Showing papers in "Territory, Politics, Governance in 2014"

Governing the Large Metropolis

Abstract: Metropolitan governance is shaped by the strong interdependencies within urban areas, combined with the fragmented geography and roles of the agencies that govern them. Fragmentation is not an accident; it responds to underlying differences in the preferences of constituencies, the scale of efficient provision of public goods and regulation, and the bundling of attributes of the city into jurisdictions. This is why governance moves forward in a haphazard way, through tinkering. The analytical framework for understanding metropolitan governance is as a large-scale unfolding principal–agent problem. There is no optimal ‘solution’ to this problem, whether from the standpoint of efficiency, satisfaction, or justice. This paper instead proposes creating a more explicit social choice process around the agencies and instruments of metropolitan governance.

Introduction: Rescaling Interests

Abstract: The nation-state has historically been the container of social and economic interests. Policy communities were organized within state boundaries. There has been a rescaling of policy systems, upwards to the transnational level and downwards to the sub-state level. European states have established meso-level or regional governments. We hypothesize that interest representation and policy communities will rescale in accordance with this. In practice, adaptation is highly variable, depending on functional, institutional and political factors and the characteristics of each state and each territory. Function and territory interact in complex ways to determine the composition of policy communities.

Drawing Belgium: Using mental maps to measure territorial conflict

Abstract: Governing divided Belgium is not an easy affair Traditional tools of political research have provided insights about the dynamics of Belgian federalism but they have fallen short in exploring the territorial dimension of the conflict and its political representations within the population Mental maps, scarcely used hitherto by political scientists, offer an innovative research tool to dig into territorial conflict dynamics since they aim at capturing the mental representation an individual has of a given object or space through the materialization of their representation with a drawing This article discusses drawings of Belgium made by over 5000 first year higher education students in this country The drawings confirm the importance of the two most prominent—and thus symbolic—elements of the territorial conflict in Belgium: the internal language border and the position of Brussels In triangulation with responses to a questionnaire collected simultaneously, the analyses show that differences between t

Class, Sector and Nation. Support for Minority Nationalism Among Peak Interest Groups in Four Western European Countries

Abstract: The relationship between class and nationality has been a contentious one in the social sciences. Efforts to reduce one to the other have never succeeded. Rather, they interact in complex ways. In contemporary Europe, nationalist movements have revived in some wealthy regions, in what is sometimes seen as a ‘revolt of the rich’, an effort to promote territorial self-interest. If this were so, we would expect representatives of the main economic interests to support secession. A study of business and trade unions in Scotland, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Flanders and Lombardy, however, shows that both are cross-pressured. Nation-builders seek to build cross-class coalitions of support, but both business and trade unions retain strong ties to the existing states, producing different outcomes in each case.

The Alignment of Local Borders

Abstract: Even as diverse bordering processes have proliferated well beyond the edges of contemporary states, local understandings of international borders have aligned with national expectations. Historically borderland residents were often granted leeway in their cross-border activities and this provided an initial acceptance of the concept of national borders that continued even as boundaries became more rigid. Among the indigenous Tohono O'odham varying interpretations on the effective extent of the US–Mexico border co-existed for well over a century. Where the geopolitical border and the understanding of local communities differed, the latter was generally of greater importance in defining effective limits. National and international dynamics gradually reversed this, however, merging diverse border interpretations. External forces built upon local distinctions to achieve acceptance of the concept of a border among a group that initially had no vested interest in such a division and then narrowed that flexible ...

Illicit Authority and Its Competitors: The Constitution of Governance in Territories of Limited Statehood

Abstract: This article examines how governance in territories of limited statehood (TOLS) subjected to ‘illicit authority’ is constituted and whether non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could emerge as viable alternatives. Accordingly, it first proposes a constitutive framework for analyzing how an indeterminate actor-type assumes authority in TOLS, stipulating that public or private actors can institutionalize governance by asserting primacy in three contexts: coercive violence, socioeconomic security, and social legitimation. Second, Rio de Janeiro's favelas provide an empirical basis for investigating authority in TOLS, demonstrating that illicit authority derives from relative preeminence within the three contexts and thus enables the institutionalization of endogenous social order. The third section evaluates the feasibility of establishing NGO governance in TOLS by drawing empirically from ongoing state-led ‘pacification’ efforts in Rio's favelas. The pursuant analysis exposes NGOs' comparative disa...

