Territorial Politics Research Articles

Sustainability. The End of Finance as It Was

It is undeniable that sustainability has become one of the hottest discussion subjects nowadays. From a broad perspective, the ramifications of sustainability reach almost all of the social, political and economic territories. However, on many occasions, the lightness and superficiality with which the terms related to this matter are handled, make us think that it could be just a temporary fashion. We must not confuse ourselves. The truth is that we are witnessing profound changes in the socio-economic system that unveil a paradigm shift. If we set sustainability aside for a second, and we look from a pure socio-economic perspective, it becomes obvious that we are in the middle of an intergenerational wealth transfer of approximately 30 trillion dollars from the so-called baby boomers to their successors. And these successors - not just millennials, but people in their 30s to 40s - simply think about their economic decisions differently. Consequently, institutional investors have changed gears in their economic vision as well.It is the end of finance as it was. The consideration of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors into economic decisions represent not just a fashion but a new reality. A reality that represents a sizable challenge that, in many ways, comes along with plenty of controversy. In practice, it means the consideration of environmental, social and governance factors along with financial factors in the economic decision-making process. And this is a fundamental change for the financial and capital management world. The new paradigm confronts two main forces that can adopt different names, denominations or justifications: sustainability vs profitability, ESG vs financial performance, environment vs profit, etc. In sum, many economic operators may think that ESG factors could compromise financial performance. Is this reflection true or is it just an excuse for those anchored in certain patterns? This analysis will deep dive into the rational behind the current changes in the finance and capital markets to align its structures and business models to the new sustainable economy.10 keys explain the importance of sustainability in today’s finance world. These 10 macro trends are behind a profound transformation movement in the financial market setting up a new pace and new business patterns. It is the end of finance as it was.

Multinationalism in the Spanish Territorial Debate during the COVID-19 Crisis. The Case of Catalonia and Intergovernmental Relations

This paper analyses the relationship between the COVID-19 crisis and multinationalism in Spain from two complementary angles. First, it provides an overview on how the multinational and decentralized character of Spanish territorial politics shapes the response to the crisis. We find that the management of the crisis reflects and exacerbates the main features of the Spanish territorial model as a case of incomplete federalism with severe intergovernmental deficits. Second, we analyze the effects of the pandemic on Catalan self-determination demands through a brief description of parties, public opinion and governmental reactions. We argue that Catalan secessionism faces several new impediments as a result of the pandemic, but we also find that the COVID-19 crisis provides a window of opportunity for this movement regarding grievance-building and regional governmental performance and salience. We conclude with a general reflection on the ambivalent impact of COVID-19 crisis on Spanish regionalism and territorial politics. Overall, the COVID-19 crisis does not seem to mean an improvement but a potential setback for the accommodation of national diversity.

Promised Land: Settlement Schemes in Kenya, 1962 to 2016

Smallholder settlement schemes have played a prominent role in Kenya's contested history of state-building, land politics, and electoral mobilization. This paper presents the first georeferenced dataset documenting scheme location, boundaries, and attributes of Kenya's 533 official settlement schemes, as well as the first systematic data on scheme creation since 1980. The data show that almost half of all government schemes were created after 1980, as official rural development rationales for state-sponsored settlement gave way to more explicitly welfarist and electoralist objectives. Even so, logics of state territorialization to fix ethnicized, partisan constituencies to state-defined territorial units pervade the history of scheme creation over the entire 1962–2016 period, as theorized in classic political geography works on state territorialization. While these “geopolitics” of regime construction are fueled by patronage politics, they also sustain practices of land allocation that affirm the moral and political legitimacy of grievance-backed claims for land. This fuels on-going contestation around political representation and acute, if socially-fragmented, demands for state-recognition of land rights. Our findings are consistent with recent political geography and interdisciplinary work on rural peoples' demands for state recognition of land rights and access to natural resources. Kenya's history of settlement scheme creation shows that even in the country's core agricultural districts, where the reach of formal state authority is undisputed, the territorial politics of power-consolidation and resource allocation continues to be shaped by social demands and pressures from below.

