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Intermunicipal cooperation is being increasingly adopted in various countries to cope with the dilemmas of territorial scale and resource rationing. Despite the pressures towards the reshaping of administrative boundaries, little is known about the capacity of intermunicipal associations to function as effective, legitimate and resilient policy actors. This article aims to contribute to this debate by addressing two interrelated dimensions. First, it seeks to present a conceptual definition of governance capacity, unpacking the conceptual framework into dimensions that can be measured systematically. Second, it aims to empirically assess the governance capacity of Portuguese intermunicipal associations, drawing on a unique survey of intermunicipal associations. Overall, results suggest that despite being instrumentally driven, intermunicipal associations have proven to be efficient, with members recognizing the benefits and the spillover effects of trustworthy arrangements. However, the path dependencies affecting Portuguese local governments may impact on the relatively low levels of governance capacity. Points for practitioners This article undertakes a conceptual analysis of the governance capacity of intermunicipal associations. This analytical framework can be crucial for leaders, practitioners and professionals working in management and administration especially those working in complex and demanding settings. Given the general trend towards intermunicipal cooperation – strongly encouraged by national and European regulations and reforms – practitioners need to be able to measure the capacity of the cooperative arrangements to be established and to be maintained. This article also strives to enlighten those professionals as to which dimensions mostly need to be strengthened so as to allow intelligent collective choices to be made and to set strategic directions for the allocation of (increasingly) scarce resources.

Drawing on classical and emerging research perspectives, this comprehensive book provides an up-to-date review of local government in Europe.

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- List of Maps -- 1 Community-Led Innovation: Facts, Rhetoric, and Policy Challenges -- References -- Part I Models -- 2 New Models of Innovation in Old Industrial Regions -- The Advent of New Framings of Innovation and Policy -- Implications for Old Industrial Regions -- Innovating in the Periphery-The Cardiff Capital Region -- Fashioning Regional Capacity: The Rise of the Cardiff Capital Region -- The Real World of Regional Innovation Policy -- Conclusions and Implications -- References -- 3 On the Performance of Regional Innovation Systems -- Introduction -- Methodology -- Qualitative Procedure -- Quantitative Procedure -- General Patterns -- Articles -- Scientific Journals -- Authors -- Specific Patterns -- Classification of RIS Performance Articles by Type -- Classification of RIS Performance Articles by Theme -- Conclusions -- References -- 4 Social Tipping Dynamics for Disruptive Innovation Policies Towards a Stable Climate Scenario -- Introduction -- The Earth Tipping Points, Social Tipping Dynamics and European Innovation Policy Challenges -- Key Sector Opportunities for Social Tipping Dynamics in Territorial Innovation -- Policy Interventions, Actors and Agency for Disruptive Sustainability and Territorial Innovation -- Conclusions -- References -- 5 Digital Technologies and Mediation in the Context of Territorial Innovation -- Introduction -- Role of Digital Media and Hypermediation in the Territorial-Based Innovation Process -- Methodological Procedures -- Systematic Literature Review -- Narrative Literature Review -- Mapping of Center Region Innovative Initiatives -- Networks Benchmarking -- Website and Application Benchmarking -- Interviews with Local Community/entity Leaders -- Focus Groups -- Discussion of Results.

1. Community-led innovation: facts, rhetoric, and policy challenges -- Part 1: Models -- 2. New Models of Innovation in Old Industrial Regions -- 3. On the Performance of Regional Innovation Systems -- 4. Social Tipping Dynamics for disruptive innovation policies towards a stable climate scenario -- 5. Digital technologies and mediation in the context of territorial innovation -- 6. Towards an integrated conceptual framework of Territorial Innovation in Less Developed Regions: the Sustainable Regions' approach -- Part 2: Tools -- 7. Digitalisation in a multilevel governance context: the case of Cohesion Policy -- 8. Prototyping a digital platform to promote mediation practices in the territory -- 9. The role of strategic environmental assessment for sustainability in urban systems transformation -- Part 3: Policy and actors -- 10. The role of state and non-state actors in ensuring the effectiveness of innovation policy -- 11. European Urban Agenda: The Predicaments of Decentralised Coordinative Action -- 12. Local Development through entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems -- 13. Tourism and development in lagging regions -- 14. Territorial Cohesion and Innovation: a needed dialogue.

