What “Is” Territorial Cohesion? What Does It “Do”?: Essentialist Versus Pragmatic Approaches to Using Concepts

Gareth Abrahams

doi:10.1080/09654313.2013.819838

Abstract

The question, “what is territorial cohesion” has reverberated through European spatial policy since the publication of the European Spatial Development Perspective in 1999. Over the last 10 years, the European Spatial Policy Observation Network (ESPON) has made many efforts to define and measure the concept of “territorial cohesion”. Many such attempts assume that a policy concept must be defined in order to be “operationalized”. Or, in other words, that we must determine what the concept is before we can determine what it can or should do. This paper challenges this assumption in two parts. In the first, I review a number of ESPON projects to show how complex and uncertain these essentialist definitions have become. In the second, I analyse a number of national, regional and local government responses to the 2008 Green paper. I show that, whilst a clear and coherent definition has not been established, this concept is already operationalized in different policy frameworks. Bringing this together, I argue that users of such concepts ought to approach the issue differently, through a pragmatic line of enquiry: one that asks what territorial cohesion does, what it might do and how it might affect what other concepts, practices and materials do.

Highlights

In 1999 Ann Markusen published a controversial paper named “fuzzy concepts, scanty evidence and policy distance” (Markusen, 1999)
Twelve of the 54 responses identified in this sample (22%) explicitly argue that their understanding of territorial cohesion is captured in existing policy formed and operationalized at their respective scales
This study has been structured around my argument that groups like European Spatial Policy Observation Network (ESPON) should abandon the essentialist idea that a concept like territorial cohesion should be defined according to a series of traits “before” it can be operationalized

Summary

Introduction

In 1999 Ann Markusen published a controversial paper named “fuzzy concepts, scanty evidence and policy distance” (Markusen, 1999). Her paper calls for planners to remove the ambiguity, or “fuzz” that she believes has gathered around some of the core concepts in urban planning like “sustainability” (Markusen, 1999). Ambiguous concepts, she argues, are difficult to operationalize and limit our ability to construct co-ordinated and robust plans. The moral rights of the named author have been asserted

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