Between Elites and Society: The Politics of Territorial Splits in a Decentralizing Era, Case of Lebak District, Indonesia

This article studies the political struggles of local society in South Lebak who want to split from Lebak District. The reasons are ineffective and inefficient public services, abundant natural resource potential, and political dynasty saturation. Therefore, they continue to negotiate their territorial areas. This article attempts to answer how territorial politics works in the process of territorial splits. The results reveal: first, the political elite used the issue of territorial splits for electoral matters. Second, territorial splits are motivated not only by a group of elites in South Lebak or local politicians, but also by the local people's desire for long-term prosperity and exceptionally effective and efficient public services. However, the interests of the local elite groups are more dominant. This study found that there is a link between the interests of society and the local elites. Keywords: decentralization; election; elites; politics of territorial splits; South Lebak.

Multi-level governance and subnational research: Similarities, differences, and knowledge accumulation in the study of territorial politics

ABSTRACT The Subnational Research (SNR) and Multilevel Governance (MLG) research programs have tackled some of the crucial questions in comparative politics. Despite their shared principle that actors and institutions located at one territorial level are shaped by and shape other levels of government, each tradition has developed its own set of concepts and theories without fully acknowledging the other. We believe that this has been detrimental for knowledge accumulation. We argue that more knowledge accumulation in the study of territorial politics is possible if (1) scholars engage with each tradition, and (2) they are attentive to differences, or blind spots, in each traditions’ theories, concepts, and scope conditions. Drawing on two examples, the Regional Authority Index (RAI) and Kent Eaton’s work (2021) we show the benefits of transcending the boundaries of each tradition. We conclude by proposing a unified framework for the study of territorial politics that incorporates both SNR and MLG.

Understanding the uneven geography of urban energy transitions: insights from Edmonton, Canada

AbstractCities are important partners in developing solutions towards a low-carbon pathway. However, given the variation in geography, a need exists to study urban energy transitions through a nuanced approach that addresses space- and place-based factors. Based on document analysis and interviews with municipal employees and local energy experts in Edmonton, Canada, we explore how location and availability of energy sources, political territoriality, physical urban landscapes and social embeddedness of fossil fuels influence municipal energy transition. Results illustrate that while Edmonton is shaped by its fossil fuel geography, it is actively carving out its low-carbon future through a geographically rooted transition strategy.

Inequalities, territorial politics, nationalism

ABSTRACT Since the Global Financial Crisis, European countries have faced economic stagnation, rising inequalities, worsening social conditions and strains on public services. The capacity of nation-states to combine economic growth with social cohesion has declined and domestic social compromises have been undermined. Attachments to the nation-state have in many places weakened, while in other places there is a return to the interventionist nation-state and a search for new modes of regulation. The crisis has also called into question the shape of the European project, as austerity has provoked hostility to European integration itself, but also calls for a different form of Europe. This special issue focuses on the impact on substate territories of economic crisis, spatial inequalities and the responses of different levels of government to the new challenges to social cohesion.

State-guided city regionalism: the development of metro transit in the city region of Nanjing

ABSTRACT Geographies of city regionalism are variegated. In developed market economies, the provision of regional transport infrastructure has been affected by territorial politics, which reflects the nature of collective provision. Today, territorial politics are the foundation of city regionalism, and involve a wide range of stakeholders. In China, the city region has recently been selected as a new development strategy; accordingly, the development of regional transport infrastructure in China has been driven, partly, by national policies. Given the various stakeholders involved in such processes, this study sought to illuminate the processes of city regionalism formation in China. We used the case study of the development of metro transit infrastructure in the city region of Nanjing, which revealed that city regionalism is state-guided and involves coordination between administrative commands from different levels of government, negotiations between local governments, and an overall shift in policy sentiment from competition to collaboration. Ultimately, this study ascertains that while transborder transit projects are primarily state guided (involving upper government intervention), they are also constituted by bargaining between local governments in the city region.

