Regional development agencies in Europe

Regional Development Agencies in Europe
This volume brings together papers presented at two conferences on 'Regional Development Agencies in Europe' held in Gothenburg, Sweden in May 1995 and in Aalborg, Denmark in August 1996. These meetings focused on applied studies of the work of regional development agencies in Europe. Based on an analytical framework developed by Haulkier and Danson (1995) for exploring RDAs in Europe this volume has contributions from all parts of Europe and on the key issues of institutions, governance, and accountability, public-private partnerships, policies and evaluation.

The volume is in seven parts. The first part offers an update of previous surveys of development agencies dating from the early 1980s but also represents a considerable broadening of analytical breadth and geographical coverage. The second part is on regional development agencies in Western Europe, expanding on this survey; three national cases of Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark are covered with their different planning, economic and institutional regimes. Part three describes the position in Central and Eastern Europe, tracing the introduction, application and development of this model of regional economic regeneration and restructuring in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Part four focuses on RDAs, regional governance and accountability, and discusses the evolving role of and debate over the position of development agencies within their regional political setting. The fifth part explores RDAs and public-private partnership. Part six returns to the themes of policies and evaluation and the final part on perspectives pulls together the current and future issues identified through the chapters and the research network regarding the continuing evolution of regional development agencies.

The book is aimed at practitioners, academics and policy-makers.