THE ＧＬＯＢＡＬＩＺＡＴＩＯＮ ＆ ＧＯVＥＲＮＡＮＣＥ ＰＲＯＪＥCＴ， ＨＯＫＫＡＩＤＯ ＵＮＩＶＥＲＳＩＴＹＷＯＲＫＩＮＧ ＰＡＰＥＲ ＳＥＲＩＥＳ

Globalisation and Centre-Periphery Relations.
Dynamics process , structural profiles and actors' choices
for new territorial politics
Ⅳ−０６

Stefano Bartolini, European University Institute＊

Paper for the Workshop Local Governance in a Global Era –In Search ofConcrete Visions for a Multi-Level Governance, 7-8 December 2001＊

None of these papers should be cited without the author’s permission.

Globalisation and Centre-Periphery Relations.
‘Dynamics process’, ‘structural profiles’ and ‘actors’
choices’ for new territorial politics
By
Stefano Bartolini
European University InstituteSocial and Political Science Department
Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50016 San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy
tel.: +39 055 4685 408; fax:+39 055 4685 201;
E-mail: stefano.bartolini@eui.it

Paper presented at the Workshop on: ‘Local Governance in a Global Era.
In Search of Concrete Visions for a Multi-Level Governance’
Sapporo, Japan 7-8 December 2001

1

Introduction: Globalisation and territorial hierarchies

This paper is a theoretical reflection on the role of territory within the context
of a globalising world. ‘Globalisation’ has acquired so many meanings that itis hard to define it in a useful way. In this paper I will use a minimal
definition of globalisation as a process of (nation)-state boundarytranscendence. This transcendence takes place in economy and culture andalso in other areas of international regime governance. That is,‘globalisation’ points to a process of growing ‘permeability’and/or of‘lowering’ of the external boundaries of territorial systems and in particularof that specific territorial system represented by the (nation-) state.
In Table 1 I present a scheme of such territorial boundaries that distinguishmembership according to different criteria. The table identifies four
dimensions of boundary building among units in the economic, cultural,
force and politico-administrative domains. Unfortunately, we do not haveestablished names for these different types of boundaries. In order to retain
the term ‘boundary’ for the more abstract concept of ‘closure code and rule’,one should invent new names to clarify the distinction and to avoid thetedious and continuous repetition of ‘cultural boundary’, ‘economic
boundary’, etc. Alternatively we could use some of the Latin richterminology for the same concept. 1 However, these neologisms are rarely1

accepted and they often increase, rather than dissipate,misunderstanding. By insisting on the terminological difference I want tounderline the fact that one needs to keep these different boundaries as distinct
as possible at the conceptual level.
(Table 1 about here)
The process of market building and the formation of economic boundaries
have their focal point in the openness of transactions in a given geographicalarea and in the necessary correlates of property rights agreements, exchange
options and factor mobility. The cultural boundaries define a membershipspace characterised by the traits of the inhabitants (language, religion,
ethnicity, national identity, etc.). In principle, as we know, cultural identities
are not necessarily concentrated geographically. However, I am interested
here in the vast majority of historical cases in which some sort of territorialconcentration and the cultural identity of the individual is defined andreinforced by the continuous interaction in the geographical space with thecultural equivalent. The ‘force’ boundaries define that geographical spacewithin which a single central authority exercises its ultimate right to thephysical coercion of the subjected population. The politico-administrative
boundaries identify those primarily legal boundaries that differentiate among
different functional regimes and regulatory systems such as educational
systems, welfare regimes, labour markets, courts’ jurisdictions, etc.
It is difficult to think of these boundaries as analytically distinct for a varietyof reasons. The first and more obvious is that our daily experience and ourhistorical memory refer to a situation of large, if not complete, overlap ofthese different boundaries. The modern nation-state successfully integrated
these boundary-building processes. Nation-states are characterised byboundaries that are simultaneously military, economic, cultural andfunctional. Crossing the boundary of the state one passes, at the same time,
into the imperium of alternative extractive agencies, into a different
economic market, into a different cultural community and into a different setof functional regimes as educational systems, welfare state, legal
jurisdictions, and so forth. This (territorial) coincidence of different typeboundaries has been their distinctive trait -- which distinguishes them fromearlier or different forms of politische Verbände -- and their legitimacy
principle. The modern nation-state is based, therefore, on a collectivist
criterion of exclusion meant to monopolise certain advantages for themembers of the state groups, in various but coinciding functional areas,
along which citizens’ rights and obligations are sharply distinguished from2the rights and obligations of ‘foreigners’. Such type of state may besubject to the decline of this collectivistic exclusion and become more
universalistic.
The second reason why it is difficult to conceive these boundaries as separateis that, while we can easily construct the ideal type of their coincidence -- i.e.
the ideal type of the sovereign, unitary, autarchic and culturally
homogeneous state -- we find it difficult to identify pure cases of each typeof boundary. The primordial hunter-gatherer community had primarily
cultural boundaries, as kinship links set almost insurmountable barriers toexternals in all fields; but for long time it did not possess a distinct
territoriality. Those ‘imperial’ territorial hierarchies that encompassed
different cultural groups and included substantially closed different market
areas represent a pure force/coercion/extractive boundary. The Roman
Empire had a clear perception of where its limes -- its military borders -- lay
and where its civitas -- Roman citizenship -- ended. Furthermore, between
limes and civitas there were several additional intermediate borders, forinstance the politico-administrative borders of militarily subject populations
that were left to run their internal matters according to their traditions andrules. Pure market boundaries existed beyond political administrative borders
in those free-trade areas that encompassed city networks, such as the
Hanseatic League, within which the respect of basic economic rights was
guaranteed across cultural, military, and politico-administrative borders.2
The third reason is that when we analytically separate these boundaries weare left with no names to indicate the situations of their non-matching. Theselacks of coincidence have existed, and will continue to exist even if we are
not able to properly label them. More precisely we are familiar and we areable to label the situation of areas and/or groups for which force/coercion
and politico-administrative territorial claims are incongruent with cultural
identities: we call these ‘cultural peripheries’ and we distinguish between
them as ‘external’, ‘enclave’ and ‘interface’ cultural peripheries -- according
to whether the cultural stigmata defining the area or group find support
across the politico-administrative border or not -- or ‘enclave cultural
peripheries’ -- whether they are surrounded or not by the central dominantcultural community. 3 It is more difficult to conceive and label thosesituations in which economic and politico-administrative borders or
economic and cultural borders do not coincide: the case in which economic
rights are spread across a politico-administrative border -- that is, a territoryin which politico-administrative rights are incongruent with the economic
rights and transactions; and the case in which cultural identities areincongruent with economic markets rights -- that is, a territory in which

