This article is about the practice of territorial governance emerging at the junction of European Union-sanctioned ideals and Romanian development-planning traditions. On the one hand, the European agenda emphasises a smart, inclusive, sustainable model of economic growth. However, the persisting centralised workings of the Romanian state significantly alters the scope of regional interventions. As such, while core cities grew their economies swiftly, peripheral places were left in an unrelenting stagnation. My first aim is to provide a theoretical ground for a practicecentred approach to understanding territorial governance. Second, by drawing on Romania's regional policy context as an example, I give an insight into how practices of partnership and competition fare in a context of ongoing territorial polarisation. I conclude by emphasising the need for a regional redistributive policy mechanism, one which should enable and assist non-core areas to access capacities for defining and implementing development projects.

In many of Europe’s rural regions, sociodemographic changes, the transformation of the labour market, and the advent of digitalisation pose significant challenges in safeguarding services of general interest (SGI). This paper draws on a broad literature review to identify the key challenges and potential adaptation strategies in three SGIs in four European countries. Our analysis explores potentials for redesigning the accessibility of these SGIs, restructuring their human and physical assets, and improving the coordination of their delivery. We argue that in the context of a fading welfare state, there is scope for improving the local coordination of state, private, and civil society actors in delivering SGIs in rural areas.

In this article I explore the transfer of the territorial cohesion ideal of integrated polycentric development from the European Union's (EU) institutional core towards the peripheral places of a Romanian region. The literature review explores the emergence of polycentric development as an attempt of reconciling divergent EU-wide spatial visions of growth and cohesion. I also explore the institutional particularities that shape the transfer of territorial cohesion in South-Eastern EU Member States. Drawing on Mark Bevir's and Rod Rhodes' "Decentered Governance Approach", I design a conceptual framework to analyse this transfer through an actor-centered bottom-up perspective.

This paper explores the potentials and limits of using European structural and investment (ESI) funds for rural development in one of the least developed areas of Central and Eastern Europe: Romania's Sȃlaj county. The research draws on peripheralization as a key theoretical concept and on frame analysis as a heuristic framework for understanding the effects of policy instruments on development capacities in peripheral places. Desk research and semi-structured interviews reveal how local leaders identify the challenges they face and how they articulate development perspectives in relation to available policies. The key findings are twofold. First, that ESI-funded rural development instruments tend to favour place-blind interventions that do little to address peripheries' economic weakness and lack of institutional capacity. Second, it can be observed that the implementation of ESI funds has so far only marginally stimulated new styles of policy action that shift local actors' behaviour and expectations of the development policy system. To address growing intra-regional disparities, the case is made for more reflective policy design for strengthening institutional capacities and better integrating peripheries within their regional economies.

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