1. Interactions of societal actors and local government in institutionalized governance arrangements: the book's scope and content -- 2. Diversity in local state-society relations: A typology to grasp differences in institutional networks -- 3. How to measure the autonomy, coherence and relevance of local state-society relations? -- 4. Local state- society relations in Austria -- 5. Local state- society relations in Flanders (Belgium) -- 6. Local state- society relations in Croatia -- 7. Local state- society relations in Czech Republic -- 8. Local state- society relations England -- 9. Local state- society relations in Finland -- 10. Local state- society relations in France -- 11. Local state- society relations in Germany -- 12. Local state- society relations in Greece -- 13. Local state- society relations in Iceland -- 14. Local state- society relations in Ireland -- 15. Local state- society relations in Italy -- 16. Local state- society relations in Latvia -- 17. Local state- society relations in Lithuania -- 18. Local state- society relations in Netherlands -- 19. Local state- society relations in Norway -- 20. Local state- society relations in Poland -- 21. Local state- society relations in Portugal -- 22. Local state- society relations in Romania -- 23. Local state- society relations in Spain -- 24. Local state- society relations in Sweden -- 25. Local state- society relations in Switzerland -- 26. Local state- society relations in European countries: Main findings.

AbstractThe Ombudsman is one of the most relevant and institutionalized tools to give voice to citizens, so they can express their dissatisfaction with local public services. The literature has yet to produce a systematic explanation for the variation in complaints to the national Ombudsman. This article uses classic literature from public administration and public policy to consider arguments of voice, responsiveness and alternative policy venues concerning the role of the Ombudsman in citizen complaints against local governments. Data on all 2139 citizen complaints submitted to the Ombudsman in Portugal (2012–2015) are analyzed using negative binomial regression models. Policy implications drawn from the results show not only that the presence of alternative voice venues reduces the number of complaints to the national Ombudsman but also that context matters. Local politics stimulates civic engagement and difficult local conditions, such as unemployment, crime, and aging populations, activate citizens to resort to the Ombudsman.

The European Union quickly incorporated the concept of nature based-solutions (NBS), becoming a key promotor. This was achieved through financial support for both academic research and city implementations. Still, the processes of institutionalization are yet to be fully explored. This study aims at assessing how the scientific literature regarding NBS is addressing institutional aspects and how it is constructing the NBS narrative. This research is divided into two stages. First, it undertakes a quantitative analysis of the discourse, considering a set of preselected search terms organized into five categories: Actor, institutional, planning, policy, and regulation. Second, it adopts a qualitative analysis considering both a group of the most cited articles and of articles highlighted in the previous stage. The results indicate that the NBS concept is still shadowed by other environmental concepts such as ecosystem services. Despite being an issue promoted at the European level, the results of this exercise express the lack of concrete planning and policy recommendations, reflected by the absence of terms such as "planning objectives". This pattern occurs in all other major categories, being the institutional category the least mentioned of all five categories. The results highlight the need to address both policies and planning recommendations more concretely, studying the institutional arrangements able to promote NBS. ; published

Estuaries are one of the most productive and complex types of ecosystems supporting a wide range of economic activities. Departing from a set of governance problems and emergent goals, such as sustainability or climate change adaptation faced by an estuarine case study area, Ria de Aveiro, in Portugal, this article assesses the adequacy of alternative governance models under the existing water resources legal framework and traditional political culture. It shows that apart from the centrally-based compliance model, all other alternatives require high degrees of institutional reforms. Moreover, although the model based on a dedicated new agency, long preferred by many users of Ria de Aveiro, is the most understandable and focused, it does not assure the pursuance of adaptability or collaboration, which are considered essential for estuary governance. As it relies on collective action and multi-level and multi-agent contexts, estuarine governance may require a new institutional design. Where one begins a process of institutional change, however, is not a simple issue to address and demands a deeper analysis, particularly on the types of required institutional changes, as well as on their impacts on policy and decision-making outcomes over estuarine environments and associated socio-ecological networks ; published

Smart Specialization Strategies have been used to implement European Union Cohesion Policy in recent years, aiming to achieve economic, social and territorial development by reducing disparities between regions. The European Union often declares an alignment between Cohesion Policy, Smart Specialization Strategies and the United Nations Agenda 2030. However, and despite the recurrent Sustainable Development discourse present in the European political agenda, it is not evident that Smart Specialization Strategies integrate Sustainable Development goals and practices. Hence, this paper aims to explore and discuss the degree of embeddedness of the Sustainable Development discourse in the Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization, using the Portuguese Centro Region as an exploratory study. In this research a content analysis of the Centro Region Smart Specialization Strategy was used for data collection and analysis, framed by the 17 goals of Agenda 2030 and their targets. Results show a good embeddedness of the overall goals of Agenda 2030, but a lower integration of the targets, suggesting that this strategy needs to be revisited to further integrate Agenda 2030. Moreover, the Centro Smart Specialization Strategy has a strong alignment with the goals related with economic and environmental issues, almost disregarding social aspects. These findings are amplified by the fact that this strategy is mainly being implemented through projects financed under the economy pillar. Finally, there is evidence about the need of developing regional innovation policies towards sustainable development from the regional to the national level. Overall, it is critical to enlarge the debate on how Smart Specialization Strategies can be an effective engine for a new development trajectory for European regions assuming the Agenda 2030 as a framework for the necessary change. ; published