|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
|
Building ‘Euro-Regions’
Locational Politics and the Political Geography of Neoliberalism in Post-Unification Germany
Neil Brenner
New York University, USA, brenner{at}mail.soc.nyu.edu
Against the background of recent debates on state spatial restructuring in the European Union (EU), this article elaborates a critical geographical interpretation of the contemporary debate on locational competitiveness (Standortdebatte) in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). On the one hand, the current debate on Standort Deutschland (Germany as an investment location) represents the growing instability of the ‘Rhine model’ of capitalism under conditions of accelerating globalization and European integration. In this aspect, the contemporary locational debate has served to justify various forms of deregulation and institutional erosion at each level within the German political system. On the other hand, the contemporary locational debate has also entailed the delineation of new subnational geographical targets for major socio-economic policies. The protection and enhancement of nationally specific competitive advantages within an integrated European economy is increasingly seen to hinge upon the construction of ‘Euro-regions’ associated with territorially specific conditions of production, socio-economic assets and institutional forms at subnational scales.The politics of deregulation in post-unification Germany have therefore been closely intertwined with a broader reterritorialization and re-scaling of state power in which new subnational institutional spaces are being mobilized as the geographical spearheads for renewed economic growth. These arguments are illustrated with reference to two major realms of debate on locational competitiveness in the post-unification era, each of which has entailed a distinctive scalar articulation of neoliberal political agendas: the regionalization of national spatial planning policies (Raumordnungspolitik); and the debate on ‘competition federalism’ (Wettbewerbs-föderalismus) and fiscal equalization (Finanzausgleich) among the German Länder. However, against essentializing interpretations of subnational regions as privileged geographical loci for neocorporatist social compromises or for post-Fordist spatial fixes, contemporary regionalization processes in the FRG are conceptualized here as an institutional medium through which the German state is engaging in strategies of crisis-management.
European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 7, No. 4,
319-345 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/096977640000700403
 CiteULike  Complore  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati  Twitter What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
|
|
 
D. L. Prytherch
New Euroregional Territories, Old Catalanist Dreams?: Articulating Culture, Economy and Territory In the Mediterranean Arc
European Urban and Regional Studies,
April 1, 2009;
16(2):
131 - 145.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. M. Johnson
Cross-Border Regions and Territorial Restructuring in Central Europe: Room for More transboundary Space
European Urban and Regional Studies,
April 1, 2009;
16(2):
177 - 191.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
T. Pikner
Reorganizing Cross-Border Governance Capacity: The Case of the Helsinki--Tallinn Euregio
European Urban and Regional Studies,
July 1, 2008;
15(3):
211 - 227.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Hauswirth, T. Herrschel, and P. Newman
Incentives and Disincentives to City-Regional Cooperation in the Berlin-Brandenburg Conurbation
European Urban and Regional Studies,
April 1, 2003;
10(2):
119 - 134.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Uitermark
Re-scaling, 'scale fragmentation' and the regulation of antagonistic relationships
Progress in Human Geography,
December 1, 2002;
26(6):
743 - 765.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