3

community membership space is incongruent with economictransactions and rights.4
Along each of these territorial boundaries the development of rules and codesof closure may set boundaries or their decline may remove boundaries. At thesame time, new technologies for exit may actually force the removal ofboundaries. In short, for each dimension exit options and boundary building
interact. In Table 1, 5 the type of exit options and boundary building aresummarised for each main subsystem.
These boundaries define sets of cross-boundary transactions and sets ofcontrol measures. The (potential) units of these transactions and control in
different subsystems are goods and services, corporations, physical persons,messages, territories and even ‘roles’. For each subsystem one can identify
potential exit options and, at the same time, boundary building mechanisms.
As specific ‘technologies’ for exit may continuously develop, they generatepressures on existing boundaries. On the other hand, history also provides acontinuous invention or re-invention of boundary building mechanisms.
Having clarified my use of the concept of boundary building and boundarytranscendence, I can move to a slightly more operational definition of‘globalisation’ for the purpose of this paper. Globalisation is a process(whose roots, and causes do not interest us in the economy of this paper)with the following key effects:
1) globalisation considerably expands the capacity of intra-state institutional(e.g., local-regional governments), collective (functional and membershipgroups), and individual (firms, corporations, individuals) actors to accessexternal, extra nation-state, resources.
External ‘resources’ that become increasingly accessible are of three types:a) regulation resources, jurisdictional resources, and material resources.
That is, against the regulations of their state territorial hierarchy, actors canaccess and invoke regulations issued by extra-state international, crossnational or regional hierarchies (be it the EU, the WTO, the variety of othermore or less institutionalised international regimes setting standards andmore or less binding relations). Against the jurisdiction of their territorialstate, actors can invoke the arbitration of international or regional courts andjudicial regimes. Against the potential limitation in access to state material
resources, actors can autonomously access international financial markets,
rating agencies, mobile capitals, etc.

42) globalisation considerably reduces the capacity of state andterritorialized hierarchies to autonomously set and modulate the level ofboundary transcendence in the economy, cultural, administrative and evencohercitive domains.
As a result of the growing accessibility of external regulatory, jurisdictionaland material resources, the policies of territorialized hierarchies (nation-state
political authorities) must be based on the principle of anticipated reactionsof the potentially mobile actors and are strongly bounded by the potential
costs of those exit options which are available to such actors. The level ofboundary transcendence to be allowed in various domains is less and less theresult of political decision relative to struggles of power and/or cooperativenegotiations within the territorial polity.
3) globalisation - in the sense here defined of loss of control ofterritorialized hierarchies on the level of boundary transcendence in theirpolity - distributes in a differential way exit options and access to extraterritorial resources. Not all actors (institutional, collective, functional andindividual) are endowed with the same ‘structural capacity’ and ‘interest
orientation’ to exit and boundary transcendence. Therefore, considerable
redistribution of market, political and institutional power is likely to result
within the state.

2

Globalisation, boundary transcendence
structuring within the (nation-) state

andpolitical

Historically, the internal political structuration of the (nation-) states hastaken place through the formation of 'cleavage structures' (politicalalignments represented by parties and party systems), the ‘articulation of'corporate interests' (interest organizations and movements), and theestablishment of 'centre-periphery relations'. The process resulted indifferent equilibriums among three main forms and channels of politicalrepresentation within the closed-boundary (nation-) state: corporate,
territorial and politico-electoral.6
Of these three channels and forms of representation two - territorial and thecorporate - are very old. They go back to the assemblies of the feudal
systems and to the representative bodies of the middle-age city-states. In theold forms of territorial representation, territorial entities were the natural
focus for the external representation of the local community, whose internal
divisions were either suppressed or overlooked as irrelevant.7 However, the5

localistic ties on which external territorial representation rested
became progressively dysfunctional to the structuring of voice in an effective
way. External territorial representation was insufficient to satisfy the
progressive internal differentiation of interests within the territory that socioeconomic modernization was producing. The effective structuring of voice
within the nation-wide territory required cross-local linkages based on otherkinds of affinities than those of a pure territorial nature.
In the end, within closed national territories, the development of cross-local
alliances of a 'functional' nature among different section-groups overcame
the forms of territorial external representation. Political modernization isassociated with the progressive overcoming of politico-electoral channels
and forms over the other two types. Corporate forms of representation
proved more able to adjust to the modern representation albeit in a modified
and modernized version, those of corporate interest representation, rather
than estate, curia and the like. Territorial representation suffered most theprocesses of modernization and the interest differentiation in the local
community that it brought about.
During the 19th and early 20th century it was felt that socio-economic andcultural modernisation implied a process of progressive integration thatwould eventually eliminate the territorial distinctiveness based on cultural aswell as economic disparities and differences. Either new state had to beformed (by secession and aggregation) which were more homogeneous, orthe modernisation process would have progressively attenuated, if noteliminated, the territorial concentration of distinctive features and/or theirpolitical significance. Nineteen century federal constitutions in newly formed
states (Canada and Germany) and the federal solution advocated for Italy andSpain, were imagined as a uniform (albeit not unitary) system of government,with limited concessions being made to territorial distinctiveness (the Quebec
system of civil law, the Bavarian state tradition - further eroded by theGerman Weimer constitution - the distinctive arrangements for the Basqueprovinces in Spain, for Scotland in Britain, and for the cultural communities
in Belgium). So, the general trend in the 19th century was toward national
uniformity and the denial, non-recognition, or softening of territorial
distinctiveness, even if the dream of complete conformity was never attained(the Spanish fueros never completely eliminated; the French provinces ofAlava and Navarre retained their economic privileges; Quebec its own
system of civil law, and Canadian provinces their guarantees of religious
education and language autonomy; Scotland its own legal, educational andlocal government system and differentiated administration. After WWII,
forms of autonomist arrangement were extended to Wales; Northern Ireland,6the Italian special status border and island regions, and a variety ofEuropean islands: Greenland, the Faroes, the Alund islands, the Azores, theCanaries, and Corsica).8
This long-term trend toward territorial standardisation was based on theperception that the rise of the nation state as a sovereign entity wasincompatible with the persistence of historical rights of previously
independent territories and with the recognition of distinctiveness as acollective right. The 'nation' implied a unitary identity as opposed to themultiple identity required by the persistence of such distinctiveness. Second,
liberal democracy was based on an individualistic principle of representationthat organised mainly through non-territorial (or cross-territorial) cleavage
systems and corporate interest organisations, and as such left little room toterritorial collective identities. Finally, state policies in domains likeeducation and the welfare were devised to breakdown particularistic
identities on the basis of the principle of individual equity and broad national
solidarity. In fact, those cases of relative autonomy recognition mentioned
above, could all be presented as small-scale exceptions, without major
implications for the structure of the state.
There powerful trends notwithstanding, democratisation showed that
territorial politics remained a continuing element of politics in Europe. In thelate 1960s and 1970s, following a further expansion of the state bureaucratic
development into the welfare state and industrial and economic policies, aclash emerged between the classic top down model of government and the
new demands of local management often articulated by new mobilised actors
within the regions. The response of the state was a variety of programmes ofdevolution and regionalisation (Belgium, Italy, and France - failed in Britain
and later on in Portugal). More recently, from the late 1980s, a further waveof territorial representation demands seems to have emerged together withnew forms of territorial politics. It can be argued that this latter wave of
territorial politics differs in many ways from previous historical phases andexamples of peripheral resistance.
We have argued that 1) the relative overshadowing of old forms of territorial
representation to the advantage of forms of corporate and politicalrepresentation was largely the result of the boundary building activities of thestate and its territorial hierarchy; 2) that this boundary building and limitationof boundary transcendence was crucial in the transformation of early mainly
territorial conflicts and alignments into functional conflicts and alignments.

