New Modes of Governance and the EU Structural and Cohesion Policy in the New Member States

Book excerpt: This book looks at policy steering modes in other words, governance of one particular Community policy area, namely structural/cohesion policy. The study analyzes the governance modes of this policy at the European Union (EU) level and its implementation in eight new member states, putting special emphasis on the usage of 'new modes of governance' in this policy field. In the broad sense, the term 'new modes of governance' is understood as a range of innovations and transformations that have occurred, and continue to, in the instruments, methods, modes, and systems of governance. New approach to governance involves such concepts as a web of non-hierarchical relations between actors, voluntary consensus-building, the application of soft measures, and more flexibility in implementation. This new approach has increased in importance in the EU during the last ten years (i.e. the Amsterdam Treaty, the Lisbon agenda, and the European Commission's White Paper on Governance). Within Europe