Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning in the Western Balkans between Transition, European Integration and Path-Dependency

The article inquiries into the evolution of territorial governance and spatial planning systems of the Western Balkan region, since 1989. More in details, it takes a close look at the cases of Croatia, Albania and Bosnia Herzegovina. The authors shed light on the impact of the transition period and, in particular, on the consequences that the shift from a centralized economic and administrative model to free market rules had over spatial planning legislation and practice. Similarly, they focus their attention on the various modes of Europeanization triggered by the EU pre-accession process and reflect upon the different integration phases that the aforementioned countries are going through. Through these interpretative lenses, the contribution aims at sketching out the specific spatial planning systems’ patterns of change that characterize the selected countries. Keywords: Spatial planning systems, Comparative planning studies, Western Balkans, transition, EU integration, Path-dependency