Are States in contemporary Europe driven to enforce new forms of territorial convergence under the impact of economic crisis, enhanced European steering and international monitoring? Is the economic crisis recentralising previously decentralised functions? Or is the evolution of sub-national governance largely driven fundamentally by endogenous pressures? Are convergence and divergence best considered as part of agency driven processes of adaptation and as strategic choices exercised by actors in regional governments? These very significant research questions get to the heart of contemporary European States through a focus on the interplay between territorial capacities, domestic veto players and exogenous constraints.