7

We must now, therefore, ask the following question: in what ways is
the current trend toward lowering the boundary building capacity ofterritorialized hierarchy and toward increasing the capacity of actors to exit
(nation-) state regulation, jurisdiction and material resources going to affectthe forms of territorial representation and the centre-periphery relations? Ifboundary building of the modern state contributed to subside territorial
politics, will boundary transcendence contribute to transform earlier
functional conflict into new territorial ones? The theoretical frameworkspelled in this first part of the paper leaves at least some room to raise thisquestion, which at this stage, however, have a purely deductive nature.
The following notes concern the possible changing nature of centres andperipheries in this new context as compared with the historical peripheries.
The core theoretical question can be summarised in the following terms:
What consequences may derive from the current trend toward territorial
enlargement and politico-administrative integration at a higher than statelevel? If the peripheralisation of territories within bounded territories was
historically linked to the latter reducing exit options, what is going to happen
to them when exit opportunities spread for individuals and firms toterritories? If the historical definition of centre and peripheries resulted fromboundary building in the economic, cultural and administrative field at thestate level, should we expect that boundary reshaping will have strong
influence on old and new peripheries?
New boundaries, new types of boundaries, and competition among different
boundaries modify the opportunities for weak exit 9 of sub-state territories.
As a result they also affect the conditions for and the modalities of voice ofthe latter. In particular the differential distribution of economic,
administrative and cultural exit opportunities among territories (groups,
individuals and organisations) is likely to become a major source of interests
redefinition and political alignments change. It is also likely that theloosening grip of state territorial boundaries lead to the re-emergence of
territorial oppositions as result of within state progressive territorial cultural,institutional and economic differentiation. European policy impact on subnational territories may foster a territorial definition and redefinition ofinterests and even of cultural loyalties. Policies directed to territories within
the boundaries of the nation state or policies directed to territories across
such boundaries may increase claims to politico-administrative
decentralisation and strengthen local forms of external representation. Is thisassociated with a redefinition of centres and peripheries? Will other anddifferent peripheries be created? On the basis of which resource-imbalances
new peripheralisation can occur in a loosely bounded territoriality as that8

defined by ‘globalisation theory’? What opportunities and which costs
are produced for different types of territories by the multiplication anddifferentiation of centres at the EU and world level?
The next sections of this paper discuss the implications of this newopportunity structure. The focus will be on the sub-state territorial
relationships; reference to the other two main dimensions of politicalstructuring - cleavage systems and corporate interest intermediation - will
be made only when directly linked to and affected by the new significance of
territory.

3

Dynamic changes
differentiation

affectingwithin-state

territorial

With respect to the historical distribution of resources aver the national
territory and among sub-national territories a number of changes should beconsidered which affect the within-state territorial differentiation process. I
will list them as ‘points-questions-hypotheses’.
3.1
A changing scale of operation of ‘infrastructural power’?
Once the state develops and expands its ability to provide centrally- andterritorially- organised services (the welfare state, the educational system,
credential control, etc.) its basis of legitimacy changes and become
increasingly dependent on this capacity (a ‘performance legitimacy’ as
opposed to the ‘procedural legitimacy’ 10 ). In this way the state and its
bureaucracy develop some element of autonomy from the dominant social
elite and it is no longer a pure or simple expression of their 'despotic' power.
This autonomy and legitimacy depends however on the capacity to continue
to deliver those goods that cannot be provided in other ways. Infrastructural
power, as opposed to ‘despotic power’ can therefore be defined as thecapacity to provide efficiently and to deliver public goods as services andrules that other organisations can not provide (or cannot provide with equal
efficiency). 11
At this stage, however, the state is subject to the challenge and competitionof other organisations that prove or are thought to be most able to deliver thesame goods (services, protection, and rules). In other words, the changing
basis of legitimacy of the state from pure domination to performance offunctional duties has eventually exposed the state itself to the functional
decline with respect to other forms of creation of these goods by other types9

of organisations. It is more precisely in the realm of specific functional
regimes that defined the administrative-political boundary of the state that
this challenge has proved more intense: defence of property rights connected
to an increasingly mobile property, environmental protection, etc. The
application of infrastructural power can be more efficiently allocated tosub-state or regional communities as well as above-state new communities orinternational organisations.
To a certain extent, this possibility is enhanced by the 'devaluation' of space
as a result of technological development in the communication and transportsystem. The traditional location scheme according to which investments willtend to be locate as nearby as possible to one of the three sources of the‘capital’; the ‘market’ or the ‘raw materials’ no longer applies. In this sense
the process of reproduction of economic peripherality is broken as there
emerge greater opportunities to locate resources without the constraints ofpre-existing resource concentration.
Moreover, technological change and international division of production
labour in advanced industrial countries, brings about a declining importanceof asset specificity (asset specificity means that the value of an asset isstrongly connected to a specific use). A 'specific asset has no easy substitute.
Its exchange requires high transaction cost, high economies of scale. Nonspecific assets (financial products, e.g.) are the contrary. A political hierarchy
guaranteeing those complex conditions of price efficiency and markets
availability is required more by a predominant 'specific asset economy' thanby a 'non-specific asset economy'.
Therefore, in this instrumental perspective one can imagine that specificpolitical structures (like the state) are more or less efficient in regulating,fostering, and controlling certain economic activities. Economic processes,
according to technological features, have different efficient or ideal politicalscales. If and when, with technological change and goods differentiation, thescale of the political structure become sub-optimal (because the existing
political arrangements for the regulation of production, exchange andconsumption, are inadequate for the asset type and the public goods required),then pressure for a new political scale may emerge that reflects the alteredrequirement for political production.
In a glowingly number of areas, the nation-states experience problems inproviding the traditional 'regulatory', 'distributive' and 'redistribute' public
goods. 12 For important areas of the regulatory framework of the market andeconomic activities only international or cross-national regulations are10

