ‘EU’ropean) pressures. In particular, the article focuses on the experimental reform at regional level – the development of Regional Pilot Project regions and, subsequently, the Regional Development Councils. It establishes the mix of domestic and European pressures, which produced these changes, and argues that the result has been an exacerbation, rather than a cleaning-up, of the ‘regional mess’

A ‘Europe of the Regions’ : Swedish Regions as the Undead

The ‘Europe of the Regions’ debate in the late 1980s and early 1990s influenced the current regionalization process in Sweden; regional actors used it as an argument for further decentralisation of power with a degree of success (Warleigh-Lack & Stegmann McCallion 2012). Thus one important element in any discussion around a ‘Europe of the Regions’ and its possible obsolescence is its impact not just at the EU level but also in the regionalization processes within member states. If the EU is a multi-level polity, then for a Europe of the Regions truly to be ‘obsolete’, it must be absent at each level of the polity, in each member state. This article argues that a Europe of the Regions is far from obsolete, although it may well be patchy and expressed differently, and to different degrees, in each EU state. Focusing on the case of Swedish regional actors, the paper argues that officials and politicians from this level, who participate in politics at the EU level or in the EU arena, see this participation as a win-win situation that they wish to preserve

'EU'ropeanisation : challenges to regional administration and regional policy in Sweden

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A ‘Europe of the Regions’ : Swedish Regions as the Undead

The ‘Europe of the Regions’ debate in the late 1980s and early 1990s influenced the current regionalization process in Sweden; regional actors used it as an argument for further decentralisation of power with a degree of success (Warleigh-Lack & Stegmann McCallion 2012). Thus one important element in any discussion around a ‘Europe of the Regions’ and its possible obsolescence is its impact not just at the EU level but also in the regionalization processes within member states. If the EU is a multi-level polity, then for a Europe of the Regions truly to be ‘obsolete’, it must be absent at each level of the polity, in each member state. This article argues that a Europe of the Regions is far from obsolete, although it may well be patchy and expressed differently, and to different degrees, in each EU state. Focusing on the case of Swedish regional actors, the paper argues that officials and politicians from this level, who participate in politics at the EU level or in the EU arena, see this participation as a win-win situation that they wish to preserve