EPRC paper presentation at the annual conference of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 29 August-1 September 2013

Laura Polverari presented a paper entitled "Territorial Disparities in Italy and the Case of Campania: Appraising the Successes and Failures of 25 Years of Cohesion Policy Support" at the APSA 2013 Annual Meeting, on 1 September. The paper, which draws from research undertaken in the framework of a major EPRC-led project for the European Commission, presents an appraisal of Cohesion policy support in Campania over the period 1989 to date, focusing on the concept of utility. It draws from an investigation of Cohesion policy support in Campania over four subsequent programme periods, entailing: desk-research on the circa forty Cohesion policy programmes implemented since the first landmark reform of Cohesion policy; a detailed analysis of monitoring and expenditure data; 73 semi-structured interviews with privileged observers; and an online survey administered to circa 800 stakeholders. It is the first time that a study of this scale and scope has ever been undertaken, as previous analyses have tended to focus on distinct policy phases or instruments. In assessing utility, the paper sheds light on the elements of success and failure of the policy, and the reasons for them. The paper can be downloaded free from here