effective (establishment and protection of property, currency, abolitionof internal barriers of production and exchange, standardisation, legal
enforcement and adjudication). Distributive activities (through state
controlled and state sponsored production and distribution, nationalised
industries, public services, public finance and subsidies) and redistributive
policies (health and welfare services, employment policies, environmental
policy) are affected by the more and more difficult definition of which sector
are strategic, by international and regional agreements, and by international
competitiveness and favourable climate for international capital. 13
This increasing divergence between the scale of infrastructural power for themarket activities and the scale of action of the state generates interests, ideas
and debates about the ideal and efficient political scale. Does this concern
only the rising up of functions and duties to the trans-national and abovestate level or does it also imply the empowerment in certain areas of sub-statelevels territorial organisations?
3.2
Territorial competition
When the concept of the ‘demise of the nation-state’ is used what is normallymeant is the ‘demise of the nation-state Keynesian policy capacity’. Wheneconomic boundaries are lowered or removed mobile production factors caneasily move from one jurisdiction to others according to the social costs andregulatory burdens imposed on them. The absence of worldwide or of worldregion-wide market regulations forces governments to do their economic andsocial policies following the requirements of international competitiveness(i.e. attracting mobile factors). National competitiveness becomes thedominant political imperative and programme as national regimes are
exposed to competition that can no longer be contained at the national level.
The pressure for competitive de- and re-regulation that result have alreadyvisible consequence: 1) shift of taxation from mobile to immobile factors; 2)
shift of the financing of the welfare state from employers contributions togeneral tax revenues; 3) ruling out of state aids and subsidies to domestic
industries for employment protection; 5) pushes toward privatisation ofpreviously nationalised industries that protected sectors of the labour force;6) constraints on public borrowing and the overall public deficit; 7) risingautonomy of central banks, no longer allowed to extend credit togovernments.
The process of opening of markets at the European and global level makes
governments less able and willing to put resources into backward regions for
programmes of territorial redistribution and has made them more ready andinclined to give more attention to the most dynamic and active sectors and11territories in order to foster national competitiveness. In other words,
there has been a certain change in priority in territorial politics, fromredressing within-state territorial imbalances, to foster territorial endogenous
resources and to promote national competitiveness, from territorial to sector
intervention. 14 In the new context there will be a tendency to divert
resources from other programmes to those activities that tend to promote
growth. This will tend to change the terms of the political debate, putting
development and system competitiveness at the core of the political argument.
However, even if territorial politics will be increasingly dominated by thecompetitive pursuit of economic development and growth, this does notentail the reduction of the territory to a pure set of exchange relationships
based on instrumental calculations. Territorial collective identities,
institutional strength, co-operation traditions, etc. can all provide the basis
for forms of co-operation in the production of public goods and investmentsin the future. They can help not only to overcome external diseconomies ofcompetition, but also to create local conditions which, relying on historical
traditions and endogenous resources of a cultural, institutional, or social
nature, may favour the adaptation and the response of specific local
territories. Local territorial identities may also find a new push thanks to thisdevelopment in the internationalisation of forces as a reaction of local
defensiveness.
More precisely territorial competition depends on:1) The mobility of factors (goods, firms, individuals, taxpayers, etc.) thatcreates a potential demand. If there are no mobile factors, then there is nocompetition, in the sense that there are no customers to compete for. The
essential element of territorial competition is therefore territorial mobility.
However, also non- (or less-) mobile factors do play a role, to the extent thatthe are asked to bear the costs (or advantages) of mobile factors’ choices.
Note that here lies a fundamental difference between economic competition
and territorial public good competition. While a loyal customer may continue
to buy the same good, eventually enjoying its improved quality determinedby the exit options of other more volatile buyers (and even if the factory
which produce the good s/he likes were to fail and disappear he could always
have a substitute), in public goods territorial competition the loyal customer(that customer who does not want or who cannot be 'territorially mobile') is
considerably affected by the deterioration of the territorial performance.
2) The territorial differentiation of the offer that creates a supply. If theterritorial offer is not differentiated, there is no incentive to change territorial

12

location. Territorial competition is mainly competition through theoffer of different kinds, levels or quality of public goods (transports, loans,etc.). There might be big differences in the capacities of different
sub-national territories to differentiate the offer according to the institutional
structure, policy competence, and means of the local government. The
stronger the externals hierarchical control of the offer (from the centre) theless possible a differentiation. The higher the local resources and the lower
the central control the higher the possibility of offer differentiation.
In the historical experience of the European states, the demonical obsession
with territorial exit options actually lead to measures to limit internal
territorial competition as potentially explosive for both the internal cohesion
and the international equilibrium. Within the EU, actively engaged inremoving internal boundaries and open to always new adhesions, territorial
competition is likely to be less bounded than it was within nation-states. It
may resemble more the experience of the United States, as a result ofcontinuous addition of new states, historical legacies, technological change,
the tax system and the fragmentation of the sub-national governmental
structure. The American state and local governments have been competingwith each other for over two centuries, and this competition has been
ferociously intensified by the ease of incorporation in the United States. As
new states entered the union and as local governments proliferated withinboth new and existing states, the number of competitors constantly increased.
It is this competitive element which drives a great deal of intergovernmental
politics at the sub national level and that dominates the pursuit of economic
development. Whereas German federalism has developed rules that aredesigned to minimize competition among territorial units, the history ofAmerican federalism - and of horizontal relations among states and among
local governments - has been based on competition for economic growth'. 15
The Europe-United States comparison shows that the extent to which thevertical (federal) state-society dimension (state policies and social interest
demands and reactions) and the horizontal intergovernmental dimension(legal, economic, etc. competition) among territorial units for economic
development and resources are both active or one is muted depends to a great
extent from the model of state and nation building, that is, from the historicalpattern of boundary building and exit/entry options availability.
It can be argued that eliminating explicit obstacles to trade, harmonising
regulations that would otherwise segment the market, and increasing themobility of labour, services, and capital, globalisation or regional integration
may lead to divergence in both economic structure and growth rates of13

