From EU Structural Funds to Levelling Up: Empty signifiers, ungrounded statism and English regional policy

Abstract

This paper argues that EU structural policy administered through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) had a relatively limited impact in addressing competitiveness and productivity weaknesses in the English regions due to the emphasis on supply-side policies and deficiencies within the institutional framework for governing economic development. By analysing projects supported by the ERDF and the ESF in England from 2007 to 2013, we demonstrate that funding was used to shape self-organising networks of private and public sector actors, notably local councils, to encourage the development of entrepreneurship, research and development, the creative industries, transport services, and universities and educational providers. In the absence of an overarching strategic vision, and given long-standing socio-economic and political weaknesses, the effect of EU structural funding on the English regions was nonetheless marginal at best. Our case-study highlights that England’s path-dependent and ungrounded statism combined with a neoliberal supply-side logic Structural Funds to create an empty signifier of regional development that failed to adequately respond to the structural needs of less affluent regions. Meanwhile, the post-Brexit approach to regional development, namely the levelling up agenda, represents a continuation of this empty signifier rather than a significant break with the past.