institutional Capacity: A Precondition or a Product of Effective Policy Performance? Evidence from Cohesion Policy in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper aims to inform debate in the institutionalist literature concerning the performance of Cohesion policy. There are arguments that specific institutional endowments facilitate policy performance. Equally, institutions can have a negative influence on policy performance as a result of, e.g. excessive bureaucracy, institutional lock-in etc. At the same time, development policy can itself improve implementation capacity. Increasingly, Cohesion policy aims to strengthen institutional capacities so that they are better able to fulfil their mandates and contribute to the achievement of cohesion goals. Intuitionalist explanations must, therefore address issues of causality, interaction and complexity: is institutional capacity a precondition or a product of effective Cohesion policy performance? This relationship is explored in case studies of three Central and East European (CEE) CP programmes implemented in Estonia, Poland and Slovakia in the period 2007-13. CEE cases provide important examples. The EU and CP is credited with shaping and strengthening regional policy institutions in CEE, viewed as influential due to the absence of robust regional policy traditions. Conversely, research has identified how institutional weaknesses in CEE conditions CP performance. Moreover, the literature argues that institutional factors constrain policy performance when the difference between an existing policy paradigm and a potential replacement is significant. These factors are present in the case of CP in CEE where the tensions between the traditional, equity-based regional policy paradigm and Lisbon and Europe 2020 agendas that emphasise economic competitiveness are striking. Thus, assessing the relationship between CP performance and institutional capacity in CEE provides insights on the former’s impact on cohesion while contributing to conceptual and methodological debates in the institutionalist literature. The paper is based on recent research carried out under the FP7 project GRINCOH.