Rights to the Neoliberal City: The Case of Urban Land Squatting in ‘Creative’ Berlin

Abstract: This paper asserts that activists can carve out a political space between cooptation and autonomy in neoliberalizing cities but that strategic options vary according to the micro-political spaces activists operate in. This assertion is examined through an in-depth ethnographic study of two trailer encampments in Berlin. These trailer encampments occupy previously abandoned wastelands in Berlin and have strong ties to the squatter movement. The dominant discourse of the ‘creative city’ has served as both constraint and opportunity. Activist-residents in both camps are conscious that their abilities to maintain their communities require them to present themselves in a way that coincides with the dominant ‘creativity’ discourse of the city. Both have fashioned their own discursive frames and introduced events that demonstrate how they contribute to making Berlin dynamic and creative. However, the encampment in the conservative district faces more severe constraints than the one in the left-wing distr...

The Territorialisation of Interest Representation in Scotland: Did Devolution Produce a New Form of Group-Government Relations?

Abstract: The Scottish Government represents an important new ‘venue’ for group influence and provides a strong incentive for interest groups to engage A large number have exploited this new opportunity The devolution of powers to a Scottish Parliament in 1999 followed a century of administrative devolution in areas such as health, education, local government and justice Many Scottish groups have long histories, and there is evidence of distinct territorial policy communities before 1999 in some areas—but devolution provided a new frame of reference for policy-making and a strong impetus to organise at this level Factors such as Scotland's size, and the Scottish Government's limited policy-making capacity, have produced a ‘Scottish Policy Style’, in which groups and government interact in distinctive ways However, this development is complicated by the multi-level nature of policy-making, producing the need for many groups to organise and lobby at local, Scottish, UK and/or EU levels The devolution of

The Case for Conceptual Dichotomies in Comparative Federalism: Can Political Science Learn from Comparative Constitutional Law?

Abstract: Comparative federalism has offered a stable theoretical framework for classifying states according to their formal structure. However, in the last decades heterodox constitutional outcomes as in the Spanish, Italian and South African cases have put the conventional taxonomies under pressure, particularly the widely accepted unitary-federal dichotomy. This article will show that a better link between political science and legal theory is needed for improving taxonomies in comparative federalism by offering a complementary way of classifying state forms from the perspective of territorial structures. A new methodology of classifying territorial state forms, based on the distribution of rulemaking authority, is operationalized through adjusted parameters that are tested by means of a re-classification of selected countries according to a new dichotomy and to subtypes reflecting the status of territorial layers within the state.

State and Local Pension Fund Governance and the Process of Contracting for Investment Services: The Scope of Diversity and the Problem of Embeddedness

Abstract: US state and local public employee retirement systems (PERS) utilise various models of contract with distinctive features in their form and substantive content in relation to industry norms. These models differ between states, within states, and even between PERS within major metropolitan areas. Diversity goes against expectations to the effect that the sector relies upon commonly accepted investment management agreements (IMAs), given the similarities between state and local PERS as to the nature of pension benefits. One goal of this paper is to account for apparent commonalities and differences. Another goal of the paper is to explain the nature and significance of the pre-contract screening of potential suppliers to the sector, suggesting that requests for proposals tend to ‘sterilise’ contracts for investment management services. We provide a comparison of the categories and items evident in model IMAs with reference to selected states, in particular Illinois and the Chicago-area PERS. We also...

Spatiality of China's Market-Oriented Urbanism: The Unequal Right of Rural Migrants to City Space

Abstract: Drawing on case studies of three urban villages in China, with special attention to residential experience of rural migrants, this paper seeks to link the discourse of the right to the city to the political rhetoric of contemporary urbanism in China. The concept of ‘right to city space’ is introduced, which emphasizes the spatial attributes of the right to the city. I first argue that China's market-oriented urbanism is a spatial project built upon ‘land-centered urban politics’ and exemplified by property-led redevelopment projects. Then the right to city space of rural migrants is discussed from two perspectives—the appropriation of city space and the participation in space production. The analyses suggest that China's market-oriented urbanism entails spatiality in the dominance of conceived space and subordination of lived space in the process of urban space (re)production to maximize exchange value of land. The ‘land-centered politics’ and the rigid hukou system have served as the spatial poli...

The Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act and Competing National Imaginaries of the USA

Abstract: In 2013, the US Supreme Court overturned key elements of the Voting Rights Act relating to the racial geography of the USA and relations between federal and state government. The historical background to the Act and its role in changing the political geography of voting are explored. A detailed analysis of the ruling, Shelby v. Holder, reveals competing national imaginaries. The Court's majority view saw a cohesive nation where past assumptions of the racist geographies of the USA centered on the ‘Deep South’ no longer hold true. The Court's minority view, saw a nation still deeply divided and subject to second-generation discriminatory practices. The contradictions of both are discussed. The resiliency of the Act and the implications of the ruling are examined.

