Regionalism as a Developmental Strategy for Southeast Europe
With the support from the Hellenic Observatory's 'National Bank of Greece Research Fund on Southeast Europe', Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis embarked in 2007 on a research project that seeks to examine the relevance of regionalism for economic development in Southeast Europe.
This was an umbrella project with a number of inter-related components examining aspects such as the role of Greece for economic development in the region; the complementarity of the region's national economic structures; the extent of market integration and policy harmonisation; and the process of structural change and economic adaptation (transition - modernisation).
Project outputs
A framework paper, looking at the challenges of EU Accession and Regional Cooperation in the Balkans was presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center Conference on "Greece, the Western Balkans and the European Union" (American College of Thessaloniki, December 2007). The paper was later published as GreeSE Paper No10.
Another paper, on the impact of 'Europe' on transition and reconstruction in the Balkans, was written in collaboration with Prof George Petrakos (University of Thessaly and South & East European Development Center). An early version of the paper was presented at the ESRC - SEESOX Workshop on "Europe's Unfinished Political and Economic Transitions" (Oxford University; January 2008), while the paper was published in the journal Southeast Europe in 2010 (Monastiriotis V. and Petrakos G. (2010), Twenty Years of Economic Transition in the Balkans: transition failures and development challenges, Southeastern Europe, vol.34 (2), pp.154-174).
A third paper, looking at the issues of spatial cohesion and local economic development policy, also co-authored with Prof George Petrakos, was presented at the 2007 conference of the Royal Geographic Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) and the 2009 conference of the Institute of Architecture and Urban & Spatial Planning of Serbia. The paper was published in 2009 as Monastiriotis V. and Petrakos G. (2009), Local Sustainable Development and Spatial Cohesion in the Post-transition Balkans: policy issues and some theory, ch.1 in Vujosevic M. and Petric J. (eds), Regional Development, Spatial Planning and Strategic Governance, Thematic Conference Proceedings Vol.I, Institute of Architecture and Urban & Spatial Planning of Serbia, Belgrade; and also appeared as GreeSE Paper No29, Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe, LSE). An invited lecture drawing on this paper was delivered at the annual conference of the EU ‘SEE Transnational Cooperation Programme’ in September 2010.
Another paper, on Greek economic diplomacy in the Balkans, was co-authored with Dr Achilleas Tsamis and published as Monastiriotis V. and Tsamis A. (2009), The development of Greece's economic diplomacy in the post-communist Balkans: progress and future challenges, ch.10 in Anastasakis O., Bechev D. and Vrousalis N. (eds), Greece in the Balkans: Memory, Conflict and Exchange, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge [ISBN 978 1 4438 1315 0]
Finally, Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis and Mr Rodrigo Alegria, who was employed as part-time research assistant in the project, co-authored a paper on the productivity effects of Greek FDI in the Balkans. The paper was presented at the 7th European Economics and Finance Society Annual Conference (University of Prague, May 2008) and was later published in the Review of Development Economics (Monastiriotis V. and Alegria R. (2011), Origin of FDI and domestic spillovers: the case of Greek and European FDI in Bulgaria, Review of Development Economics, vol.15 (2), pp.150-166).
Main findings and extensions
Although the work included in this project was rather diverse, a number of common themes and conclusions can be drawn from the papers published under this project. First and foremost, an encompassing conclusion arising from this work is that the process of transition in the Balkans has brought up crucial issues of underdevelopment and arrested development that require market-creating and market-correcting policy actions that go beyond the simple pursuit of EU accession or ‘completion’ of transition (Monastiriotis and Petrakos, 2010). Second, policy ‘downloading’ has clear limitations and opportunity costs: for example, in the case of local economic development, adoption of policy models developed in the West seems to be in conflict with a number institutional and ideational bottlenecks that are embedded to the local context of the Balkans (Monastiriotis and Petrakos, 2009). Third, and as a result, the need arises for an indigenously-driven policy model that will take into account the local specificities and seek to reinforce or cultivate local-regional synergies through the identification and strengthening of regional public goods (Monastiriotis, 2008). Fourth, the role of Greece in this process can be (Monastiriotis and Alegria, 2011) but has not been (Monastiriotis and Tsamis, 2009) catalytic: Greece – at least in the pre-crisis context of this study – has the technical expertise, ‘local’ knowledge and financial resources not only to stimulate economic development in the region but also to direct it towards the development and exploitation of regional comparative advantages (in the discourse of ‘new regionalism’, playing the role of a positive hegemon in the region).
Although the project was formally concluded in 2010, related work continues to date, including for example more recent work by Dr Monastiriotis and colleagues on spatial disparities in Serbia and Bulgaria; on the formation of CEFTA2006; on FDI spillovers in the candidate and neighbourhood countries; and others.