This book discusses and evaluates the problems of governance within the European Union's cross border regions from diversity of perspectives and over a range of selected case studies.

In North America and Europe, cross-border governance arrangements have provided formal and informal frameworks to support cross-border cooperation. Analysing how these frameworks have emerged, the ways in which they have become institutionalized, and the processes by which they change is fundamental. Moreover, these frameworks are increasingly challenged by border securitization, thus limiting or jeopardizing decades of cross-border cooperative governance and coordinated public policies. Agents and Structures in Cross-Border Governance offers a series of case studies that explore these complex dynamics. To understand a range of cross-border governance frameworks, this collection addresses such topics as infrastructure development and management, resource sharing, regional politics, economics, security, human rights, the environment, culture, and community. The book explains how cross-border governance schemes have sought to mitigate some of the negative consequences of border security policies, allowing readers to discern how concrete national power struggles between federal/national and subnational governments unfold in border areas. In a world increasingly impacted by climate change and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic, Agents and Structures in Cross-Border Governance sheds light on the ongoing complexity of cross-border governance and offers lessons to help mitigate these challenges.

This volume is concerned with entrepreneurship and economic development in EuropeÕs border regions, focusing on the effects of EU enlargement on these regions, both within the EU and in neighbouring countries. Particular attention is paid to cross-border entrepreneurial activity. Cross-border cooperation involving entrepreneurs is attracting increasing attention in Europe as EU enlargement has increased the length of its borders with the former Soviet republics. The expert contributors highlight that border regions tend to be economically disadvantaged as a result of their peripherality, which means that cross-border cooperation for business purposes represents a potential development tool. This groundbreaking book contains an empirical evidence base drawn from regions in EU member states and the Newly Independent States, as well as providing a conceptual base for informed policy development. This insightful book will prove invaluable for academics and students of entrepreneurship, economics, development and European studies.

Border regions in Central Europe undergo tremendous changes due to the enlargement of the European Union and the related processes of Europeanization, bordering and re-bordering. The book explores the consequences of these processes for cross-border governance and spatial planning in Central Europe. It combines analyses of European and national framework conditions with case studies from border regions and cities in 8 countries. The focus is on generic questions of cross-border planning and cooperation as well as on selected sectors such as nature conservation, transport and economic development. The book is written for the international scientific community and for practitioners in the fields of spatial planning, cross-border cooperation, environmental protection and structural policy.

The implementation of the Association Agreement (AA), including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), between the EU and Ukraine has brought about a qualitatively new situation in the development of border regions and regional societies on both sides of the Schengen border. This volume’s comparative study of the impacts of the AA and the DCFTA on borderlands in Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania will contribute to the identification of new opportunities for cross-border cooperation and policy considerations for its further development.

The 2004 entry of 10 Central and Eastern European countries, along with Malta and Cyprus, into the EU has caused a huge shift in the EU's external boundaries. The socio-economic and political transformations that this shift has caused not only suggest new regional development opportunities, but also many potential problems and tensions. While the EU insists that enlargement will not signify 'new divisions', processes of inclusion and exclusion and the imposition of visa restrictions on non-EU citizens could pose obstacles to co-operation, conjuring fears of an emerging 'fortress Europe' that effectively divides the continent. Illustrated with case studies from Central and Eastern European border areas, this book examines capacities for region building across national borders in within the context of EU enlargement, synthesizing the various insights provided by local information and suggesting ways forward for the future development of the EU's 'Wider Europe' strategy.

This book explores the nature of regions and how they function, particularly at the local and micro-level. Whilst recent years have seen a resurgence in debates around the roles which regions can play in development, the focus has tended to be on 'macro' regional institutions such as the EU, ASEAN, ECOWAS or MERCOSUR. In contrast, this book offers a nuanced analysis of the important field of sub-regionalism and sub-national cross-border cooperation. Region-Making and Cross-Border Cooperation takes a fresh look at both theoretical and empirical approaches to ‘region-making’ through cooperation activities at the micro-level across national borders in Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The book aims to explore the role that institutional dynamics play at the micro-level in shaping local and global ties, investigate what the formal and informal integration factors are that bolster regionalism and regionalization processes, and to clarify to what extent, and under what conditions, cooperation at the micro-level can be instrumental to solving common problems. Scholars and students within politics, sociology, geography, and economics would find this book an important guide to regionalism at a micro-local level perspective.

European macro-regions, Euroregions and other forms of inter-regional, cross-border cooperation have helped to shape new scenarios and new relational spaces which may generate opportunities for economic development, while redefining the political and economic meaning of national borders. This book is based on a number of key case studies which are crucial to understanding the complex web of political, economic and cultural factors that shape the heterogeneous picture of Europe’s new geography. This book provides a fresh view on this phenomenon, with a realistic approach shedding light on its complexity as well as on its ambiguities. The new macro-regions are interpreted with an approach recognizing the importance of institutionalization, but also their flexible configuration and "blurred" borders. The book also raises the issue of credibility and legitimacy, arguing that inter-regional cooperation has to be removed from the foggy realm of the exchanges between local political and bureaucratic elites in order to be clearly and concretely motivated, and functional to key strategic objectives of the regions. Finally, the authors suggest a complementarity between relations based on proximity and wider (possibly global) networks where some territories, and especially metropolises, find opportunities based on "virtual" proximity. Europe's Changing Geography provides a substantial re-appraisal of a key phenomenon in the process of European integration today. It will be of interest both to scholars of the political economy of European regionalism and to practitioners.

This book introduces a comprehensive and updated analysis of the role of public policies to promote territorial cohesion processes and trends in a given territory. By being the first book taking a reflective and holistic approach on how public policies can lead to more cohesive and balanced territories, it advances theoretical avenues for academics and showcases current academic research to policymakers and practitioners by focusing on how public policies, being implemented in different territorial scales (urban, local, regional, national, and European), can actively contribute to foster territorial cohesion trends in a given territory. This reflective approach provides an opportunity for thinking about what lessons can be learned from past and ongoing experiences and how they can improve future implementation of public policies more effectively and efficiently toward territorial cohesion, since all existing analyses show that at the national level, no European country has achieved territorial cohesion trends over the past decades. As such, this book acts as a valid and useful policy manual that effectively contributes to inverting current territorial exclusion trends at the national level, by highlighting best policy practices and a comprehensive introduction to contemporary thinking about how public policies can play a decisive role in boosting territorial cohesion processes in a given territory.

This book fills an existing academic literature gap by providing a sound and synthetic analysis on the process of European Territorial Cooperation over the last 30 years. This follows from the support from the former EU INTERREG Community Initiative, since 1989, later transformed into the second main goal of EU Cohesion Policy, by 2007: European Territorial Cooperation - ECT. In order to present the ECT process in a more comprehensive manner, and to be the main literature reference regarding this process in the decades to come, this book is divided into four different sections and 12 chapters. The first section summarizes the main impacts and added-value from ETC experiences while proposing the elevation of the ETC goals within EU Cohesion Policies. The second section addresses the process of cross-border cooperation, and namely its impact in reducing border obstacles and supporting ever growing number of cross-border entities. The third section elaborates on the second most important ETC process (transnational cooperation) with a similar approach. Finally, a last section debates the future scenarios for this process in Europe.