Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom are currently undergoing devolution reforms. This represents a second round of decentralization, with further transfers of competences. Second round devolution is characterized by a complexity of actors, including the devolved governments themselves, parties that now have to compete in central and devolved arenas, and territorial interest groups. There is an intense competition for political space, as institutions seek ownership of policy spheres; the actual division of competences is not always so salient in the debate. Territorial competition and fiscal matters are central to the debate, as different territories present distribution formulas favourable to themselves. Party politics is key to the outcome.

‘Command-and-control’ conceptions of the welfare state in the post-WWII period have often deployed a centralized mode of policy-making, which has tended to make equality and homogenization synonymous notions. According to this view citizens’ social entitlement and rights were to be provided in a unitary administration of public services. Processes of decentralization, devolution and federalization have questioned such an understanding by putting forward the idea of territorially differentiated packages of public and social policies. These claims are grounded on the fact that decentralised government has become widespread (NB. In the period 1950-2006, institutional reforms around the world have taken place in the direction of greater regional authority by a ratio of 8 to 1; Marks, Hooghe & Schakel, 2008). Indeed, the question remains open as whether an era of centralization has been followed by a period of decentralization in the advanced democracies of welfare capitalism. The paper will elaborate on the idea of multi-level citizenship as a compound of collective attachments which favours territorial subsidiarity in the implementation of social policies. Another area of observation will focus on the aspirations of regions to carry out welfare expansion based upon arguments of optimality, accountability, legitimacy, partnership and recalibration.

European Cohesion policy has undergone substantial changes in all EU Member States over the past three decades and a new, devolved governance has become a key feature of this policy in several EU countries. Beyond Cohesion policy, the period from the late 1990s to the early 2000s has witnessed more general trends of decentralisation, deconcentration or devolution of competencies from the national to the sub-national levels in many EU Member States, particularly the EU15. Implicit or explicit in many of the discussions about devolution is that by bringing the design and delivery of policy ‘closer to the people’ it improves accountability. But is this actually the case? A key question is whether the new, devolved institutional framework in which regional policy operates is more or less conducive to the accountability of policy. There are several important issues here. First, although research on accountability is substantial, this has been found to be often hampered by insufficient conceptual clarity. Second, whilst the accountability of public policies has been addressed from the perspective of a number of key policies, the accountability of regional policy remains relatively unaddressed. This topic has only seldom been investigated, and assessments have generally focussed on the issues of partnership, inter-institutional relations and additionality, neglecting the key processes through which regional policy is delivered which have fundamental bearings on accountability. Lastly, whilst extensive research has been undertaken on the impact of EU developments on domestic policy-making (e.g. Europeanisation and multi-level governance research), not much has focused on how domestic developments are affecting the implementation of EU policies, notably EU Cohesion policy, on the ground. The paper will discuss the preliminary conclusions of an ongoing research on the changing accountability of European Cohesion policy in Italy and Scotland, countries which have experienced recent devolution reforms, focusing in particular on the Italian case study of Tuscany. It shows that beyond the common rhetoric on devolution, the relationship between devolved governance and accountability is neither univocal, nor unidirectional.