Peripheral Europe Research Articles

Integrating peripheral Europe: the different roads to ‘security and stability’ in Southern and Central Europe

This article argues that the concept of peripheral capitalism, which was erroneously applied to the democratic transition and international integration of Spain, Portugal and Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, is a useful conceptual tool to understand the present incorporation of countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary into the European heartland of transnational production and finance. The relatively successful incorporation of Southern Europe, inter alia exemplified by the outward expansion or transnationalization of Spanish, Portuguese and Greek capital in recent years, is absolutely no guarantee that a similar development will occur in the case of Central and Eastern Europe (after enlargement). The political and economic transformation in this region is much more complex than the previous democratic transition in Southern Europe, and takes place under fundamentally different, domestic and international circumstances. The absence of an indigenous capitalist class, the denationalization of the respective economies, the dominant role of transnational social forces in imposing neo-liberal restructuring on the post-1989 managerial elites, and the neo-liberal underpinnings of the present European Union's (EU) enlargement strategy all point at the peripheralization of the new capitalist democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.

Structuralism and Dependency in Peripheral Europe: Latin American Ideas in Spain and Portugal

The related Latin American doctrines of structuralism and dependency had important repercussions in Spain and Portugal, two nations of the European periphery in the postwar era. This paper establishes the influence of the two Latin American ideas in those countries, focusing on the moments of their greatest impact-the 1950s and the 1970s. It explains such influence as a result of three factors - the previous existence of local traditions of structuralist thought, to which the Latin American doctrines could be assimilated; the relevance of Latin American ideas and techniques to pressing economic issues; and the utility of such ideas for foreign policy. It also illustrates that structuralism and dependency were perceived as closely related, and mentions the impact of the two doctrines in another country on the European Periphery, Romania, in the same two decades.

Back to Baltoscandia? European Union and Geo-Conceptual Remaking of the European North

The history of the political geography of northern Europe is a history of geopolitical concepts. These concepts have constituted and reflected the changing temporal contexts of the region. This article is based on continental political theory and the perspective of the history of conceptual change applied to the study of geopolitics. The goal of the article is to understand various features of the creation of the European Union by using the northern part of this political construct as an example of the geopolitical struggle which takes place in the 'new Europe'. The geo-conceptual change in the context of the Northern Dimension initiative strengthens the recent argument by John Agnew that a threefold spatial division is under construction in Europe: the formation of core Europe, peripheral Europe (potential eastern member states) and external Europe excluded from membership but open to use by businesses from the core. In this context, the Northern Dimension initiative is a descriptive example of how the European Union includes the Baltic states into the European Self by excluding Russia to the 'external Europe'. The analysed conceptual change in the context of the Northern Dimension initiative proves that from the perspective of the core (the European Commission), the evolving Northern Dimension of the old continent is to be based upon an old territorial imagination rather than post-modern de-territorialisation rhetoric. The Northern Dimension initiative is, therefore, an apt example of the construction of the new moral language and geopolitical discourse for the enlarging European Union.

Agro-Town Regions of Peripheral Europe

The concept of agro-town was elaborated by the geographers to describe a settlement that although it is chiefly populated by farmers and agricultural labourers has the size of a town and often includes urban institutions, urban social strata and functions. Such settlements are surrounded by vast areas of extensively used land which may extend to several tens of thousands of square kilometres. Agro-towns constitute settlement networks in themselves, without or with very few villages. In Europe agro-town regions are found in Andalusia, Southern Italy, Sicily and on the Great Hungarian Plain. In this paper the author makes a detailed study of the Hungarian agro-towns, describing their physical and social structure as well as their life-style and culture, and tracing their development and transformations back to the late Middle Ages. In the concluding chapter the Hungarian agro-towns are compared with their Mediterranean parallels. In spite of apparent differences (e.g. a general 'urbanity' and 'urban ethos' in the Mediterranean, and 'ruralness' in the Hungarian Plain) the paper points out basic similarities in the historic development and social significance of the agro-towns. The similar traits are interpreted as adaptations to more or less analogous situations in the periphery of the European continental division of labor.

Culture and Economy in Peripheral Europe.

The paper begins by discussing certain difficulties with neoclassical, Weberian and convergence approaches to the relationship between culture and economy. It continues with an examination of the concept of culture and its relationship to the ideas of nationalism and ethnicity. This discussion then forms the basis for an examination of the different forms that ethnicity and nationalism have taken in Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe as these areas experienced and reacted to the penetration of capitalism, and to the subsequent development of fascism and socialism. Skeptical of attempts to formulate universal theories of culture, nationalism or ethnicity, the paper proposes instead an approach which recognizes and addresses the diversity in modes of cultural organization.

Studies in the political economy of peripheral Europe

Studies in the political economy of peripheral Europe

El pretexto de la inflación. La política alemana de ajustes que privilegia al acreedor

Under the subterfuge of inflation and by means of a strict conditionality in return forproviding financial assistance to peripheral Europe, Germany is trying to consolidatean austerity policy that guarantees the payment of debts to German banks. The cutsimposed by Berlin, however, increase the risk of recession and intensify the North-South divide in Europe.