Abstract
The paper discusses the co-evolution of the EU mode of governance and the objectives of European Union cohesion policy. As EU integration proceeds, collective decision-making in an increasingly diverse political arena has become a central concern for research on EU governance. The literature on experimentalist governance suggests consensus-seeking deliberation and policy-experimentation as two key mechanisms to reduce the trade-off between overall policy responsiveness and democratic legitimacy. However, this paper argues that the inconsistencies which result from making cohesion policy deliver the Lisbon Agenda and EU 2020 objectives growth are a characteristic of meta-governance rather than of reflexive adaptation. These findings emerge from an analysis of the cohesion policy programming periods since 1988 and the parallel developments in European Union governance.
Highlights
The paper discusses the co-evolution of the EU mode of governance and the objectives of European Union cohesion policy
The paper has argued that both experimentalist governance and meta-governance are premised on the idea that in a world of complex interdependence and systemic uncertainty, where policy objectives cannot be established from the outset but ought to be discovered in the process of achieving them, the open-ended coordination of interests is more efficient and sustainable than any attempt to harmonise interests
Meta-governance is described as an unstable equilibrium of different coordination methods which will inevitably lead to inconsistencies and policy failure
Summary
This section investigates the link between European integration and the emergence of new modes of governance. Critics have argued that these attempts to square the circle of overall responsiveness vs democratic participation are premised on logically flawed or overly optimistic assumptions about the relationship between efficiency and inclusiveness (Peters and Pierre, 2004; Scharpf, 2002; Smismans, 2008) Speaking, their contention is that these new governance practices are characteristic of a “postpolitical” way of consensus-seeking, wherein conflicting interests are seen as a managerial rather than political challenge (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001; Metzger, Allmendinger, and Oosterlynck, 2015a; Mouffe, 2005). Making cohesion policy deliver the Lisbon Agenda and the EU 2020 strategy is expected to lead, first, to balanced growth; secondly, competitiveness gains; and thirdly, reflexive learning and incremental improvement within the existing framework
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