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This contributors provide a range of perspectives on the increasingly central issues of state reform, European integration and British regionalism in the 1990s. Using case material, the contributors examine: the effects of state reform and European integration on British regionalism and the devolution debate; and the nature of recent central responses to the re-emergence of regional and devolution issues, with a particular focus on the recent policies of the Major governments and the policies of the Opposition parties. They also present some evidence which suggests that state reform and EC/EU developments have determined and accentuated important new trends in British regionalism, and underpin the plausibility of far-reaching regional and devolution reforms.
Regions. How they emerge and how they are dramatically changing the appearance of the present 'world of states' and its related forms of governance from local to global levels is analysed in this monograph. But what are regions? Regions can be small or huge. They can be part of a single state, be composed out of different states or stretched out across borders. They can be important recognized economic, social or cultural entities or they can be largely ignored by the people who live on a region's territory. They can be well-defined with clear cut boundaries as is the case in so-called 'constitutional regions' or they can be fuzzy as for instance in cross-border regions. In sum, they are not a natural kind and defining regions is not a simple task. Luk Van Langenhove advances the concept of region building as an alternative to the construction of regions with three issues of region building being explored: - Why are regions built in a world of states? - How do region building processes take place? - How are regions transforming the present world order? Crossing disciplinary boundaries, this book is an exercise in theorizing regions and brings together under one conceptual framework, different processes and concepts such as regional integration, devolution, federalism, and separatism and refines the social constructionist view on regions
Concentrating on three countries, Spain, France and the United Kingdom, and three regional case studies of Galicia, Brittany and Wales, this book offers an analysis of the development of political regionalism after regionalisation.
Sections include: "Setting the scene: old questions or new?", "Drivers for change: new approaches to federalism and regionalism", and "New institutions? Approaching the challenge of reform."
Local and regional development is an increasingly global issue. For localities and regions, the challenge of enhancing prosperity, improving wellbeing and increasing living standards has become acute for localities and regions formerly considered discrete parts of the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. Amid concern over the definitions and sustainability of ‘development’, a spectre has emerged of deepened unevenness and sharpened inequalities in the development prospects for particular social groups and territories. Local and Regional Development engages and addresses the key questions: what are the principles and values that shape definitions and strategies of local and regional development? What are the conceptual and theoretical frameworks capable of understanding and interpreting local and regional development? What are the main policy interventions and instruments? How do localities and regions attempt to effect development in practice? What kinds of local and regional development should we be pursuing? This book addresses the fundamental issues of ‘what kind of local and regional development and for whom?’, frameworks of understanding, and instruments and policies. It outlines what a holistic, progressive and sustainable local and regional development might constitute before reflecting on its limits and political renewal. With the growing international importance of local and regional development, this book is an essential student purchase, illustrated throughout with maps, figures and case studies from Asia, Europe, and Central and North America.
The study of British politics has been reinvigorated in recent years as a generation of new scholars seeks to build-upon a distinct disciplinary heritage while also exploring new empirical territory and finds much support and encouragement from previous generations in forging new grounds in relation to theory and methods. It is in this context that The Oxford Handbook of British Politics has been conceived. The central ambition of the Handbook is not just to illustrate both the breadth and depth of scholarship that is to be found within the field. It also seeks to demonstrate the vibrancy and critical self-reflection that has cultivated a much sharper and engaging, and notably less insular, approach to the terrain it seeks to explore and understand. In this emphasis on critical engagement, disciplinary evolution, and a commitment to shaping rather than re-stating the discipline The Oxford Handbook of British Politics is consciously distinctive. In showcasing the diversity now found in the analysis of British politics, the Handbook is built upon three foundations. The first principle that underpins the volume is a broad understanding of 'the political'. It covers a much broader range of topics, themes and issues than would commonly be found within a book on British politics. This emphasis on an inclusive approach also characterises the second principle that has shaped this collection - namely, diversity in relation to commissioned authors. The final principle focuses on the distinctiveness of the study of British politics. Each chapter seeks to reflect on what is distinctive- both in terms of the empirical nature of the issue of concern, and the theories and methods that have been deployed to unravel the nature and causes of the debate. The result is a unique volume that: draws-upon the intellectual strengths of the study of British politics; reflects the innate diversity and inclusiveness of the discipline; isolates certain distinctive issues and then reflects on their broader international relevance; and finally looks to the future by pointing towards emerging or overlooked areas of research.
