Rethinking Subnational Europeanisation: Relational Agency in the EU's Multilevel System

Recent geopolitical upheavals have rightly focused the attention of politicians, researchers and media on global dynamics. At the same time, there is unrest within many European democracies, with populism and destructive Euroscepticism threatening European and (sub)national decision-makers in day-to-day politics and elections. A recent study by the German Social Science Center WZB finds that the political ‘firewall’ against the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland remains largely intact at the subnational level, while simultaneously cautioning that democracies tend to ‘die’ from below, as antidemocratic movements have historically originated at the local level (Schroeder et al. 2025). Europeanisation can play a variety of roles in this context: in the past, the EU has been seen as a lever for achieving autonomy (Massetti 2022; Massetti and Schakel 2021; Sanjaume-Calvet et al. 2024); it has also been (and continues to be) viewed as a means to an end (Huggins 2018a), a way of financing regional and local projects that are not always in line with fundamental democratic values (Dąbrowski 2012; Medve-Bálint and Svensson 2013; Pajvančić-Cizelj and Jano 2025), and much more. The subnational level is thus one important element in the backbone of contemporary democracies in Europe, providing early information on how democracies are developing, and it should therefore be scrutinised on a regular basis. In this context, the specific role of European integration in shaping subnational political dynamics and their societal implications deserves closer attention. The European Union has enhanced cross-border activities and networking at the subnational level through its political framework and financial support, and it has thus given an additional ‘boost’ to Europeanisation (Gänzle et al. 2020; Medeiros 2018). This ‘push factor’, consisting in the engagement of the EU in legal and financial terms, may be considered one important discriminant of Europeanisation from other relevant developments like globalisation. In this sense, Europeanisation can be understood as the impact of and reaction to the influence of European integration at the various societal and political levels (Trenz 2022). By ‘reaction’, we do not simply mean the mechanisms of adaptation to the new rules, modes of funding and laws (Graziano and Vink 2008; Olsen 2002) but rather refer to the active interpretation and forming of these new standards. This Special Issue conceptualises Europeanisation at the subnational level as a relational and interpretative process in which actors' agency emerges from continuously shifting multilevel contexts rather than from static structures or networks. This perspective advances existing approaches by broadening their explanatory scope, especially in contexts of contested Europeanisation and in situations where similar legal, economic and political preconditions nonetheless produce divergent pathways and outcomes. Subnational actors interpret and renegotiate power relations across scales over time, yielding the variety of Europeanisation at the subnational level we perceive today (Guderjan and Verhelst 2021; Hamedinger and Wolffhardt 2010; Huggins 2018a; John 2001). This also implies a shift away from a merely institutional perspective towards individual actors who interpret and deal with Europeanisation, especially when it comes to explaining resistances, setbacks and aversions (Zerbinati 2012). Before presenting our conceptual framework, we briefly outline the relational environment in which subnational actors operate within the EU. This inventory of expectations, challenges and limitations forms the basis of our argument in favour of a relational understanding of the EU's multilevel system and the interpretative work that subnational actors perform within it. Subnational authorities find themselves in a ‘sandwich position’, being responsible for the implementation of EU legislation (top-down) and addressing the citizens' wishes and expectations towards the EU (bottom-up) (Gröbe et al. 2023). Subnational actors often use legitimacy as an argument while striving for a stake in the highly relational context of the EU's multilevel system. In particular, subnational actors justify their engagement in EU affairs by claiming particular proximity to citizens and, by extension, enhanced democratic legitimacy. However, empirical evidence shows that, while issue salience between citizens and subnational actors may align (Donat and Lenhart 2025b), the subnational level plays only a limited role in transferring political trust to higher levels of the EU's multilevel system (Donat and Lenhart 2025a). At the same time, citizen expectations increasingly demand visible subnational involvement in EU matters (Donat and Lenhart 2025b), placing additional pressure on local and regional actors despite their constrained capacity. Furthermore, subnational authorities are actors in their own right, driven by strong self-interest when engaging in lobbying activities or applying for funds (Huggins 2018b; Tatham 2015). Hence, these actors have developed ways of dealing with and making sense of Europeanisation, resulting in remarkable activity at the subnational level in the EU context (Abels and Battke 2019; Gröbe et al. 2025, 2023; Guderjan and Verhelst 2021; Reiter et al. 2024). These activities do not always resonate with state actors' ambitions at the EU level, and they may lead to a contested engagement of subnational actors in the EU, known as bypassing of their kin-state actors (Bauer and Börzel 2010; Jeffery 2000). A central determinant of regions' political engagement in the EU is their legislative status (Tatham 2015), which generates asymmetries in access to formal channels of influence within the EU's multilevel system and beyond. An important incentive for subnational actors to engage in any of these strategies is funding (Gröbe et al. 2025; Guderjan and Verhelst 2021; John 2001). Yet, regional and local disparities fuel distributional conflicts over funds, leading to phenomena like competitive regionalism (Huggins 2018b; Keating 2013). Competition for funding is not only present