Updating the Regional Authority Index (RAI) for the European Commission

The Regional Authority Index (RAI) is a comparative and longitudinal dataset that measures the degree of authority exercised by regional governments over time since 1950. The current geographical coverage of the index encompasses 95 countries. - The Regional Authority Index is a long-standing research project of almost two decades. The measurement is introduced and analyzed in various high-quality academic publications. It is widely cited across various sub-disciplines within the social sciences, and is frequently used in analytical reports produced by practitioners working at the European Commission and the OECD, Arjan H. Schakel says.

The Joint Research Centre at the European Commission is now interested in updating the Regional Authority Index because they intend to analyse the impact of the regional authority on the implementation of sustainable development goals. The Joint Research Centre is monitoring the implementation of the sustainable development goals in the regions of the European Union

Updating the RAI

The current Regional Authority Index-scores run until 2018. In this RAI-update, Arjan H. Schakel and Berkay Alıca will produce scores for the time period 2018-2025 for 45 European and OECD countries. The update will be conducted during 2026.

Arjan H. Schakel is one of the Principal Investigators of the RAI-team which has produced RAI-scores for 1950 – 2018. The first release of the RAI dataset was in 2008 and updates followed in 2016 and 2021

Berkay Alıca, who will work as a researcher on the RAI-update, recently defended his PhD thesis on Mulitilevel Demoractic Behavior: Legitimacy, Accountability, and Representation in a Decentralised Unitary Context. His PhD was part of the project Strengthening Regional Democracy – Contributing to Good Democratic Governance founded by the Trond Mohn Foundation and headed by Arjan H. Schakel.

Collaborative partners

For the RAI update Arjan H. Schakel and Berkay Alıca at the Department of Comparative Politics (University of Bergen), will collaborate with other members of the RAI-team, Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks (University of North Carolina, Chapell Hill and the European Union Institute in Florence), Sarah Shair-Rosenfield  (University of York), and Sari Niedzwiecki (University of California, Santa Cruz). The Joint Research Center based in Sevilla, Spain, will serve as the main contact point from the European Commission.