This paper discusses the meaning of and the potential problems confronted with the concept of partnership in a Nordic regional policy context, with particular focus on the implementation of the structural funds in the two most recent Nordic European Union member states. The partnership concept was introduced into European Union and other international rethoric and practice around regional development and cohesion because of a growing unease with polar concepts such as ‘bottom-up’ versus ‘top-down’, ‘centre’ versus ‘periphery’ or, if one wishes, ‘Community’ versus ‘member state’ (Syrett 1997; CEC 1997; OECD 1993).

Within the European Union structural funds the concept of partnership has become somewhat of a buzz-word. In the regulations, partnership is only mentioned as a partnership between the European Commission and the member state. But in practice partnership has come to be associated with partnership between agents from different sectors and on different geographical levels.

Partnership is in this paper defined as a relationship between agents situated primarily within the nation-states. In particular this means that partnerships between local, regional and national level - on the one hand - and between private, public or ‘third sector-agents - on the other - are what is at focus here. Less attention is paid to the relations between member states and the European Community.

The aim of the paper is to address a set of problems facing institutional cooperation in relation regional economic development programmes in the Nordic countries. These problems are all related to the development and practice of partnerships. The roots of the problems are identified to be both the vagueness of the concept of partnership itself, as well as to the history and practice of regional development policies in the Nordic countries. In particular, emphasis is placed upon the geography of structural funds and partnerships, where it is argued a need both for a clarification and a development of the use of the concept of partnership.

The paper starts out by contextualising the European Union structural funds intervention in the Nordic countries against the sedimented experiance and practice of national regional economic development policies in these countries. The main lessons here are that Nordic regional policy is very heterogeneous; it has to a certain degree been building on partnerships, but only on the margin at the regional level or at the interface between regional and national agents; and that the practice of partnerships in these contexts are deepending on the specific geographical, political, and social environments from which they have emerged.

In a second section the concept and practice of partnership in relation to the structural funds implementation is addressed more directly. Firstly some conceptual aspects are discussed, in relation to which the concept is being critisised of being too vague for bridging the gaps confronting policy makers in the Nordic regional contexts. Secondly, a preliminary typology of different forms and natures of partnership is being developed. Thirdly, the systems of structural funds implementation in Sweden and in Finland are briefly introduced.

The third section of the paper identifies and discusses what is seen as the main concrete problems confronting the implementation of the structural funds programmes in two of the Nordic European Union member states, i.e. Sweden and Finland. Drawing primarily on a vast material of mid-term evaluations of structural funds programmes in Sweden and Finland, the paper suggest that a number of unresolved issues concerning regional and national partnerships confront the implementation processes in the two member states. Although the problems identified may vary, the roots to the problems may in fact be very similar in the two countries.

The final section provides a very brief outline for how the identified problems may be resolved in future rounds of structural funds' implementation. One key-issue here is the question of regional governance and the political status of regions. The paper concludes that the establishment of successful partnerships for regional development requires a spatial and political symmetry, where the roles and legitimacy of the individual partners are very clearly defined either in theory or in practice. Drawing on empirical studies of the implementation of the partnership based structural funds for regional development in Sweden and in Finland it is demonstrated that these preconditions are far from being established. In particular it is the unclear role of the regional political level which opens up for numerous problems which results are demonstrated in this paper.


Nordic regional policy: Contextualising the structural funds interventions

Regional policy does mean rather different things in the different Nordic countries. In Norway regional policy is often translated as ‘Distriktspolitikk’, and involves a mix of measures directed at business development, infrastructure investment, as well as more welfare oriented development initiatives A regional policy has been in operation since the 1960s. Organisational changes in 1993 brought about the State Industrial and Regional Fund (SIRF), through which a large share of regional policy measures are channelled. SIRF coordinates efforts of regional and industrial nature and are responsible to the Ministry of Trade and Industrial Affairs. The overall national responsibility for Norwegian regional policy is located within the Ministry of Regional Development.

In Sweden there has been a regional policy programme in effect since approximately 1965 (Aldskogius 1992; Guteland 1996; Hallin 1995). Today the programme is operating a number of different measures, ranging from business support to infrastructure investment and rural programmes. There is a division of the implementation between the central governments’ regional administrations - the County Administrative Boards (Länsstyrelserna), and the national adminisstrations (Nutek and the Ministry for Industry and Trade). Regional strategies are formulated by the County Administrative Boards (CABs), in partnerships with local and regional authorities and other active partners.