different regions, rather than to convergence in factor prices,
economic structure and growth rates. Krugman 16 has concluded that withintegration EU states and regions will become more specialised (like in theUSA) and that they will therefore become more vulnerable to regional
specific shock. At the same time, they will be unable to respond withcounter-cyclical monetary or exchange rate policy and will also tend to haveimmobile fiscal policy (in the environment of high factors' mobility, theshocks tend to have permanent effects on output and therefore immobilise
fiscal policy). According to Krugman, in the US the heavily federalised fiscal
system offers partial solution to regional stabilisation. In the EU, unless there
is a considerable institutional change, this leverage is absent and problems ofregional economic unbalance may exacerbate.
However, territorial competition is not only a process of opening. It is at thesame time a process of boundary building. If territories want to compete they
have to control certain factors; otherwise they are not different offer-units.
Creating regions does not only mean to create a 'space of action', but also to
set boundaries with other territories of an economic, administrative, cultural
nature. In other words, the space of action follows from the boundary
building process. An internal territorial space of action (which I would like tocall ‘structuration’) cannot be successfully build unless some form ofboundary consolidation has taken place. Functional, cultural andadministrative territories are characterised by different boundary building
processes.
3.3
Territorial (sub-state) differentiation
Territorial differentiation can be based on traditional resources of theterritory as economic resources, cultural distinctiveness (ethnic, linguistic,
cultural, religious distinctiveness) or institutional resources (local
government tradition and capabilities). However, the most interesting andinnovative processes of territorial differentiation are likely to affect thepolitico-administrative boundaries taking the form of regulative
differentiation of previously nationalised functional regimes.
We can hypothesise the tendency to the creation of new forms of social
protection, of labour market regulation, of educational system territoriallydifferentiated at the sub-national level. This will involve the potential risk of
the retrenchment of social solidarity towards more restricted territorial
entities and the weakening of national integration may also reduce thepossibilities of nation-wide solidarity and redistribution. The underlying
logic of this aspect of territorial differentiation is that the higher the systemicinterdependence (the boundaries of the social division of labour), the higher

14the need of localised forms of social integration (the community
solidarity bonds). Ferrera has mentioned two factors that push toward subnational particularism in the specific field of the welfare state, 17 but its
reasoning can be extended to other functional spheres as labour’s market
regulation, educational requirements, etc.
The first factor that favours territorial differentiation is the new logic ofcompetition of the internal market that tends to create new aggregation of
territorial and sector interests and help the re-emergence of old cleavages
between centres and peripheries of production and trade (e.g. economic axes
as the Renan one, or Catalunia, the French Midi, Padania, Carinzia). The
various social groups that operate within these types of territorial areas willtend to see the convergence of their interests and policy needs. Looking for
more efficient forms of competition with respect to other territorial areas,
these groups will develop common interests toward institutionalarrangements (welfare, fiscal, labour market, education, etc.) that do not
penalise them in the competitive game. These social groups could manifest a
growing interest for localised functional regimes in the above-mentioned
fields that are efficient, flexible and territorially circumscribed to them, thatis, deprived of extensive redistributive dispersions.
The new logic of competition of the internal market sketched before might
have a further implication. It will help the surfacing of old and new
peripheries, regions and territories traditionally backward or incapable tokeep up with the economic modernisation. The unbalances in national
budgets and the growing fiscal opposition of strong social groups endowedwith a high capacity for exit might challenge the traditional national
redistributive circuits and mechanisms, contributing to a new dynamic ofinfra-European differentiation between development and under-development.
This may contribute to new territorial tensions along the axis of national
standardisation of functional regimes versus their territorial differentiation.
The second factor contributing to territorial differentiation is the changing
logic of national political competition. The dealignment of traditionalcleavages and forms of political control and the disappearance of anti-system
oppositions tends to produce an opening of the politico-electoral markets
which offer new spaces to political competition impinging upon the defence
of interests of local type and nature, either through the mobilisation of new
single-issue or through the re-activation of the old territorial and alsosocial-economic cleavages (urban-rural, for instance). We should add to thisthe potential interest and convenience for political entrepreneurs to exploit
the theme of the particularistic solidarity (Belgium, Italy, Catalonia, etc.).

15

In conclusion:- processes of integration and interdependence make state borders more
permeable;- states have to a large extent changed their nature from territorial entities toregulatory systems- there is disengagement between state and territory leading to a moreemphasis on the non-territorial aspects of statehood- therefore, divisions within the state are highlighted and the possibility forinternal differentiation do increase.
3.4
Politico-institutional differentiation?
At the EU level since the 1980s the increasing level of cross-border cooperation, the extension of EU inter-regional policy and the beginning ofextensive territorial planning 18 have started to define new borders which
regroup regions in different countries, but at the same time they have helped
into redefining within state borders. There are, in fact, internal territories ofthe state which are ‘in’ or ‘out’ the regional policy programmes or the crossborder co-operation and this makes to them a great deal of difference. 19 'The
combination of large amounts of community founding and novel forms ofterritorial governance to administer them is challenging traditional
state-centred politics. But this is exactly not the withering away of either
state or borders. What are withering away are the one to one matches
between states and borders: borders equal states and states equal territorial
borders are a thing of the past'. 20
Challenging the traditional role and boundary of the state may also mean
re-politicising within state territory differences and the politics of the EU has
introduced new stimulus for the circuit of territorial bargaining, co-operation
but also competition. The EU has contributed to the development of a set of
new legal and financial tools for regions. The EU structural funds haveprompted even the most centralised states as the United Kingdom, Greece,
Portugal, and Ireland to try to create entities at the regional level for the
implementation of the EU regional policy funds. The EU structure andincentives continue to provide the legal framework and the resources forregions to compete and to form alliances that will be competitive in theeconomic sphere. The EU policies have impacted on the decentralisation
trend in most EU countries going back to the 1970s, but they have increased
regional capacities in terms of economic and organisational resources to deal
with territorial problems and to manage policies of local economic
development. In short, the EU has played an institution-building role for subnational regional strengthening.

