Linking 'Dots' in 'Squares': Comparing Partnerships Between Public and Non-Public Actors in the Implementation of EU Cohesion Policy

The introduced ‘partnership principle’ guiding the realization of cohesion policy (CP) was a piece of the bigger puzzle put together in 1988 to conceive the shift in the policy paradigm and the overall governance architecture of EU. Two decades passed and the evidence is widely scattered among countries, and even more between regions, on what concerns partnership implementation, factors which contribute or obstruct its realization and the spillover effects. Theoretical and normative flaws characterize the research on partnership in CP. On one side, the dominant multi-level governance theory which mainly explored the inter-institutional dialogue between different authority levels was silent on the effects of these interactions between authorities and civil society, thus making no distinction between the vertical and horizontal dimension in the analysis. In parallel, European Regulations left space of interpretation to member-states concerning the practical application, as result, different forms and conceptualizations have been explored across spaces. This article is intended to expand the debate on partnership from principle to institution. First, we discuss what theoretical animal is partnership and its analytical relevance: is it a new mode of governance, a type of policy network or an institution? Based on a comparative research, we explore three clusters of variables which differently contribute to the creation of partnerships: capacity (for public administrations) organizational (for societal actors) and contextual (leadership, experience and money). The empirical evidence is gathered at the level of regions, belonging to three different types of government-system – Germany, Italy and Poland. It is demonstrated how partnership moved in certain contexts from formal requirement at planning stage to various forms of partnership during the implementation. It is shown that certain actors have more access-points compared to others but factors differ in each context. Finally, we propose and discuss a possible scheme for partnership operationalization and its measurement.