Abstract
Regional development agencies (RDAs) have played an important role in the rise of bottom-up regional policy in western Europe, and it is often maintained that the RDA approach offers a significant supplement or alternative to the traditional financial incentives of central government. A 'model RDA' is expected to be a semi-autonomous public body and to develop an integrated strategy that primarily aims at strengthening the indigenous sector of the economy.
This article discusses the findings of a survey of selected development bodies in eight western European countries undertaken in order to identify systematic differences between various types of regionally-based development bodies and illuminate possible origins of this pattern. Key characteristics with regard to organization, policy programmes and modes of implementation are examined, and on the basis of this a typology of regionally based development bodies is proposed and possible origins of these patterns considered.
The analysis concludes that only half of them comply with the requirements of a model RDA while the other half mainly concentrate on a limited number of often rather traditional policy programmes. Three distinct types of model RDAs can be identified on the basis of policy profiles and organizational resources, and preliminary probing of the possible origins of this diversity suggests the importance of factors such as the surrounding political institutional environment and regional policy paradigm prevailing when the organization was created.
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