Europeanization of Subnational Polities: the Impact of Domestic Factors on Regional Adaptation to European Integration

Abstract:

This paper considers how subnational entities adapt under the pressure of European integration. In particular, the article looks at whether the combined institutional mechanisms of goodness-of-fit and mediating domestic factors offer sufficient understanding of adaptational behaviour by regions of member states.

Empirical data come from the transposition of an environmental directive and an agriculture regulation in Flanders. It is argued that formal institutions and resources, on the one hand, and norm entrepreneurs and issue salience, on the other, pop up as crucial domestic variables to explain regional adaptation to European integration, meaning that variables from both rational choice and sociological institutionalism offer explanations for the Europeanization of regional entities.