16

Both the national, 21 and more recently the European centres actually aimed
at increasing the endogenous capacities to achieve regional development,
trying to add to the classic redistributive measures the fostering ofendogenous oriented measures. As a result, the mobilisation of theendogenous economic and social potentials was actually fostered bysupra-regional centres.
The uncertainties produced at the regional level by the EU integration in theeconomic field made for relevant social forces and interests to express theirconcerns about the possible impact of EU measures on regional and local
economic structures. These uncertainties generally generated demands fromlocal socio-economic actors for regional action to identify areas affected bythese changes and to take the appropriate measures to respond with regional
structural adjustments. At the same time, regional government have become
more active in gathering together private and public forces with a view tocompete in the wider international context of economic allocation, trying to
make themselves attractive location for investments and signing agreementswith other state and inter-state governments to promote co-operation, trade,etc. Regions which are culturally distinctive have recently tried to develop at
the ideological and practical level a model of regionalism in which theircultural distinctiveness is considered as giving them a competitive advantage
within EU integration and within new economic internationalisation trends.
The reference point has changed from the central state to the international(EU and world) arenas.
The growing awareness of the importance of regions for the economic
development has coincided with the idea that, with the creation ofworld-wide markets and the internationalisation of certain factors of
production, a number of 'economic regions' are emerging as the best frame
for economic activity promotion and regulation. However, some of these
economic regions have boundaries that cut across national administrative
regions and sometimes also national boundaries.
New regional co-operation has evolved from a problem-solving framework(how to provide co-ordinated public services on both sides of a national
frontier: infrastructure, cross-border commuting, civilian protection, disaster
control, environmental issues) towards a more comprehensive approach thatcomprises the general economic development of these frontier regions, often
at the periphery of the national economic structure. Moreover, the bases forthese experiences of regional co-operation have evolved from a physical17

continuity or some geographical principle to functional and structuralcharacteristics. 22
These structural changes, however significant, should not be regarded asincreasing the role or power of all regions. They apply to all of them, but
obviously the structural definition of regional territorial interests may allow
for these fora to express very different interests and opinions, and notnecessarily - and may be very unlikely - a 'regional' view or a regional
power increase. While regional alliances continue to develop along common
economic or infra-structural interests and regions try to establish their
institutional position vis-à-vis the Union and national governments, theprospects of an harmonious 'Regional Europe' are non existing given thepotential conflicts of interests among regions and areas and given theenormous differences in resources among the regions. Moreover, therelevance of territory and territoriality in Europe has not necessarily anything
to do with a regionalised Europe and that new forms of territorial politics do
not need to be regionalised politics. 23

4Structural profiles of territorial resources

If the hypotheses discussed in section 3 are correct, one should expect that
this new constellation will redistribute territorial resources in a new way andwill tend to reverberate on the forms of territorial politics and representation.
However, while there is a general perception that economic regionalisation
prompts forms of representation of the local interests that must be relatively
unitary, it is difficult to specify how the capacity to represent externally theinterests of a local society is formed in the new conditions.
4.1
Renewed territorial representation?
In the forms of territorial representation existing territorial entities are thenatural focus for representation and their internal divisions tend to be either
suppressed or politically diffused. Territorial politics in the consolidation of
the nation state in early modern Europe had a distinctive stratarchic structure:
it was dominated by a triadic relationship which is reappearing in the processof territorial expansion associated with the development of globalisation andregional integration. Rokkan 24 in all his writing and more recently Wayne teBrake 25 have elaborated this triadic view of oppositions and alignments
based on the relationship between 1) ordinary people; 2) their local rulers,and 3) the (national or international) claimants to power. Three types ofalliances can be identified:18

1) local consolidation with an alliance between local rulers andordinary people that tended to produce either city-state or confederated
provinces (in the Netherlands, Switzerland);2) elite consolidation, resulting from alliance and integration between local
rulers and national claimants (as in Catalonia and the Empire)3) central consolidation resulting from alliance between ordinary people
and national claimants and cutting out local rulers (as in France)
In the new constellation of circumstances, it is likely that forms of external
representation of a cohesive local community may re-emerge in certain
policy areas and that a new stratarchic dimension of political interaction reemerges.
I consider the formation of a new stratarchic territorial representation as more
likely than the new formation of European-wide (not to speak of world-wide)cross territorial alliances. The reasons are many and I will list the more
important ones as hypotheses.
1) The number and fragmentation of the new sites of power and decisionmaking tend to lower the organisational cohesion of groups and movements.
The plurality of loci allows different groups within encompassing nationalorganisation to perceive that their resources might be better used in one locus
rather than the other. There might be within organisations conflict about thevertical decisional-centre toward which to act. That is, there will bedifferentiation among groups, movements and interests according to theircapacity to access to different layers and different sites of the EU, national
and local decisional structures.
2) Internal interest differentiation within and among groups may derive also
from their different capacity to escape the impositions and social duties
established at any of these levels and sites. In other words, previously unitedand centralised corporate and political organisations may internally divide on
the basis of different perceptions of the costs and gains of the new exit option
constellation.
3) The organisational domain of interest groups will cover narrower
territorial capacities than the market. The reach of the organisational
resources of groups, parties, even states, will be narrower than the reach of
the market. 'By undermining associational monopoly and inter-associational
hierarchy, the fragmentation of interests and the pluralist proliferation ofpolitical opportunities that is entailed by the 'regionalisation of Europe’ adds

19

to the decomposition of national-level corporatism as well as to the
obstacles to its supranational resurrection.' 26
4) The processes of territorial negotiations among actors at the sub-national
level (when they become all too frequent) imply recognition of the similarity
of interests (and identities). This reciprocal recognition requires relationships
in which each actor is autonomous in its capacity to modify its goal throughthe negotiation. Which in turns requires its low or decline dependency andlinkages with cross-local encompassing national organisations. In otherwords, the growing recognition of common local interests (e.g. increasing theattractiveness of the territory for investments, increasing local infrastructures,
exploiting local assets, etc.) generates negotiation climates that inevitably
tend to weaken the vertical and cross-local relationships between local actors
and the national ones. It tends to balkanise interest representation at the local
level; it tends to increase requests and needs of local autonomy; it tends toredefine the hierarchical relationships within the national organisation.
5) It may be argued that the emphasis on territorial competition will tend tofoster regional 'developmental coalitions' defined as broad and 'place-based
inter-class coalitions of political, economic and social actors devoted to theeconomic development in specific location. It may include locally andnon-locally based business interests, regional and local bureaucracies, as well
as locally based national bureaucrats, and neighbourhood and social
movements.' 27
4.2
Variation in ‘structural’ territorial resources
The extent to which latent territorial tensions -which are indeed very likely
to develop - will transform into open requests of institutionalised territorialsub-state representation will depend on the cultural, economic andinstitutional resources and options of different sub-state territories andregional alliances within and across territories.
The larger the number of different political options available to the peripheryin its relations to the political centre, the higher the resources which can beconverted into political pressures brought to bear upon the latter.
It is likely that, in a context of loosening boundaries, interface peripheries
have an advantage over external peripheries as a result of the existence of analternative and supportive cultural centres.
Following the same logic, territorial spaces subject to one national politicoadministrative centre but fully integrated in a broader than national space of20