AGENDA POLÍTICA HACIA EL BIENESTAR Y LA COHESIÓN SOCIAL EN EL GOBIERNO DE LA CUARTA TRANSFORMACIÓN EN MÉXICO

The study of political communication that occurs from social networks has focused almost exclusivelyon the effectiveness of these platforms as electoral tools.However, the understanding of what we can understand as a public and political digital place, fromwhich inputs can be obtained to improve the decision and design processes and monitoring of publicpolicies, seems to be still unattended.This study aims to argue the existence of a “digital political territory”, where it is not only possibleto deploy political action, but it is also possible to find -recognize and analyze, by means of big datatechniques- deliberative elements of the politic discussion, which could serve as inputs for public actionsand decisions (beyond merely electoral ones).For this we identified six specific characteristics, whose cumulative presence would make up the digitalpolitical territory, and we argued that it would only be on Twitter where we can find those characte-ristics.

The Hittite Notion of Border. A practical view

The Hittite cuneiform texts (16th-12th cent. BCE) contain a number of detailed descriptions of borders of various countries and territories. Such fragments, mainly found in the international treaties as well as the annals of the kings, clearly reflect the particular formal interest on the part of the Hittite rulers in specific delimitation of political territories.
 Although the Hittite listings of the topographical points, which make up a frontier can extend over many lines of texts, one never finds any use of cardinal directions which would indicate the position of these points. Instead, the Hittite scribes applied a peculiar internal reference system that combines the position of the speaker and another point of reference in order to locate a specific part of the border.
 The talk will briefly review the corpus of the Hittite border descriptions and discuss how such fragments were conceptualized. It will also tackle the question, whether they reflect a ‘bird’s eye’, cartographic view of the land, or rather a ground-level, hodological perspective.

Territorial Politics and the Party System in Spain: Continuity and Change since the Financial Crisis, Caroline Gray (2020)

Review of: Territorial Politics and the Party System in Spain: Continuity and Change since the Financial Crisis, Caroline Gray (2020) Abingdon: Routledge, 167 pp., ISBN 978-1-85743-983-0, h/bk, £84.00, ISBN 978-0-42929-006-0, e/bk, £25.89

The Evolution of Forming “Territories of Traditional Nature Use” in the Sakha Republic (Iakutiia)

In the struggle of Russia’s Indigenous northerners for greater control over their ancestral lands, the spatiolegal formations known as Territories of Traditional Nature Use (TTPs, using the Russian acronym) have become their most effective tool. TTPs have assumed diverse characteristics across Russian regions in response to the evolution of federal and sub-federal law and of center-periphery relations at national and regional scales. In the Sakha Republic (Iakutiia), TTP formation is entangled with wider territorial politics and economic trends, which have led to the precarious but powerful advancement of Indigenous rights. This article explores this evolution by comparing the creation of two neighboring TTPs, formed eight years apart under distinct political and legislative conditions. A combination of local efforts, subnational legislative and economic initiatives, and reaction to federal overstep have compelled the improvement and systematization of Indigenous rights in the republic.

Griffiths, Ryan D., and Muro, Diego (eds.) (2020). Strategies of Secession and Counter-Secession. ECPR Press. 244 pages.

The book Strategies of Secession and Counter-Secession edited by professors Ryan D. Grifiths and Diego Muro is a major and necessary contribution to the study of secessionism. The book should be read not only by scholars and students of territorial politics but by practitioners and political actors too. The chapters gathered in this volume offer useful reflections to understand this global phenomenon.

Cavernous politics: Geopower, territory, and the Kurdish question in Turkey

This article expands upon recent attempts to shift focus to the material and earthly aspects of power to explore territorial politics and state power in Turkey's Kurdish-populated southeast or Turkish Kurdistan. It focuses on the limestone caves scattered along the Upper Tigris Valley as a locus of geopower, examining the sociopolitical life of limestone caves in relation to the environmental geographies of oil extraction, development, and counterinsurgency. Examining three historical segments where the limestone caves of the Upper Tigris Valley have become objects of the Turkish state's attempts to govern Kurds and territorialize Turkish Kurdistan, this paper demonstrates the shifting configurations of geopower in Turkey vis-à-vis the Kurdish Question. As geological formations fundamental to the Turkish state's attempts to exert and secure territorial power, the caves of the Upper Tigris Valley have also been central to the ways in which Kurds in Turkey have attempted to unsettle state power and territorial politics. Surveying the workings of geopower through caves in Turkish Kurdistan, the article reveals the uneven and violent ways in which geological formations are entangled with hegemonic territorial politics and counter-hegemonic politics.

