How political decentralization in the outermost regions of the European Union lead to their economic success in the securing of structural funds

The Outermost Regions are among the EU’s least developed regions. As a result, European policy-making towards them are often catered to their realities as stated in EU treaties and Commission Communications. Despite EU recognition of their socio-economic challenges, their levels of socio-economic development continue to be among the EU’s lowest. As subnational political units, on the other hand, the Outermost Regions have political representation in both their member states as well as EU levels of governments. However, because the Outermost Regions have varying levels of political autonomy, their political participation within both levels of government vary as well. This thesis asks the following overarching research question: “Why are some Outermost Regions more economically successful than others?” In order to answer this research question, this thesis takes the independent variables of political autonomy and structural fund allocation while taking their economic “success” as the dependent variable. “Success”, in this case, is measured as the Islands’ growth in GDP per capita in purchasing power standards (PPS) towards the established EU28 average. The thesis’s established timeline consists of the 2007-2013 structural programming period specifically in which the data collection consists of data obtained from Eurostat, Inforegio, as well as the National Strategic Reference Frameworks (NSRFs) from each of the respective member states and regions. The results obtained, however, indicate a positive, yet moderately low, correlation between political autonomy and economic “success” and a negative, albeit low, correlation between structural fund allocation and the Outermost Regions’ economic success towards the end of the 2007-2013 programming period.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

European Union Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Burgos-Rivera, Alberto Miguel

Contributors dc:contributor

• Vander Most, Neil G
• Kourtikakis, Konstantinos

• Outermost Regions
• Madeira
• Azores
• Canary Islands
• French Overseas Territories
• Cohesion Policy
• Political Autonomy
• Structural Funds

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Alberto Miguel Burgos-Rivera

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105803

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105803