market transactions have higher economic resources to convert into
political pressures brought to bear upon the politico-administrative centre.
They may also have other possibility rather than bearing upon the centre: tofind alternative resources from those offered from the centre in terms oftransfers and access to international capital markets (i.e. exit options basedon a supportive external economic centres).
Territorial spaces with strong institutional autonomy and where alternative
administrative borders compete in different functional areas - cross-border
co-operation, functional regimes within the EU, etc. - can access external
regulative and jurisdiction resources (i.e., exit options based on a supportive
external administrative centres).
The framework of territorial structural resources needs to include the cultural
distinctiveness resource of the peripheral territory, the economic access toexternal resources, and the institutional distinctiveness and autonomy of theterritory.
In Figure 1 I have attempted to systematise the structural feature of theterritory, its resources and political options. A map of the variable affecting
the variation in sub-state territorial resources should therefore include: 1)
economic resources concentrated in the territory; 2) financial resources:autonomous fiscal imposition; access to non-state financial markets; freedom
in allocation; 3) cultural distinctiveness and resources: a rich ethno-history
can be a significant source of cultural power and a focus of culturalpoliticisation. ‘Communities able to boast such histories have a competitive
advantage over others where that history is scanty or doubtful. In the lattercase the intellectuals have a double task: they must recover a sufficiently
large quantity of communal history to convince their own members that they
have an illustrious past, and they must authenticate it sufficiently to convince
sceptical outsiders of its merits'; 28 4) institutional resources: 29 density ofregional political and administrative but also social and economic
institutions; capacity to formulate policy (extent to which regions are apolitical system with a decisional capacity and the possibility to politicallydefine a 'regional interest'); competencies (autonomous versus shared withthe state); 5) political resources: level of autonomy of the local political classfrom the national one; political distinctiveness of the local political elite;
regionalisation of the party system and de-nationalisation of the party
system; territorial mobilisation of support and political action.
(Figure 1 about here)21

5

Conclusion: Variation in political outcomes?

The main trust of the argument so far presented can be summarised as follow.
The extent to which territorial and functional conflicts in a polity are both
politically active or one is muted to the advantage of the other depends
ultimately - in my opinion - on the level of closure of the systemic
boundaries. The more closed and reinforcing the various types of boundaries,
the more likely that territorial issues will be in the long run incorporated
within broader cross-local alliances of a functional nature. The more open thepolity boundaries and the more loosely bounded its territories, the more
likely that territorial alternatives differentiate and become the focus ofpolitical conflict.
In this paper I have explored the extent to which conditions can be identified
that foster the rebirth of territorial forms of political representation within theemerging structure of European and world loosely bounded territories andmultiple centre in the areas of politico-administrative, cultural and economictransactions. I have discussed a number of dynamic processes that may foster
renewed forms of sub-state territorial differentiation and competition (insection 3), and a number of structural resources profiles of sub-state
territories that may influence the level of revisionism in the relationshipbetween given sub-state territories and the state (section 4).
The study of these processes of territorial differentiation requires somesystematic and objective solid fact-finding and data accumulation on thewithin state territorial differentiation of interests, institutions, policies,
economic and cultural resources. We need data not only on the sociodemographic and economic structure, but also on cross-territory linkages andfluxes (e.g. external regional trade figures; regional foreign tradedependency), and political administrative data and synopsis about local
government authority and power, fiscal powers, resort to court of justice,resort to national courts against national governments, institutional
territorialisation (welfare state), chances of cross-border co-operation, etc.
Finally we need to accumulate political data about party system regional
distinctiveness, electoral regional specificity, European versus national
election differences, regional parties and centre-peripheral relationships
within the structure of nationally based parties.
This theoretically guided comparative research effort is needed. If we were tohave all relevant comparative information (and we are far from that), thestudy of the interaction between dynamic processes and structural resource22profiles for each given territory may provide us with a map ofpotentials for differential outcomes of sub-state territorial revisionism.
Yet, we know that dynamic processes of change and structural profiles ofterritorial resources do not determine the outcomes, even if they set theconfining conditions of feasible alternatives. We need to add to this the third
crucial – and most difficult - dimension concerning the choices of key sociopolitical actors in their political mobilisation efforts. This requires linking
territorial differentiation trends with the two other crucial dimensions ofpolitical structuring of democratic (nation-) state: cleavage structures andinterest intermediation structures. In studying the impact of globalisation andthe most advanced processes of regional integration like the EU on thetransformation of political representation, we should link aspects ofterritorial differentiation - as discussed in this paper - to the interaction
between the structuring of organisations in the interest representation channel(interest intermediation system), and the formulation of politico-electoral
alternatives and of specific political organisation for the mobilisation of
support both at the state and sub-state level (cleavage system). In otherwords, the actual potential for a politicisation of territorial interests is closely
linked to developments in the cleavage and corporate interests systems. The
latter have been only marginally touched upon in this paper.
We should try to develop models specifying under which conditions theemphasis shifts from within territory functional conflict - as expressed incleavage systems and corporate groups intermediation systems - to between
territory competition - necessarily grounded on the downplay or relative
muting of the within territories’ socio-political differentiation. We must
produce models and hypotheses concerning the conditions in which existing
within and across territory cleavage structures and interest intermediation
structures can be reoriented toward the external representation of the territory.

23

Table 1: Exit options and boundary building

economycultureforce/
coercion/extraction

politicoadministra-tive(functional
regimes)

exit option units

boundary building mechanisms-goods-services- tourists- corporations- investors- customers-messages, news
-styles, ideas-fashion, fads
-scribes, scientists- religious/ideologicalorders- intellectuals- missionaries- soldiers, armies- police-spies-underground movements-organised crime- tax- territorial
secession- voters- candidates- legal claimants(judges/cases)- sub-state governments- students- welfare recipients (?)- embargoes- tariffs- labour-market controls- credit/capital controls- nationalisation of
economy-prohibition- censorship- loyalty-building rites/symbols-control of socialising agencies- nationalisation of culture- territorialisation of defence- territorialisation of policing- borders controls- territorial extraction system- restriction on residence- restrictions on travelling- protection of citizenship- national specific social rights- professional credential codes- national jurisdiction- national educational
title system

24

Figure 1: A map of sub-state territory structure of opportunity
STRUCTURALFEATURES OF THE
TERRITORYRESOURCESOPTIONSlowhigh
CULTURALDISTINCTIVENESS:
linguistic, religious, ethnic

ECONOMIC
STRUCTURE:
sectoral specialisation
external trade,strong extra-national
centre serving ascultural focal point

