ABSTRACT
The governance of territories is closely linked to the quality of democracy and public services. For this reason, various attempts have been made to reform governance arrangements in order to increase the effectiveness and quality of government policy. Recent decades in particular have witnessed key changes in the governance of territories across Europe and beyond. Many of these changes, although certainly not all of them, are linked to the rescaling of government and its functions (OECD 2001, Lidström 2007, Loughlin 2007). In some cases, policy responsibilities, sometimes together with revenue-raising capacities (but not always), have shifted downwards from central to sub-national government. In other cases, powers and responsibilities have shifted upwards to the supra-national level. Both of these directions of change (i.e. upwards and downwards) have had significant impacts for governance arrangements in Europe’s member states. Not only have specific tasks been re-allocated to different agencies and revenue allocations reformed, a wider range of actors, both governmental and nongovernmental (including the voluntary and private sector), have become involved in territorial governance arrangements. A number of other key features are associated with these new governance arrangements, including new cooperation arrangements between government bodies, more public participation in decision-making and greater emphasis on partnerships and contracts.