In Finland the overall responsibility for the coordination and implementation of regional policy lies with the Ministry of Interior. However since 1994, the implementation of the actual measures of regional policy is carried out by different sectoral ministeries, commonly at their respective regional offices, and by the Regional Councils, formed by local municipalities. The Finnish national regional policy is organised around five major programmes covering different aspects of regional problems: Structural Change Area, Rural Area, Archipelago, Border Area, and a network programme for Centres of Expertise.

After 1991 there is no longer a regional policy in Denmark. Business development schemes are handled under the general industrial policy. At the same time the need for regionally specific incentives and policy measures have to a large degree been met by an increased regional responisibilty for these questions. The responsibility for the development of regional strategies and regional business plans lie almost solely on the Amtene. (Mönnesland 1997)

What characterises all Nordic countries is that there is, besides the national policy schemes, a rather large room for local and regional initiatives within the fields of economic development. In comparison with many continental European states the regional levels are traditionally weak in the Nordic countries (Page 1991; Sharpe 1993; Lindström 1998). Characteristic has instead been what has been termed the 'hourglass' structure of governance, indicating that the political powers are geographically polarised at the level of the central state and at the level of local authorities, in particular the municipalities (E.g. Johansson 1994). This relation has existed in all the Nordic countries, but has been more prevalent in Finland and in Sweden.

In Denmark the role of the regionally elected Amtene has been relatively stronger than that of its corresponding organisations in the Nordic states. In both Norway and Finland there have been important steps taken to decentralise the responsibilities for regional planning and policy in the 1990s. In Norway the perhaps most important reform in relation to this has been the introduction of regional strategies, carried out by the regionally elected Fylkene.

In Finland the regional structure was changed in more comprehensive terms in 1994, when the old lääni were merged and their duties changed. A new regional structure, based on inter-municipal collaboration in regional councils, or liito, took over many of the responsibilities of implementing the national regional policy. At the same time, was also a major regionalisation of a number of the more important ministries. In many ways, this reform was a response to the expected challenges of the European Union membership and the introduction of the structural funds.

In Sweden, no major general changes have as yet taken place in relation to regional governance. In the aftermath of a major public inquiry in 1995, a number of 'experiments' with regional 'self-governance' is in practice. Several forms are currently in operation: regionally elected parliament-structures; a one-tier structure of regional/local municipality; and an assembly of municipalities. At the same time are also the regional divisions undergoing changes, hitherto resulting in the merger of two and four counties respectively to form two new 'large-counties'.

One may conclude that the 'hourglass' structure characterising the division of political powers in all Nordic states, but in particular so in Sweden and Finland, have also affected the development of the structure of the civil society (Putnam 1993). The rise of 'civil-society-type-organisations' have also followed this dualistic or 'hourglass' structure, with the development of strong communities of industry or popular roots at the central or rather national level; and a more recent and rather strong tendency for the emergence of local or grass-root organisations (e.g: Berglund 1998)

In terms of partnerships the tradition of such arrangements in the Nordic countries have thus dominated at national and at local levels, while regional partnerships, or meso-level partnerships, are much more rare. Of course, in order to understand the history and development of partnerships in the Nordic countries one must also somehow clarify what is understood by the term. This task will be taken somewhat further in the following section.


Partnership as concept and practice

Partnership is, which may already be evident, a concept which is of multiple use and understanding. When discussing partnerships of geographically defined economic development processes it may be useful to distinguish between three dimensions of the concept: the sectoral dimension; the geographical dimension; and the relational dimension.

In geographical terms we may distinguish between various geographical scales of partnerships. The most common form of partnerships, it was argued above, in a Nordic contexts are partnerships at either local or national levels. However other forms of partnerships also occur, such as international partnerships and partnerships at the meso or regional levels. Furthermore, what we have recently witnessed is the rise of a fifth geographical scale, i.e. those partnerships which are both regional and trans-national. The most common and striking example of this is of course the trans-national border regions (Östhol 1996). Of course partnerships, transcending geographical scales may also be identified as being highly important.

In terms of the sectoral dimension we can identify purely public partnerships - involving only public organisations on the one end of the scale and purely private partnerships - involving networks of private organisations on the other end. Some would argue that true partnership needs some kind of trans-sectoral element, i.e. that it needs to involve partners of both public and private sector. To make things complicated there is also the semi-public, third sector, or quasi-public organisations which in themselves tend to incorporate public-private partnerships, but who also as organisations may work in partnerships with either public or private organisations (e.g. Peck 1995). In line with this we may, as is demonstrated in figure 1, identify three forms of partnerships in terms of their sectoral range: firstly, the intra-sectoral partnerships involving only organisations from one sector, such as the public sector; secondly, we have transsectoral partnerships involving organisations from more than one sector, such as third sector organisations and private organisation, or public and private organisations; thirdly, we have the institutanalised partnerships, which may only involve one single organisations, but where different organisations are constituting the organisation itself.

