The paper introduces the concept of regional action and then investigates the propensity for such regional action undertaken by policy-makers in three specific regions in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The paper focuses on the changing roles of regional networks and the implications for them as boundaries become blurred, the paper contends that the activities of regional policy-makers need to be understood through an appreciation that European integration is contributing to the transformation of regions and the blurring (or fusing) of regional competencies. There is therefore, in our view, an urgent need to focus research specifically upon how Nordic regional policy-makers act towards the European Union, and in what degrees and forms, regional action is sustainable at the functional level.
The research project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers as part of the Internationalisation of Regional Development Policies Needs and Demands in the Nordic countries research programme, and are a comparative study that focuses upon: (i) the behaviour, strategies and levels of action and interaction of regional actors in EU structures and (ii) the attitudes of regional actors towards interacting with the EU. The study concentrates on regional actors behaviour and attitudes in a variety of policy fields that is affected by EU.
This paper represents a part in the final phase of this project, which has a deadline for the final report in May, 2009, and are founded on an earlier paper, Regional Action and the European Union: A Fusion Approach, presented by the authors at the NISA conference in Odense (May 2007) and at the Performing Regions/Regional Performance: Regions and Regionalism in and Beyond Europe conference at Lancaster University (September 2007).
Methodological issues are not discussed in this paper; instead it focuses on the design of the study and the relation between the core concepts. Finally, we initiate a discussion on how to make policy recommendations as a result of a theoretically informed empirical study.