Territory, Politics, and Relational Autonomy

Abstract: This issue of Territory, Politics, Governance is illustrative of our goal of creating an inter-, and even ‘post-disciplinary’, as Jessop and Sum (2001) put it, platform for analysing in a myriad wa...

Territorial Imaginations, Forms of Federalism and Power

Abstract: A central concern of Territory, Politics, Governance is the relationship between territory and power. This is about defining territory, fixing boundaries, institutionalizing territorial orders and ...

The Process of Rescaling Interests in the Belgian Context: The Impact of Regional Governmental Strength

Abstract: To what extent do interest groups adapt to a changing institutional environment? That is the central question of this article. Keating [2014. Introduction: rescaling interests, Territory, Politics, Governance 2(3)] distinguishes three drivers that can force interest groups to rescale: a functional, an identitarian and an institutional driver. The focus of this article is on the last driver of rescaling and on the assumption that interest groups increasingly operate on a regional scale when regional governments acquire more power. This ‘isomorphism hypothesis’ is tested by analysing the adaptation of the principal labour and business groups in Belgium. We found that in Belgium, this hypothesis only accounts for a number of cases. The Belgian rescaling process is not only the result of institutional changes but also a response to economic differences between Flanders and Wallonia, as well as to the increasing salience of the language cleavage. Groups were rescaling even before the gradual federaliza...

Regionalism and Employer Groups in Spain, Italy, and the UK

Abstract: This article presents empirical findings on 27 regional business associations in Spain, Italy, and the UK We focus on three issues: opinions towards the regions, internal devolution, and business representation The article draws theoretically upon studies in the fields of industrial sociology, political science, and economic geography All three disciplines have documented a certain regionalisation of state-wide (or peak national) business associations, and attest that the regions can generate genuine practices of interest formation and interest intermediation This article confirms the emergence of business associations in almost all of the regions, although there are considerable variations in their preferences, their organisational models, and the way they participate in the political process

The Role of Institutional Sedimentation, Regulatory Ambiguity and Institutional Footholds in Shaping Alcohol Governance in California and Pennsylvania

Abstract: Change in the social organization of markets involves the state, economic actors, and civil society in a mutually conditioning and dynamic relation. While much is known about this relation, the processes and mechanisms used by economic actors to influence regulatory institutions to shape their economic spaces over time remain insufficiently specified. Based on a most-different case approach of wine in California and Pennsylvania across time, we explain why and how these states adopted very different regulatory frameworks for alcohol governance: a license and state control system, respectively. Our findings indicate that winemakers who created and effectively deployed ‘institutional footholds’ during periods of ‘regulatory ambiguity’ were better positioned to exert influence over regulatory outcomes. Here we define ‘institutional footholds’ as mechanisms used to create spaces of political traction within the state apparatus. A form of critical juncture, ‘regulatory ambiguity’ refers to moments of u...

William Petty, the Down Survey, Population and Territory in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract: This paper interrogates Sir William Petty's Down Survey of Ireland (1655) as an historical episode where population and territory emerged before the epoch of governmentality. By analyzing the Down Survey as an earlier moment when population and land where enjoined, this paper makes two key arguments. First, the Down Survey brought people and land together as enjoined objects through a practice of ratio, a means to both classify and quantify land and people. Second, while a number of scholars have suggested territory is a relation grounded in biopolitics and governmentality, the Down Survey presents an historical episode that departs from this set of relations. Rather, the form of territory that emerges in Petty's thinking following the Down Survey aggregates people as ratio and, as such, produces a notion of territory grounded in preventative politics. I conclude by suggesting we need to reconsider the effectiveness of studying territory through the periodization of governmentality.

Re-scaling of Interest Groups in Modern Italy

Abstract: This article compares the re-scaling of interest groups in Italy after institutional reforms that increased the policy competences and financial resources of regional governments. Regional units have substantially increased their autonomy within the group organisation, becoming exclusively responsible for managing an intensified relationship with regional governments. Provincial units nevertheless continue to control financial resources and membership ties, while the central level determines strategic choices. The study confirms a highly fragmented interest group environment with a huge disparity of resources between actors. Financial resources of the same interest groups in different regions vary enormously, reflecting the divergent economic dynamics between northern and southern Italy. This raises questions of representative legitimacy for groups claiming to advance nationwide interests. Political parties remain important ties of reference for interest groups; yet relations between these actors ...