Finally we may distinguish between different forms of partnerships from a functional point of view, i.e. what is the nature of the relations between the different partners involved in functional terms. This may in deed be done along quite a number of different approaches, although here is chosen a relatively simple form. Firstly, it is believed that - and especially when one are describing the relations that are of interest in terms of economic development processes - the strategic functions are one important aspect, i.e. relations which are based on some kind of strategic agreement, which may be explicit or implicit. A second form of partnership is that of a financial partnership, where the partners contribute to a common project or mutually identified objective in financial terms. Most, but not all, financial partnerships are formal. Finally, we also find a third functional form in terms of the action-oriented or practice bound partnerships. These are defined by two or more partners actively involved in a joint operation. The different fomrs are discrete in the sense that they may occur independent of each other. Thus, an action-oriented partnership may or may not be paired with a financial partnership, which in turn may or may not be paired with a strategic partnership. Partnerships that do comprise all of these three functions can be described as comprehensive forms of partnerships.

The typology in figure 1, which of course is to be seen as an example rather than a definite one, thus opens up for a whole range of different forms and types of partnership. This elaboration does serve two purposes, firstly to emphasise that the partnership concept is a multi-faceted concept which is difficult to use when the demands are for more precise definitions of the relations of various partners; secondly, it is also evident that the produce of the partnerships will vary and be dependent upon a number of characteristics of the different partners - not least such characteristics which may serve to help us understanding the different power-relations in economic development partnerships (Syrett 1997).


Table 1. A Typology of Economic Development Partnerships

Partnership dimension	Examples of concrete forms of partnerships
Geographical	Local	Regional	National	Scale-transcending
Sectoral	Intrasectoral	Institutiona-lised	Transsectoral
Relational	Strategic	Financial	Action-oriented	Comprehen-sive

In practice partnerships are arranged rather differently in the Nordic countries. In the following will be given some details regarding the partnership structures present in the implementation of the structural funds in the three Nordic member states.

Finland and Sweden have chosen rather different approaches to the implementation of the structural funds. Although the structure of European Union funds programmes may look very similar - involving Objective 2, Objective 3, Objective 4, Objective 5a and 5b, Objective 6, and a similar set of so called Community Initiatives - the organisation of implementation differs to a great extent.

One important difference is the number of programmes per objective. While Sweden operates five programmes for the Objective 2 and Objective 5b respectively and one for the Objective 6; Finland has chosen to have only one programme per objective. Denmark operates two Objective 2 programmes, but only one Objective 5b programme.

Figure 2 Areas eligible under the Objective 2, Objective 5b, and Objective 6 in the Nordic countries 1994-99.

Another important difference is the role of local and regional authorities in implementing the programmes, although we must here be somewhat careful in distinguishing between formal aspects and real practice. The links between geography and implementation structures are also important. The most clear role for local and regional authorities, are found in the Danish Objective 2 programmes, where the Amtene are in control of a range important functions, from the strategy over finance to implementation. In Sweden the regions have in many instances been less strong in the strategic phases, although their control are stronger in terms of finance and implementation. In Finland the local regional level, which under the reformed structure is made up of the local level do have a stronger influence at the strategic stage of programming. The geography of the Finnish programmes, with only one national programme per objective, have though in effect acted to limit this strategic influence. At the financial level the Finnish regional authorities are less independent, because of the relative lack of control of co-financing capital, and the order in which decisions over structural funds projects are taken.

Furthermore, using the typology in figure 1 we may identify a number of important aspects in relation to partnership arrangements in the implementation of the structural funds. This will be done in the form of a critical discussion on partnership practices, outlined in the following section.


Problems of partnerships in Finland's and Sweden's implementation of the structural funds.

Partnership practices in both Finland and Sweden are very unevenly developed in terms of all the above identified dimensions of partnerships (figure 1). Beginning with the geographical dimension, we find that partnerships are developed at practically every geographical level, and also to some extent transcending the different geographical scales. Partnerships at the local level are usually transsectoral or institutionalised. In general partnerships at this level have been successful at involving both the public and the private sector, to an extent perhaps more so in Sweden than in Finland. If we however, take the analysis one step further an look at the relations between the partners in these partnerships, we find that they are typically either action-oriented or financial. Only rarely true partnerships are formed at the local level, focusing on more strategic issues. There are very few examples of comprehensive partnerships.

