Welfare States in the European Union have many different characteristics, including the role assigned to local government. In order to explain these institutional differences the authors discuss the concept of a welfare state regime (WSR), and suggest a taxonomy of four types of WSR. They also...

For Lisbon, a dominant national capital and increasingly internationalized city, the last 30 years have witnessed a period of dramatic growth, modernization and dynamism. As the socioeconomic landscape has changed, so too has the political and institutional one, with a significant evolution in...

This article considers the result of a recently completed programme to create Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) within Portugal. The first part of the article examines the forces leading to the creation of RDAs in Portugal and the particularities of the process employed. The second part turns...