The Multi-level Governance Emerging in the Upper Adriatic Through Cross-Border Cooperation

Abstract

Drawing on fieldwork research conducted mainly between 2007 and 2013 in Italy, Slovenia and Belgium and their local/regional authorities, this chapter aims to investigate whether cross-border entities share the view of governance as a (network) multi-level mode where power and decision making are dispersed among multi-actors through negotiation processes. It will provide specific examples of the emergence of a ‘transnational’ kind of governance in the cross-border territory between Italy and Slovenia. It will analyze the relationship which links together these two states, their SNAs (Italian regions and Slovenian municipalities), and the EU level, with a view to assessing whether these states have lost some of their prerogatives, or conversely, agree to share some responsibilities with their SNAs. Furthermore, under investigation will be the kind of governance that can emerge from a scenario where a country in one context (i.e., Slovenia) and a region in another (Friuli-Venezia-Giulia as Joint Managing Authority of Interreg III and IV) come to relate to each other in managing Community Initiative Programmes and eventually aim to create an EGTC. Finally, the analysis will focus on the nature of ‘regionalism’ in post-communist and West European territories.