Regions, City-Regions, Identity and Institution Building: Contemporary Experiences of the Scalar Turn in Italy and England

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In recent years, extensive academic effort has been devoted to interpreting the scalar turn in political and economic geography. This has involved considerable emphasis on the interrelationships across institutions at different spatial scales, stemming from the globalization of economic activity and associated regulatory structures, and the related rescaling of state economic functions to a variety of sub-national institutional entities. This article attempts to augment this work by addressing recognized uncertainties about the dynamics of this process of rescaling, manifested through conflict over the precise configuration of sub-national scalar boundaries. Through a comparison of recent experiences of regionalism in Italy and England, it considers the tensions implicit in the new regionalist territorial settlement, focusing on conflicts that have crystallized around contrasting efforts discursively to construct regional and city-regional identities. In conclusion, the article revisits the validity and utility of contested conceptualizations of resurgent (city) regionalism and considers the possible trajectory of future change.