Changing public policy: The role of the regions. Education and environmental policy in Belgium

Book abstract:

Regionalism. Is it a new political force or merely a token acknowledgement by central government that some power can be devolved to the regional level without endangering the power base at the centre? What evidence is there to sustain either of these viewpoints? The author's ambition with this work is to tackle this question and to discern whether or not policy change has taken place since regionalisation.

The book is organised over six chapters. The first chapter is analytical and provides the foundations and propositions for explaining policy change, with particular emphasis given to the risks and difficulties in moving away from distributive logic and its consequent power plays by concentrated interest groups. The study is nation specific - centred upon the Belgian substate entities of the Flemish and French Communities - but is considered to have lessons for a wider application of regional policy making in Europe. Chapters two to four address education policy in both Communities. Chapter two concentrates on the national policy legacy and the consequent constraints on regional policy making. It is difficult in the early stages of regionalisation to do other than follow the national policies as they might apply to the region, but over time the regional actors will form a regional policy viewpoint. This aspect and the impact on education is addressed in chapters three and four which examine the organisation of education delivery and the quality control of schools. Environmental regulation of the agricultural sector and the development of regional policies since the end of the 1980's in Flanders is discussed in chapter five. The final chapter presents a comprehensive summary of the evidence and arguments put forward in the previous chapters. It provides a comparison of policy change without coming to a single conclusion as to the future efficacy or direction of regionalism. The reader is left to decide for oneself as to how much the new regional actors are anchored in their past social and political divisions. Nevertheless the work presents a worthwhile contribution to a better understanding of the future role and influence of regional government in the European Union.

The book will interest students, academics, researchers and policy makers in the fields of European Studies, public administration, social sciences and economics.