Reorganizing Cross-Border Governance Capacity

Abstract: Different forms of regional politics and network-type coordination are present within European cross-border initiatives. The purpose of the article is to study the changing organizational configurations of interregional governance in the context of the Helsinki—Tallinn Euregio (HTE), and how these new forms of coordination influence cross-border institutional capacity and policy outcomes.The basic empirical material consists of official public documents and eight semi-structured theme interviews conducted with the key actors of the HTE in June—July 2004. `Governance capacity' is used here as a theoretical tool to understand and interpret the reorganization process of cross-border governance. The case-study about the HTE shows the possibility that governance may be practised through dynamic social networks and partly shifting territorial configurations according to interregional interests. The HTE agency creates a flexible intervention frame for the cross-border governance capacity to support regional competitiveness through the policy instruments of the European Union.There are already some results, but several challenges remain for the HTE to create additional scale effects between the Helsinki and Tallinn regions.