"Labour, Globalisation and The New Economy" - rldwl

Workshop 4
Intermediate Structures and Regional Development in Central and Eastern Europe
Chairman: Wolfgang Potratz
Concerning regional development (industrial, labour market, social) CEE-countries find themselves in a
contradictive situation: should they put their stakes on reducing internal regional disparities or should they
better promote the development of regions with a potential for further growth? The second problem is how to
organize this process: with the dissolution of the old system a deep mistrust towards all central and collective
instutions has grown and readily all promises of a "liberalized" economy, deregulation and decentralization
have been taken up; on the other hand (hard) experience has taught of the necessity of some new kind of
organized and structured collective action, institutions and regulation. But what are the adequate structures,
processes and strategies? What is the proper balance of competition and cooperation between (political,
social, economic) actors, between central and regional levels, governmental and non-governmental bodies?
So far, (institutional) reforms in CEE have mostly focused on local self-government and on reforms of
central government, but regional political-administrative bodies in between still have remained something
like a missing link in the reforms of those countries. The situation still is marked by a whole set of problems:
lack of consistent and long-term policy-approaches (unrealistic expectations for quick solutions), weak and
inexperienced regional development 'agents' at national and regional level, lack of experience in
implementing regional development programmes (on the national/regional level), unsatisfactory coordination
between actors and policy fields, insufficient regional and local initiative and activity; shortage of reliable
data and statistics and evaluation procedures etc. - in sum, the task ahead still is to rearrange regional
governance structures with the aim of both regional accountability and efficiency.
The answer of a number of countries has been to set up tripartite structures, very often inspired by German
and Scandinavian examples - however without overcoming the basic problems described above. The
situation is aggravated by the dawn of a "new economy" (or at least "new" forms of economic activities),
which seems to launch just another round of economic and social structural change and adapation.
The workshop shall take up these issues in a comparative manner. The focus shall be on the structural logic
and institutional character of solutions and their respective contribution to regional development. The lesson
to be learned might be a better understanding and assessment of the chances and prerequisites of
decentralized (?) regional development in transition countries surrounded by a globalizing economy.
It is suggested to organize the workshop in three parts with a number of sub-themes, which are given below
in the form of questions, which should be addressed. However, they should not be understood as definitive
and final; additional proposals or variations are welcome.
Themes:
1. State of the art: contradictions adjourned or straightened out?
what is the state of institutions/ institution building in the regions,
how do they relate to central level institutions and to local self-government,
how are they embedded in the economic and societal framework/fabric of the regions,
what is their role/function in regional development and how do they fit in overall governance
structures?
2. Strategies and processes of regional development: intermediate institutions at the interface of
expectations and socio-economic reality
what is the logic of regional development strategies (balance of disparities/growth?),
how do regional (intermediate) bodies fit into these strategies and what is their contribution,
how do they use their room for manoevre, and what for,
what is the relationship between cooperation, competition and conflict, and what about accountability
and efficiency,
how do regional strategies relate to overall national development strategies and how are they
coordinated?
12 - 14 May 2002