among economically weak regions but is relevant to all European regions: ‘While in the past, the focus had been on the grievances of lagging regions (the revolt of the poor), competitive regionalism is increasingly used in the more advanced regions in calls to reduce inter-territorial transfers (the revolt of the rich)’ (2018). Similar dynamics are likely to occur at the local level, implying that the subnational level even enters into competition with itself (Huggins 2018b). The ability to engage strategically in such a context and to maintain powerful relations is clearly an advantage for successful actors in the field of Europeanisation. In summary, high expectations are placed on the subnational level, which at the same time disposes over limited room for manoeuvre. Moreover, the subnational level finds itself in a highly relational context consisting of upper levels in the EU's multilevel system, an ongoing struggle of executive and legislative forces within this system, and citizens' expectations and demands towards their political decision-makers. According to the well-known definition by Radaelli (2003), Europeanisation is commonly defined as the construction, diffusion and institutionalisation of rules, norms and policy paradigms that originate in the EU policy-making process and become incorporated into domestic political structures, identities and practices. While this perspective has generated a rich body of scholarship, it has also tended to privilege logics of adaptation, compliance and institutional fit. Relational approaches (Burkitt 2018; Emirbayer and Mische 1998; Fuhse and Mützel 2010) question the seemingly objective logic and content of this process and suggest focusing on active (re)interpretation by actors, while also emphasising that these processes happen in a dynamic context of diverse relations, top-down, bottom-up, horizontal and also across different fields, levels and actor constellations. Hence, relational approaches enable a better understanding of the duality of structure and action in this regard, thereby linking two essential perspectives of Europeanisation research. Relational approaches have so far found little application in the field of European studies, and when they have, they have focused on explaining the relationships between national and supranational actors (Lovato and Maurer 2022; Slootmaeckers 2025). At the same time, the EU's multilevel system is a highly relational context for subnational actors (Heidenreich 2020; Kauppi 2022; Wenzelburger and Thurm 2026). Within this relational context, strategy building and agency are strongly influenced by the past, present and future (Emirbayer 1997). Capturing these dynamics requires a holistic analysis of the relational structure and, in many cases, a longue durée perspective which is attentive to how relationships evolve over time (Slootmaeckers 2025). Reducing a relational environment to clearly structured networks made up of static principals and actors falls short because relationships are constantly influenced by dynamic actions. Instead, spheres of influence are negotiated, delineated and shifted across various scales (Brenner 2001; Keating 2013). Interventions in one policy field influence power structures and relations in other policy fields and add an additional layer to the structure as a whole (Heidenreich 2019b; Kauppi 2022; Slootmaeckers 2025). Slootmaeckers (2025) compellingly captures the link between relational contexts and interpretative processes in his definition of Europeanisation: ‘It involves the construction, diffusion, contestation, translation and institutionalization of formal and informal norms, rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, “ways of doing”, and shared beliefs. These may emerge as part of the EU's policy processes but are continuously reinterpreted and reshaped through the transactions and feedback loops of political integration in order to become incorporated into the logic of domestic discourse, political structures, and public policies’. This understanding builds on and extends the influential definition proposed by Radaelli (2003) by explicitly foregrounding interpretative practices and the relational networking of actors. Some subnational authorities perceive the EU as an ally or a lever in this regard, some refrain from European involvement, perceiving no additional value in this engagement, while others even develop patterns of resistance. Interpretation is central to this shift. Subnational actors do not merely respond to European rules, funding opportunities and policy frameworks; they assess their relevance, weigh them against competing demands and align them with local political priorities and identities. Actors draw on established routines and experiences while simultaneously imagining alternative development paths and responding pragmatically to changing political opportunities. Additionally, ideological orientations shape relationship choices across all levels of governance. The ‘currency’ that comes into play in negotiation processes within a relational structure is the quality of the relationships themselves (Slootmaeckers 2025). Subnational actors endowed with strong local or regional authority may therefore act autonomously, without systematically mobilising other actors or governance levels. By contrast, those with limited formal influence within the EU's multilevel system often seek to expand their room for manoeuvre incrementally through agency claims and strategic and 2023). the subnational level into relational the of the relational structure by relevant actors and In such or or always against the of an of strategically Subnational actors' in this process are not always According to a study by et al. it is rather actors who in activities despite their limited In other cases, the of regions can EU engagement and cross-border even there may be no economic to do In other cases, the in European and expectations is to the and are with is this that a central for by subnational actors and implies that should focus on informal processes in A relational can also such compliance by high by different such as and to occur simultaneously (Slootmaeckers 2025). 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