The Dynamics of Europeanisation and Regionalisation: Regional Reform in Romania

This article analyses the emergence of the phenomenon of the institutionalisation of regions in Romania during the pre-accession period. It is a study about institutionalised change leading to the creation of administrative and statistical regions in a unitary and centralised state. The article draws on two strands of literature – Europeanisation and comparative regionalism – and provides a new critical interpretation. It looks at a number of variables, such as the EU conditionality and several domestic actors and institutions and investigates their role in explaining domestic change. It shows that regionalisation has occurred in a very functional way and mostly as a means of managing regional-level EU operational programmes as part of the national development plan. It illustrates as well that the creation of NUTS II regions in Romania corresponds more to a top-down project of territorial reform as opposed to a bottom-up project of political identity formation.