South-East European Research Centre (SEERC)

The need for understanding global transformations in the fields of comparative politics and international relations transposed state-society relations in a way that surpassed the limits of existing conceptualisations. Continuous eroding of sovereign state capacities and increasing international interdependence paved the way for concepts like governance. Studying europeanisation is one of the predominant areas with which governance and multi-level governance research scheme helped to overcome limitations posed by classical conceptions of state and international relations, yet keeping them at bay as the leading predominant tools for understanding politics. Area studies in South East Europe is highly becoming pivotal to the study of European neighbourhood, hence europeanisation. Consequently, analysing state-society relations from a multi-level governance approach in South East Europe is a novelty for understanding policy transformation in the region as well as a new breadth for international relations at large. The presentation attempts to analyse (1) a theoretical background on understanding governance and policymaking in South East Europe and (2) this theoretical framework in relation to the case of decentralisation process in FYR Macedonia.