Introduction: Regional Governance, Institutional Change and Regional Development

Europe is currently experiencing two parallel developments: the increasing political importance of the regional level and the proliferation of regionally-based initiatives in economic promotion and development. Both have important consequences for the distribution of the institutionalised capacity which has been established to take and influence decisions with regard to the long-term future and development of a particular locality: in short, for the patterns of regional governance. This chapter offers an insight into the relevant literature on developments in institutional and governance theory. It identifies and interprets the issues and different perspectives brought to recent debates by a range of disciplines, including economics, organisational development, politics and geography. The chapter describes the structure of the different sections on 'partnership and regional development', 'networking and regional governance' and 'regional development and multi-level governance'. A corollary, of course, is that no one discipline or approach has been adopted universally to explain the development of governance and institutions within or between countries.