ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the practice and quality of partnership in Spain and Slovakia, with the aim of inferring which mode of participatory policymaking has proved the most conducive to successful SF outputs. To understand the impact partnership arrangements had on the implementation of European funding, the analysis focuses on the purpose and institutionalization of collaborative modes of governance, as well as the political and technocratic motivation to recruit the most competent partners. The governance literature presents partnership either as a tool for accessing knowledge and expertise of a wide array of actors, or as a highly political instrument with the faculty to empower disenfranchised groups and improve the democratic workings of the state. Hence, despite the progressing decentralization and consolidation of multi-level governance in the sphere of cohesion policy, government officers still hold the power to arbitrarily open or close participatory spaces and give importance to social interests and the claims made by them.
