Abstract
This article contributes to current debates around EU policy on territorial cohesion and its place-based approaches. Based on substantial empirical research in seven member countries in an on-going EU Horizon 2020 project, the article develops a conjunctural approach based on Doreen Massey’s conceptualisation of place to provide insight into how local development functions in spatial and temporal dimensions. One of the main objectives of the case studies is to compare policy programmes and practices that seek to alleviate territorial inequality and generate economic growth and territorial cohesion. In such a comparison, the issue of conflating and rescaling administrative territorial units and boundaries demands particular attention. Administrative boundaries do not necessarily reflect the complexity and interconnections between policy actors, businesses, and local communities. Local specificities make it difficult to compare the local political room for manoeuvre due to different administrative principles, unequal degrees of devolution of competences or differences in constitutions, e.g., federal states versus unity states. In this article, we argue that, faced with an analysis of highly diverse cases, a conjunctural analytical approach can help to capture and unpack some of the places’ complexities and regional interconnections and be a useful supplement to more conventional comparisons of more similar places. Through two examples, the article discusses what the application of this conjunctural approach means in practice, how it helped shape our understanding of how differently and how it can be further developed to accommodate place-based approaches to researching territorial cohesion.
Highlights
During the past decade, EU cohesion policy has experienced the development of what has been called a ‘place-based approach’ in its efforts to bridge economic, social and territorial cohesion (Abrahams, 2014; Atkinson & Zimmermann, 2018; Faludi, 2006)
In some instances between the very diverse cases—like the examples taken up here—we discover manifestations of places that are interesting to compare because of how they correspond to the same developmental dynamics on the one hand, while on the other hand comprising of contextspecific territorial differences and similarities that are not meaningfully unified or put into a singular explanation
We have begun the work of developing a conjunctural analytical framework for researching the complex dynamics of territorial cohesion and territorial inequality in a way that takes the place-based approach in EU development policies seriously
Summary
EU cohesion policy has experienced the development of what has been called a ‘place-based approach’ in its efforts to bridge economic, social and territorial cohesion (Abrahams, 2014; Atkinson & Zimmermann, 2018; Faludi, 2006). The article draws on examples from the analysis and evaluation of local cohesion policy initiatives in selected case studies from the ongoing Horizon 2020 project “Inequality, Urbanization and Territorial Cohesion: Developing the European Social Model of Economic Growth and Democratic Capacity” (COHSMO). While not in any straightforward manner, these initiatives have developed within the framework of EU cohesion policy and the place-based approach. The shift in cohesion policy towards the place-based approach can be said to represent an understanding of places as multiple and overlapping, and as corresponding with the relational view. The article begins by outlining the recent emphasis in the EU on a place-based approach to understanding territorial cohesion emphasising the proclaimed need stated in the literature for more focus on contextual conditions. In the final section of the article, we discuss the implications of the suggested analytical framework; focusing on the knowledge gained from conjunctural analysis
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