The Parallel and Interdependent Political Evolutions in the West and the East: Eusocial Politics

This paper proposes that the parallel and interdependent political evolutions through the political transformations in the technological Ages are derived from the individualistic West originated from Greece based on pastoral-trade culture and the collectivistic East originated from China based on agrarian culture. The three types of politics are territorial politics with rigid boundary, individualistic politics with flexible boundary, and collectivistic politics with flexible boundary. In the New Stone, Bronze, Iron, Industrial, Information, and Intelligence Ages, the politics in the West are territorial hereditary pastoral-trade tribe, individualistic hereditary nation alliance, individualistic elective mega empire, individualistic individual liberal democracy, individualistic multilateral organization, and individualistic eusocial politics, respectively, while the politics in the East are territorial hereditary agrarian tribe, collectivistic hereditary feudal nation, collectivistic civil service mega empire, collectivistic common professional democracy, collectivistic multilateral organization, collectivistic eusocial politics, respectively. For the foundations of governments, competitive election from the West and consensual civil service from the East are interdependent. For social rules, rule of law from the West and rule of relation from the East are interdependent. For production types, adventurous type (invention, productivity, efficiency, and market) from the West and consolidative type (development, supply chain, economy of scale, and ration) from the East are interdependent. For human rights, liberty from the West and life-livelihood from the East are interdependent. For overall perceptions, single-faceted categorical perception from the West and multi-faceted relational perception from the East are interdependent. The combination of the emergent Intelligence Age and the various harsh global crises results in inevitable global interconnection which demands eusocial politics under one earth, one future, and one people to overcome the global crises (pandemic, climate, inequality, and poverty crises). Eusocial politics includes mutual vulnerability, the interdependent East-West, the United Regional Communities, the green-digital infrastructure of one earth and one future, and the poverty reduction of one people.

Drawing the Lines: Translation and Diplomacy in the Central Asian Borderlands.

Empires and nation states alike used maps to practically and discursively construct territory. Such maps were often intercultural productions, and thus illustrate the role of translation in diplomacy. This article analyzes border-making between and of the Russian, Qing, and Dzungar Empires in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, thus regionalizing Western Europe. This focus shows, first, how linguistic diplomatic actors could be missionaries and scholars, but also foreign prisoners of war. Second, it shows the role of non-textual translation, and the merging of cosmologies and scientific traditions. Finally, this article argues that intertwined practices of diplomacy, translation, and mapmaking had real and devastating effects on the perception of borders and territorial politics in the Central Asian borderlands.

Skewing the nation: mobilizing queer citizenship in South Africa

ABSTRACT This article is interested in the national imaging and imagining of non-heteronormative genders and sexual orientations – that is, the way in which citizenship, as a form of belonging, is visually negotiated from an LGBTI (that is lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex) perspective. Technologies for framing gender and sexuality (such as photography and film) are central for the visual negotiation of LGBTI citizenship within the South African context. Images that speak of/to the nation on the topic of LGBTI citizenship are complex framings, as they encapsulate a marked sense of difference, while they also reveal a sense for solidarity and reconciliation. Based on the contemporary South African context, this article posits that, while LGBTI subjects are encompassed in a national rhetoric of belonging, LGBTI manifestations of subjectivity are in practice often met with severe scorn and violence. As such, the very idea of national citizenship runs counter to queer subjectivities and strategies, which are not primarily invested in the concept of “belonging,” or ascribing to the normative ideals and delineations of a given political space or cultural territory. The complexity arising from the tensions between belonging and dis-identifying, stasis and movement, is the point of departure for this article, in which a series of visual examples are drawn upon to demonstrate how the idea of sexual and gendered citizenship is negotiated by contemporary South African artists and activists. In addition, this article demonstrates how visualizing technologies impact the lives of LGBTI subjects within contemporary South Africa.

