The challenges for the significance of regions in Europe. Some hints from regional policymaking practices

In the last decades the sub-national dimension identified with regions has established itself in government and public policies and entered into collective imagination in Europe. The paper draws on the multi-disciplinary literature focusing on the success of European regions and on the ‘metamorphosis’ of the concept of region in the context of globalisation. In light of recent trends of regional policymaking in Europe, this paper examines how the crisis of the territoriality of politics has affected the significance and role of the regional level of government. Nowadays, the regional space ultimately lies in the articulation and aggregation of interests in the policy process more than in the formal division of competences and in the structure of political authority.