Variable Geometry, Multilevel Governance: European Integration and Subnational Government in the New Millennium

Abstract

Abstract The creation of the European Union, and the associated process of economic, political, and social integration that has accompanied it, has changed the nature of nation state and subnational politics as it had been known for at least two centuries. This chapter starts by reviewing three of the models that have been used to conceptualize the different ways in which EU integration has occurred . The state-centred, supranational and multilevel governance models. Next it offers a conceptualization of Europeanization. In the following three sections (Subnational Government in the EU Context; EU Regional Policy and Subnational Government; and The Operation of EU Regional Policy) it goes on to evaluate some of the changes that have occurred, which have resulted particularly in changing forms of subnational politics within the European Union. Most specifically it examines the extent to which the essential distinction between northern and southern European styles of local politics is being undermined by the process of European integration and policy Europeanization. The chapter concludes by evaluating the extent to which ideas such as variable geometry and multilevel governance remain useful concepts in aiding understanding of the processes of change through which EU territorial politics are currently passing.

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