Reconciling agency with structure: The contradictions and paradoxes of capacity building in Wales' 2000—2006 Objective 1 programme

Abstract

This article looks at the concept of `capacity building' and explores its role in the 2000—2006 European Union (EU) Objective 1 programme in west Wales and the Valleys. An increasingly significant area of policy in regard to addressing rising levels of social inequality and high unemployment, the structural funds have become illustrative of the European Commission's aims to promote social as opposed to economic Europe. Exploring interviews with policy-makers and beneficiaries involved with the community development measures of the programme, the paper looks at whether there is a fit between policy-makers' conceptions of capacity building and `agency responses to social exclusion', as viewed by those who have been directly engaged with projects in regeneration targeted areas. The argument developed explores the idea that the capacity building measures in programmes such as Objective 1 often adopt a `fixed' viewpoint of agency whereby the `capacity to act' will be facilitated by the output oriented framework of the programme. In contrast to this perspective, the paper explores the idea that capacity building programmes must acknowledge the importance of structures in addressing regeneration areas.