At the regional level partnerships tends to be primarily intrasectoral in the Swedish case, while we at least find some evidence of transsectoral partnerships in Finland, following on from the decentralised structure of the ministries responsible for the provision of important parts of the co-finance resources. The Swedish CABs can to a degree be said to institutionalise different sectors and also both regional and national elements, them serving as the regional administrative body of central government, on the one hand, and on the other having representatives of locally and regionally elected councils on their board of directors. In both countries however, partnerships, at the regional level remain firmly fettered within the public sphere.

In both countries the regions and the partnerships of various forms play a very active part in the implementation of the structural funds programmes. In Finland the important partnership for this process is clearly the one which links regional councils to the national level, via the regionalised ministries. It is also at this particular point where most problems associated with the implementation have occurred. The reasons for this vary, but one reason given is the clear lack of co-ordination of strategies and practices. This has caused particular problems in the decision making process, invoking inconvenience and pressure also for the more action-oriented partnerships. In Sweden the experiences of partnerships at the regional level are more varying. In most regions the strategic elements of regional partnerships are relatively important. One would however find that there are big differences for example between the geographically wider programmes and the spatially more confined programmes. The best practices may be found where strategic elements are elaborated as part of a process of region-building,which has been evident especially in the Fyrstad region in south-western Sweden, and to some extent in South Eastern Sweden's 5b programme.

Turning then to national partnerships, these are clearly fewer in both countries. In Finland, however, the process of regionalising the ministries were designed to develop cross-sectoral partnerships between different ministries. The evidence so far is indicating that the process has not been entirely without problems.

Partnerships transcending geographical levels are of course also important in the implementation of the structural funds. Following on from the typology, the most common form of partnership here is the financial partnership. Although one may put to question whether all the relations between local, regional, and national authorities at all may fall into the concept of partnership.

To conclude, the successful implementation of the structural funds depend on the introduction of partnerships at different geographical levels and of a scale-transcending type. It depends on whether these partnerships to some extent are able to operate across sectors, both within the public sector as such, but also across the public-private dividing line. Furthermore, it also depends on whether partnerships are formed around different types of relations: ranging from strategic to more action-oriented.

Two problems in partnership arrangements stand out as the most important, from an analysis of the implementation of the structural funds in Finland and in Sweden, so far. The first is the lack of partnerships which are comprehensive, i.e. which comprise strategic, financial, and action-oriented elements. The often extremely wide partnerships which were engaged at the regional levels at the initial stages of programme planning, had very little influence on the actual plans which where subsequently submitted and negotiated. Only very few of the organisations have become financial partners, and only a few more have taken on an active role in the implementation and accomplishment of the programme.

The second and perhaps more fundamental problem which is confronting both countries is the lack of a key-partner or, perhaps better termed, a hub-partner, around which partnerships of different kinds, geographical range and functional fom may be built. In both Finland and Sweden there has been some controversies over where the decision making powers shall be located. In particular the above mentioned hourglass structure of the two societies have made itself felt here. The problems arise because of the strong regional focus in the design and implementation of the funds are not matched by a strong regional hub-partner around which necessary partnerships may be built.


Paths for progress in partnership

As we now are nearing the end of the first period of structural funds in Sweden and Finland, it is time to sum-up the lessons learned and to, hopefully, draw on these for the planning of the next period. While the debates and discussions so far seem to have evolved either on practical and technical aspects of the implementation processes or on reducing the overlap between national and European implementation structures, little attention has been paid to what is here identified as the two key-issues: the regional structure and the link between it and the need to form and elaborate the regional development strategies.

It seems that the role of the regions, in terms of regional development and regional policy making, remain unresolved in both Sweden and Finland. In Finland yet, although the recent attempt to address the issue. Linked to the issue of the role or political status of the region is of course the size of the region, and the whole question of regional boundaries. Although they are in principle separate questions, it is almost impossible to envisage a change in political role and status, without also confronting the problem of geographical scale. While there in Sweden seems to be a lack of a clear hub-partner at the regional level, the Finnish situation reflects perhaps more a distrust in the existing such potential (i.e. regional councils).

Alongside with the issue of identifying a hub-partner is the question of forming a comprehensive partnership for the region's devlopment. Such a comprehensive partnership needs to be built round a clearly defined hub-partner. With a defined and accepted hub-partner there is no need to have the same partnership for all the elements of the partnership contents. With one or two stable partners the other partners may well vary from the strategy element to the more action-oriented elements of the process.


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