Defining a new territory as a means of building a political stronghold: The invention of the Région Urbaine de Lyon

Abstract

The past 10 years have seen radical changes in the political organisation of European states. In part, these changes appear as adaptations to the economic upheavals we have come to characterise as resulting from the globalisation of the economy and the development of new information technologies. But they are also the result of purely political mechanisms which have brought a generation of young elected officials, rapidly dubbed ‘entrepreneurs’, to the head of the big agglomerations. These officials have forged economic development strategies which they have presented as the appropriate response to the unquestionable internationalisation of the economy. This article seeks to examine from a critical perspective, the process of the emergence and autonomisation of new urban élites who base their legitimacy on new types of action. Using the case of Lyons, often considered a prime example of the evolution described above, as a starting‐point, we, on the contrary, have chosen to re‐examine the dependence of these ‘enterprising’ mayors on their political territory—something which has evolved over a long period of time. In this respect, it would seem that elected officials with a more traditional type of legitimacy dispose of resources which recent literature has all too hastily consigned to the archives of an outmoded local political order.