European Regional Science Association
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European Regional Science Association
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The abstract for paper number 375:
Bernd Schuh
Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria, Sabine Sedlacek, Department of Environmental Economics and Management
Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria
"New" public policy instruments – new wine in old barrels? The impact of new public policy instruments to implement new regional strategies
Public policy instruments are effecting almost every socio-economic process. On the regional level are new challenges – e.g. introduction of sustainable development in the political agenda – rapidly demanding changes in public policy. Traditional instruments of public policy aim amongst others at guiding, planning, equity. The above mentioned new challenges may call for other more inter-linked targets. This contribution will shed a light on such new developments in public policy on the regional level.
It need to be mentioned beforehand that this does not mean to „re-invent the wheel“, but to adapt the existing measures along these to be defined new conditions. Hence the question follows - what are these conditions? How could sustainable development be operationalised and translated into policy?
Sustainable development and its operationalisation has to deal with high complexity, irreversibility and uncertainty. If we want to draw a picture of the real world reflecting all these conditions a mixture of means is necessary like brush and paper. In our case a combination of theories – i.e. systems theory, intervention theory, political theory, organisational behaviour – helps us to reduce complexity and to manifest interlinkages. They all provid specific attributes and hypothesis for the design of policy measures at the regional level: * Systems theory and intervention theory helps to understand that complexity leads to problem orientation rather than institutional orientation. * Political theory helps to foster the understanding that uncertainty and complexity leads to setting targets and leaving freedom how to reach them. * Organisational behaviour provides the inside that individual needs and motives of leaders (e.g. political decision makers) have to be taken into account. * Administrational frames have to reflect all those findings.
The paper focuses on some suggestions how planning instruments need to be adapted to deal with new developments on the regional level, e.g. settlement subsidies, legal preconditions to foster inter-community co-operations; enlargement of financial autarchy of the single community; re-orientation of the financial regime towards sustainability parameters. We will give an overview of these instruments in detail and discuss their applicability and its limits taking all the above mentioned theoretical concepts into account.
Unfortunately full paper has not been submitted.