It shows how such in-depth approaches can capture territorial interrelations, revealing hidden added value of particular policy instruments, explaining the reasons for their success in particular localities, discovering the informal aspects of governance, and assessing the rationality and quality of EU-funded projects.

This article argues that ethnographic methods can fulfill this gap by gathering qualitative data at the micro-level of policy implementation. Consequently, policy interventions designed solely on quantitative data may potentially lack the actual mechanisms that most accurately explain the diagnosed problems. Moreover, such studies are based on the assumption that human are rational, which was recently proven wrong by cognitive science (Shafir, 2013). Recent studies focusing on implementation of inter-territorial instruments in CP called for more qualitative indicators, highlighting the need to capture their hidden effects (Ferry et al., 2018). Such data often lacks contextual meaning and may not capture deeper processes or relationships in particular territories (Demidov, 2016). Research on territorial interrelations within EU Cohesion Policy (CP) has been based mostly on quantitative, statistical data.

In particular, it introduces an innovative approach to data collection in EU Cohesion Policy, discussing advantages and limitations of ethnographic methods. The paper contributes to the debates on methodologies capturing territorial interrelations in functional urban areas.

Icq chat room egypt