The National Implementation of EU Cohesion Policy: A Policy Instrument Approach

Sammanfattning: The EU cohesion policy is a key policy area of the Union which aims for sustainable development and socioeconomic growth in the regions of the Member States. However, in the current structure of the multi-level governance system, the EU is much reliant on the capacity of the national public administrations to execute and implement the cohesion policy and thereby achieve the intended EU policy objectives of regional development and socioeconomic growth. Yet, previous Europeanization scholarship, which has been concerned with analyzing the topic of national implementation of the cohesion policy framework, has paid little attention to investigate which enabling factors and conditions account for national public administration’s capacity to implement EU cohesion policy. In light of this, the overall aim of this present study is to showcase how the theoretical concept of policy instruments can be viewed and understood as enabling factors which account for national public administration’s capacity to implement EU cohesion policy, and through these instruments, achieve its intended policy objectives. To this end, this case study analyzes the policy instruments used in Swedish implementation of the cohesion policy through the European Social Fund (ESF) which is one of the core components of the cohesion policy framework. As a part of this implementation process, the study specifically focuses on the policy instruments used to integrate a gender dimension when implementing the ESF which is an important feature of the cohesion policy implementation known as gender mainstreaming. Moreover, a policy instrument analysis is performed by using the NATO framework which categorizes policy instruments used for policy implementation based on four governance resources at the disposal of public authorities: Nodality (information and knowledge resources), Authority (regulatory resources), Treasury (financial resources) and Organization (organizational resources). Drawing from a document study and semi-structured interviews with Swedish civil servants, the results of the study reveal that the Swedish ESF implementation has adopted policy instruments stemming from all four of the NATO framework’s governance dimensions. The study also concludes that the theorization on policy instruments and the NATO framework can, and should, be integrated within the Europeanization paradigm since it arguably allows for a more detailed and holistic investigation of how national public administrations can use its various governance resources and formal powers to efficiently deliver on the EU’s public policy objectives at the national level