Decentralization and Territorial Development in Romania. Trends and Challenges

By this research we intend to provide a theoretical, methodological and applicative model for analyzing the process of decentralization and territorial development in Romania. Our analysis begins with the conceptual framing of decentralization, and it moves towards identifying the problems related to Romania's territorial development in the context of administrative decentralization. Decentralization is a stumbling block for post communist transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, yet in a more complex sense decentralization is both insufficient and excessive. European regional policies and the new concepts of changing the type of intervention do set a different view of how territorial development might look like in Romania Nevertheless, the local and regional levels are at a standstill due to mismanagement of decentralization in the context of territorial reforms. The paper discusses the objectives and results, as well as the effects and limits of territorial development and decentralization.