Sub-national governance

While the federal government has steadily lightened its regulatory role over aspects of federal jurisdiction that influence provincial water management, this jurisdictional space has provided opportunities for sub-national arrangements that address environmental protection. First Nations, provincial and local governments are creating collaborative ecosystem-based management regulations and initiatives that respond to the ecological governance imperatives of planning at a watershed scale, protecting environmental flows, linking decisions about land and water, and adaptive management. Ecological monitoring, watershed-scale planning, decision-making resulting from treaties, protection of riparian areas and watersheds, and water law reform in the west all feature prominently in these sub-national approaches. Any federal action in the future that affects water will be challenged to support these appropriately scaled regulations and decision-making.

This panel organised by Dr Calzada and chaired by Dr Herrschel, has been accepted to be into the programme of UACES (The Academic Association for Contemporary European Studies) Conference in Bilbao.

European regional context is being transformed by the increasingly demand of the sub-national territorial units to reach more devolution and even independence. Under the same devolution regional trend though, many manifestations can be identified that remark their new relationship with their referential nation-states. This panel looks at the concept such as 'devolution', 'independence' and 'self determination' in order to find theoretical and policy-informed evidences in the European arena. Moreover, it looks into ways in which the phenomenon could be explained from different perspective such as, city-regionalism, comparative politics, urban and spatial planning, city diplomacy and social innovation, among others.

In the light of the new Coalition Government’s proposed ‘rescaling’ of sub-national governance away from the regional level, it is an opportune time to re-consider the strength and weaknesses of the city or sub regional approach to economic development and to search, once more, for the ‘missing middle’ in English Governance. In this context, the article initially assesses the case for city or sub regions as tiers of economic governance, before examining the lessons to be learnt from the experiences of the existing city regions in the North East of England. It argues that while contemporary plans to develop Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) can be usefully assessed against a backdrop of the emerging city regional developments under the previous Labour Governments, a number of important challenges remain, particularly in relation to ensuring accountable structures of governance, a range of appropriate functions, adequate funding, and comprehensive coverage across a variety of sub-regional contexts. While the proposals of the new Government create the necessary ‘space’ to develop sub regional bodies and offer genuine opportunities for both city and county LEPs, the scale of the sub-regional challenge should not be underestimated, particularly given the context of economic recession and major reductions in the public sector.

The UK’s Liberal Democrat–Conservative (Lib–Con) Coalition Government has been quickly dismantling New Labour’s policy framework since it gained political control in May 2010. Contemplating how this transition might play out and the impact upon regeneration policy, a preliminary map of the road from the incumbent English Regional Development Agencies to myriad Local Enterprise Partnerships is sketched out. The analytic interpretations are based on insights ‘in the field’ over the past decade and grounded in policy ‘chatter’. Reflecting on the importance of timing, resource availability and the policy vacuum arising between localities and national government, attention is drawn to countless questions that remain unanswered. Further, the Lib–Con’s sub-national economic policy architecture is demonstrated as remaining very much work in progress. The paper highlights that the current transitional period is likely to be disorderly and possibly ineffective: deconstruction is all well and good if the alternative reconstructions offer added value, but the potential to lose out is significant. While hope is expressed with a localism agenda which could potentially empower localities to devise unique policy solutions administered by tailored spatial configurations, it is cautioned that new spatio-institutional ‘fixes’ may open up new issues just as old ones are closed off. A policy story still being written, the analysis is of broader international appeal. Consequently, those plying their trade outside England can reflect on this and act accordingly the next time a new (and presumably better) policy innovation is proposed.

Keywords: Sub-national governance, regeneration, economic policy, regional development agencies and local enterprise partnerships

Participation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has continuously expanded: from 43 systems in 2000 to 65 systems in the 2012 cycle, with 71 signed up for PISA 2015. There also has been a growth in sub-national participation, expanding PISA's reach beyond the nation-state. This paper explores sub-national PISA participation in Canada and the USA, asking how PISA is being used within sub-national education policy spaces. We draw on analysis of documents and data from interviews with officials at sub-national, national, and international levels. Findings illustrate some of the diverse motivations and uses of PISA, providing insights into the effects of PISA at the sub-national scale. As such, we argue that competitive comparison in education has deepened through the enhanced granularity of international large-scale assessment data to new scales beyond the nation-state.