European Regions and the Crisis: A Comparative Framework

Taking as its starting point the impact of the economic crisis from 2008 on modes of territorial governance in Europe, this special issue identifies the processes of convergence and divergence in Europe’s regions in a period of economic crisis and political reconfiguration. Defining a typology known as the states of convergence, this article introduces the impact of the credit crunch and budgetary and sovereign debt crises on regions in Germany, Spain, France, the UK and Belgium. Introducing rich new qualitative data, the articles in this special issue address an apparent paradox: one of an ongoing process of decentralization, co-existing with a tightening of the instruments of European and central/federal-level steering and a narrowing of substantive outcomes in terms of regional public policy. This process has been strengthened by the economic crisis since 2008. Collectively, the articles in this special issue thereby introduce new ways of studying multilevel governance by focusing on the unexpected consequences of multilevel decisions on what remains essentially an endogenous process of decentralization.