Ida Musiałkowska

EU–China and EU–Brazil policy transfer in regional policy

ABSTRACT The paper investigates the European Union (EU)–Brazil and EU–China regional policy dialogues, viewed as vectors of cross-national policy transfer. Regional policy is considered as having limited transfer potential due to its inward orientation, context specificity and complexity. Yet, knowledge exchange and voluntary policy transfer have taken place between the EU and Brazil and between the EU and China since the mid-2000s. The study investigates and compares actors, motivations, mechanisms of transfer, conditioning factors and types of outcomes, shedding a light on the under-researched phenomenon of international policy transfer in regional policy.

Non-profit leadership at local level: Reflections from Central and Eastern Europe

Successful leadership in local development requires not only a vision, but good communication skills, stakeholder involvement, strategic planning and coordination and popular support via public participation. Our empirical study contributes to filling the gap in the literature about the role of non-profit leadership in urban and regional development. We study the characteristics of politicians in civil society and that of civil society’s leaders in politics as a prerequisite for successful local development. For this, we draw on the survey data of 374 local politicians from four large cities in Central Europe: Prague, Bratislava, Budapest and Poznań. The research affirms that non-profit non-governmental organisations do play an important role in local development and reveals similarities in all analysed cities, though with some variance. Local political elites are identified as engaging significantly in civil society organisations, despite low levels of general trust in these countries. About two-thirds of the local politicians who took part in the survey participate actively in civil society organisations in their respective cities but not coming from a previous non-profit non-governmental organisation employment. Not only are they active, but many of them also have positions as managers or directors, or as members of the board of directors in these organisations. Although neither membership nor leadership in non-profit non-governmental organisations appears to increase a local politician’s chance of being elected, except when those are engaged in local development or environmental issues. As spatial leadership plays an important role in the construction of new agendas and identities we have also investigated the views of local politicians on decentralisation, government service provision efficiency and the importance of several local policy topics, and found some puzzling differences across our V4 cities that possibly reflect cultural differences. Non-profit leadership in urban development is a neglected topic so far in the literature, our study adds empirical results from Central and Eastern Europe, yet there is ample room for future research.

Introduction: drawing lessons from international policy-transfer initiatives in regional and urban development and spatial planning

ABSTRACT The collection of papers in this issue brings new insights to the processes of international policy transfer and learning in the fields of regional and urban development policy, regional innovation and transit-oriented development. It explores, through the perspective of different disciplines, the motivations of actors, tangible and non-tangible outputs, the role of factors affecting the process, and the spillover effects of such process. The contributions bring new insights into what represents success and failure in policy transfer and provide valuable lessons for policy-makers facing the challenges of a fast-changing global context.

Subnational Development Policy as the Area of Common Interest Under the One Belt, One Road Initiative? The Case of Regional Policy-Making in Poland

This chapter provides an evaluation of the evolution of regional policy-making (at subnational level) in Poland, one of the 28 EU Member States, in the period from just before Poland’s entry into this organization in 2004 to the present. Areas of possible cooperation are discussed, with emphasis on decentralized cooperation and regional policy-making under the new One Belt, One Road strategy. The methods comprise analyses of legal acts, strategic documents, and evaluation reports and our own research in the field.

Eu-China and Eu-Brazil Policy Transfer and Learning in Regional Development Policy

Governments confronted with major challenges, requiring new policies of addressing the failures of pre-existing ones, often seek new ideas abroad. They engage in a dialogue with other governments to learn from their experiences and bring new solutions into their domestic contexts. Some governments and supranational bodies, such as the EU, are also keen to export their policies and norms, in order to deepen strategic relationships with third parties.