This is the first of five ambitious volumes theorizing the structure of governance above and below the central state. This book is written for those interested in the character, causes, and consequences of governance within the state and for social scientists who take measurement seriously. The book sets out a measure of regional authority for 81 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific from 1950 to 2010. Subnational authority is exercised by individual regions, and this measure is the first that takes individual regions as the unit of analysis. On the premise that transparency is a fundamental virtue in measurement, the authors chart a new path in laying out their theoretical, conceptual, and scoring decisions before the reader. The book also provides summaries of regional governance in 81 countries for scholars and students alike. Transformations in Governance is a major new academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states up to supranational institutions, down to subnational governments, and side-ways to public-private networks. It brings together work that significantly advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series targets mainly single-authored or co-authored work, but it is pluralistic in terms of disciplinary specialization, research design, method, and geographical scope. Case studies as well as comparative studies, historical as well as contemporary studies, and studies with a national, regional, or international focus are all central to its aims. Authors use qualitative, quantitative, formal modeling, or mixed methods. A trade mark of the books is that they combine scholarly rigour with readable prose and an attractive production style. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the VU Amsterdam, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.
In this volume, David B. Audretsch and Charles F. Bonser present a view of Globalization and Regionalization that holds that the interaction between a more open trading system and the new telecommunications and computer technology has substantially increased productivity and facilitated the fragmentation of the production process. The fragmentation of the production process has resulted in a new international organization of production. It has accelerated the globalization of national economies and has allowed firms to take advantage of low wages, wherever they are to be found, and, where important, to locate production facilities close to their customers. This expansion in international trade and production mobility has resulted in new sources of gain that contribute to the new economy. In the second chapter of this volume, Alfred C. Aman, Jr. examines whether globalization dictates new approaches to governance. The process by which public policy in England has incorporated regional government is the focus of Kenneth Spencer in Chapter 3. In the fourth chapter Lawrence S. Davidson provides an analysis of the impact of globalization on manufacturing in the US Midwest. In Chapter 5, John W. Ryan shows how there is a dual role of universities in the global economy. On the one hand, universities serve as institutions that foster globalization and reduce the isolation of regions. On the other hand, universities themselves are shaped and influenced by globalization. David B. Audretsch and A. Roy Thurik, in Chapter 6, show how globalization has led to the emergence of the strategic management of regions. In Chapter 7, Jean-Pierre van Aubel and Frans van Nispen examine the links between federalization and globalization in the European context. The impact of globalization on regulatory institutions is the focus of Montserrat Cuchillo in Chapter 8. Finally, in Chapter 9, David Eaton examines the relationship between global trade sovereignty and sub-national autonomy. Taken together, these chapters provide a compelling view that public policy must be considered in a new light in the global economy. Not only does policy have to consider global implications, but also the importance of local characteristics and regional strengths.
The book is structured into three parts. Part 1 introduces the concept of regional competitiveness by tracing its origins and exploring its different meanings in regional economic development. This will critically engage with political economy approaches to understanding the nature and dominance of the competitiveness discourse. Part 2 interrogates the pursuit of regional competitiveness in policy and practice. This critically evaluates the degree to which the pursuit of competitiveness is encouraging convergence in policy agendas in regions through an examination of key determinants of policy sameness and difference, notably benchmarking and devolved governance. Part 3 explores the limitations to regional competitiveness and explores whether and how its predominance in the policy discourse might be challenged by alternative agendas such as sustainable development and wellbeing. This focuses on the developing qualitative character of regional development.
The handbook presents a compendium of the diverse and growing approaches to place from leading authors as well as less widely known scholars, providing a comprehensive yet cutting-edge overview of theories, concepts and creative engagements with place that resonate with contemporary concerns and debates. The volume moves away from purely western-based conceptions and discussions about place to include perspectives from across the world. It includes an introductory chapter, which outlines key definitions, draws out influential historical and contemporary approaches to the theorisation of place and sketches out the structure of the book, explaining the logic of the seven clearly themed sections. Each section begins with a short introductory essay that provides identifying key ideas and contextualises the essays that follow. The original and distinctive contributions from both new and leading authorities from across the discipline provide a wide, rich and comprehensive collection that chimes with current critical thinking in geography. The book captures the dynamism and multiplicity of current geographical thinking about place by including both state-of-the-art, in-depth, critical overviews of theoretical approaches to place and new explorations and cases that chart a framework for future research. It charts the multiple ways in which place might be conceived, situated and practised. This unique, comprehensive and rich collection will be an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate teaching, for experienced academics across a wide range of disciplines and for policymakers and place-marketers. It will provide an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across the range of disciplines, such as Geography, Sociology and Politics, and interdisciplinary fields such as Urban Studies, Environmental Studies and Planning.