The regionalization process in Poland: an example of ‘shallow’ Europeanization?

Article is part of a special issue entitled 'Learning from abroad: Regionalization and local institutional infrastructure in cohesion and accession countries'.

Abstract:

This article focuses on the attempts towards regionalization in Poland in light of the increasing Europeanization of regional policy-making. It attempts to evaluate in a comprehensive way the learning capacity of the domestic regional policy network, by concentrating on the structure of the state and the centre-periphery relations, the presence of important veto points and resistance to change, the level of social capital and cooperative culture, and the role of non-state actors, namely the private sector, experts and NGOs in the policy process. The article points to the importance of socio-cultural traditions at the territorial level for the shaping of Poland's regional policy-making structures, while simultaneously assessing the impact of EU structural policy rules on facilitating or inhibiting this process. The Lodz region has been chosen for fieldwork research to assess the learning capacity of the domestic policy network.