SEPARATISM

monocephalus dominant-capitalstate versus polycephalus urban
structure (with strong peripheral
centres)comparisons across borders
evaluation of the distributive
efficiency of neighbouring
state or of supra-national centre
GEOPOLITCALPOSITION:
external, enclave, interface
or ‘failed-centre’ periphery

INSTITUTIONALDISTINCTIVENESS:
local government structure andpowers

IRREDENTISM

DEVOLUTION

DEGREE OFREVISIONISM IN THE
RELATIONSHIP WITH
THE EXISTING STATE

sub-state centre dependency
on trade across the border
DEMANDS FOR A
LARGER SHARE OF
STATE RESOURCES- party system regionalisation- reginal party system
distinctivenesscross-border functional regimes

territorial differentiation offunctional sub-systems:- economic district- labour market training- credit practicedifferentiation- salary differentials- welfare regulations
d ti l t t

25

INCREASED SUPRANATIONAL, INTERREGIONAL
COOPERATION

low

Notes:1

Latin language and culture had a richer conceptualisation of boundaries
than most of our ‘national’ languages have now. It would be worthwhile
checking the classic philology to reconstruct the meanings of the various
terms.

2

The van der düdeschen hanse league, which came to include about 200
cities between the middle of the 14th and the middle of the 15th century, wasbased on specific economic agreements and mutual commercial advantages
among the members. Although there was a long-term predominance of the
Lubecca-led regional ‘quarter’, a political ‘constitution’ was neverformalised. There were however rules of closure, discriminating against
external through the principal mechanism of economic boycotting of theirharbours.

3

For a discussion of the different types of cultural peripheries see S. Rokkan
and D. Urnwin, Economy, Territory, Identity. Politics of West European
Peripheries, London, Sage, 1983.
4

Of course, Middle Age thinking was more ‘flexible’ in terms of sub
systemic boundaries. For a rich series of examples of ‘lack of coincidence’ inthe modern sense see O. Hintze, Soziologie und Geschichte Staat und
Verfassung, edited by G. Oestreich, Goettimgen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht,
1962; and O. Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Age, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1988 (1900).
5This table is adapted from S. Rokkan 'Entries, voices, exits: Towards a
possible generalisation of the Hirschman Model', Social Science Information,
13, 1974, pp. 39-53, p. 43. I have added the line corresponding to thepolitico-administrative subsystems -- which Rokkan sets together with theforce-coercion subsystem -- and I have added and moved items of exit units
and boundary mechanisms.

6

Electoral representation is often defined as ‘terrritorial’ because it isunquestionably based on the territory. In modern representation, however,electoral competition is meant to represent the internal political diversity of
every single territorial constituency.

7

S. Tarrow, From Center to Periphery, p. 55

26

8

See M. Keating, Asymmetrical territorial government in western
democracies, ms. 1998, p. 1-2, for a full list of these experiences.

9

For a re-elaboration of the concept of exit to apply it to territories see S.
Bartolini, Exit Options, Boundary Building and Political Structuring, cit.
10'Output oriented' and input-oriented political legitimacy’ in Scharpf
terminology. F. W. Scharpf, Demokratietheorie zwischen Utopie undAnpassung, Konstanz, Universitaetverlag, 1970.

11

M. Mann develops the distinction between ‘despotic’ and ‘infrastructural’power, 'The Autonomous Power of the state: its origins, mechanisms andresults', European Journal of Sociology, 25, 1984, pp. 185-213.

12

T. Lowi, 'American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political
Theory', World Politics, 16 1964, pp. 677-715.

13

See P. G. Cerny, 'Globalization and the changing logic of collective action',International Organization, 1995, 49, pp. 595-625.

14

M. Keating, The Political Economy of Regionalism, in M. Keating and J.
Loughlin (eds.), The Political Economy of Regionalism, London, Frank Cass,
1997, pp. 17-40, p. 27.

15

A. Sbragia, Debt Wish. Entrepreneurial Cities, U.S. Federalism, andEconomic Development, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996, p.
218.

16

P. Krugman, Lessons of Massachusetts for EMU, in F. Torres and F.
Giavazzi (eds.), Adjustment and Growth in the European Monetary Union,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 241-261.
17

See M. Ferrera, Modelli di solidarietà. Politica e riforme sociali nelle
democrazie, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1993, pp. 297-303.

18

See for their discussion S. Borra's Alomar, Interregional Co-operation in
Europe during the Eighties and Early Nineties, in N. A. Sorensen (ed.),European Identities. Cultural Diversity and Integration in Europe since 1700,
Odense, Odense University Press, 1995, pp. 127-146. S. Borras-Alomar, T.
Christiansen, A. Rodriguez-Pose, 'Towards a 'Europe of Region'? Visions

27

and Reality from a Critical Perspective', Regional Politics & Policy, 4, 1994,
pp. 1-27
19

T. Christiansen and K. E. Jorgensen, Toward the 'Third Category' ofSpace: Conceptualizing the Changing Nature of Borders in Western Europe,
paper presented at the Second Pan-European ECPR Standing Group on
International Relations, Paris, September 1995.

20

Ibidem, p. 18.

21

See V. Wright, Relations intergouvernementales et gouvernement régionalen Europe: réflexions d'un sceptique, in P. LeGalès, C. Lequesne (eds.), Lesparadoxes des régions en Europe, Paris, La Découverte, 1997, pp. 47-55.

22

See S. Borra’s Alomar, cit., p. 135.

23

See T. Christiansen, Interests, Institutions, Identities. The Territorial
Politics of the 'New Europe', in N. A. Sorensen (ed.), European Identities.
Cultural Diversity and Integration in Europe since 1700, Odense, Odense
University Press, 1995, pp. 241-255, esp. pp. 241- 245 for a critique of the'Europe of Regions' myth.

24

Rokkan, Stein, 1999. State Formation, Nation Building, and Mass Politics
in Europe. The theory of Stein Rokkan. Edited by Peter Flora with Stein
Kuhnle and Derek Urwin. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

25

Wayne te Brake, Making History: Ordinary People in European Politics,
1500-1700, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997.

26

See on this point W. Streek, P. Schmitter, 'From National Corporatism toTransnational Pluralism: Organized Interests in the Single European market',
Polity and Society,, pp. 133-164, p. 156.

27

M. Keating, The Political Economy of Regionalism, cit., pp. 17-40, pp.
32-34.

28

Smith, National identity, cit., p. 164

29

M. Keating, Les Régions constituent-elles un niveau de gouvernement en
Europe?, in P. LeGalès, C. Lequesne (eds), Les paradoxes des régions en
Europe, Paris, La Découverte, 1997, pp. 19-35, pp. 33-35.

28