Territorial Governance and the Role of Institu-tions in Development Policy – About Conditions ofFunctional Space Construction from Unitary StatePerspective

Absztrakt

During the past twenty years the proliferation of networked governance forms can be experienced all over Europe, which do not harmonise with statutory state spaces. Parallel to this, in planning theory there is discussion about the modernisation of planning and the birth of new spatial categories, about “soft spaces”, which render state boundaries fuzzy and allow the space construction for public-private networks. The precondition of this process has been the rescaling of state territories and the decentralisation or devolution of state power to multi-scalar new spatial entities. This also means that sub-national governments, city-regions have been mobilised and have been given new fields of action for the assertion of their interests, while national governments have kept their control over them. Networked governance, formulated in functional spaces, ought to place into multi-level governance structure gain its legitimacy, and multi-level governance is the analytical framework of the investigation of spatial space construc-
tion in the article. The new paradigm of the cohesion policy of the EU, which puts emphasise on integrated development approach provides for the broader framework of the topic. The article reveals the different characteristics of territorial governance efforts in
Central Eastern Europe, especially in Hungary, compared to highly developed countries. In this latter country significant hindrances in the adaptation of governance structures can be recognised horizontally on the one hand, and on the other the very weak vertical
connections between the different political levels, owing to the rejection of decentralisation by the state. The analysis based on the institutional and regulatory environment points out the lack of decent authorisation of the local and subnational levels for network-building and taking part in the national planning scheme. The new conservative state philosophy stresses the statutory state spaces and favours standardisation unlike the mainstream of the European perception on territorial governance.