Partnerships in European Urban Governance: The Reality of Bringing Multiple Worlds Together.

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate the role and attitudes adopted by local partnerships as they undergo Europeanisation processes and accommodate the offers and demands arising from membership to the European Union (EU) of the countries they belong to. Drawing exclusively on secondary data, the analysis of partnership approach reveals how the aspects of selection of partners, collaboration, power, and policy-making and implementation are affected by particular partnership working in the context of European urban regeneration. Despite the existence of optimistic indications towards European integration and the offer of significant added value identified in the functioning of some of the partnerships under consideration (outward look in terms of new resources and collaborative ability), the article also identifies serious problems in the rest of them in the form of inward look and inability to adopt in certain circumstances, which makes their working rather dysfunctional and problematic.