The Europeanisation of regional policy in Poland: did political parties make a difference?

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the European Union (EU) and the policy preferences of parties in government for the Europeanisation of regional policy in Poland. While the importance of the EU is undeniable, the role of political parties is unexplored in the literature. This paper presents a more nuanced approach to the study of policy preferences than the partisan theory proposes. It focuses on strategic origins of policy preferences which dominate in the case of win-win policies such as EU regional policy which is about economic gains for beneficiaries of EU structural and cohesion funds. In this policy case, preferences of domestic political parties have converged towards securing EU funding. The partisan effects on policy outputs are thus less visible in the post-accession stage.