Abstract

During the last two decades European cohesion policy exercised a considerable impact on sub-national institutions. In Italy, structural funds provided regions with new opportunities of participation in the European policy-making making them acquire a brand new role in the planning and management of local development policies. However, these opportunity required regions to be able to play an active role towards Brussels, to develop new administrative and organisational procedures and to put in place new mechanisms of territorial governance. This work, which examines the strategies carried out by four Italian regions to respond to such a threefold challenge, individuates the legacy of the past and the characteristics of political and administrative elites as the key factors which, if combined, are able to explain the timing and scope of regional responses.