Violence and Abstraction

Violence and Abstraction Brad Evans (bio) and Chantal Meza (bio) Abstractions are everywhere. They fill the air. Abstractions can belong to the realm of the pure imagination. They can inspire wonderment. And yet they can also summon forth the most terrifying gods and empires of worldly destruction. Abstraction becomes apparent every single time an original thought is birthed. It is also apparent in the conceptual delivery of each and every philosophical claim. There are no metaphysical principles without the abstractions from which they emerge. We cannot think without them. They are the energy defining our existence. Without abstractions, we are reduced to the mere biological fact of being or sometimes in the darker moments of history even less so. Everything in these base-level terms is simplified and reduced to the question of pure survival. Hence, mindfully thwarting the attempted destruction of the human as abstractedly conceived, humanity has continually aspired to become worthy of the abstractions of its own devising. How often do we wish to live up to the expectations of our impossible dreams? And how often do we torment ourselves when the reality of the vision doesn't match expectations? We live through and are governed by the abstractions of our impositions and choosing. Belongings, borders, beliefs; they all appear as abstractions before they are consecrated in the corporeal realms of the symbolic real. Abstractions are in fact what purposefully separates us as humans. Only the human is capable of conceiving of the abstract in thought and deeds. It is the only life form we know that intentionally imagines beyond itself. That was what made us exceptional. That was until now. Ever since Plato ventured into the dark and illusionary metaphorical cave, political philosophers have debated the distinction between the abstract and the real. Plato for his part actively mobilized the shadows, recruiting their phantoms in his scathing attack on artistic pursuits.1 Often separated in thinking, these concepts have given rise to fundamental debates between fiction and truth, imagination and science, madness and civility, chaos and security, along with deeper questions concerning absence and presence. But the abstract offers not only answers and permits imaginative explorations [End Page 333] at the same time; it is also capable of merging the internal and external complex processes of life we humans have been exploiting throughout our existence—processes which we call "creation." Moreover, despite a brief moment in history where European abstract expressionism was brought into directly conflict with the forces of historical fascism, there has been an overriding tendency to see the abstract as either some dangerous distraction or the hidden force that makes all violence and oppression possible. But the abstract is not something modern or fashionable, much less simple. We see this in earlier debates concerning the abstract nature of religion and its demands for sacrifice, onto the theorisations of Karl Marx (1857) who in the Grundrisse declared, "individuals are now ruled by abstractions whereas earlier they had depended on one another. The abstraction, or idea, however, is nothing more than the theoretical expression of those material relations which are their lord and master."2 A concern that would later be addressed specifically in the terms of "violence" and its relation to historical materialism.3 This concern with the abstract has more recently been picked up by Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2002, 16) who defined racism as "a practice of abstraction, a death-dealing displacement of difference into hierarchies that organize relations within and between the planet's sovereign political territories." We don't deny the abstract can be appropriated and turned back upon itself by the ever-changing mechanics of calculative thinking and its modalities of control. Nor do we deny the abstract can become a formidable mythical excess capable of totalising claims over life and the future. Afterall, everybody is abstract, and all power is abstracting. But what matters politically and philosophically is the type of abstraction we are concerned with? Not all abstractions are the same. Indeed, since the dawn of philosophical time there has been a continued battle taking place over the meaning and the mastery of the abstract, which is inseparable from how we understand the value of life. Or to...

Assessing and Explaining the Diverging Trajectories of Territorial Parties and Politics in Italy and Spain (2008‐2018)

AbstractUntil the mid‐2000s, territorial politics played a considerable role in both Italy and Spain. Two regionalist parties, among others, clearly contributed to this: Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and the Northern League. Yet evidence shows that the two parties, while starting from relatively similar positions, have followed diverging trajectories, particularly after the financial (and then economic) crisis that hit their respective countries. CDC pushed its pro‐autonomy stances to the extreme and eventually ended up supporting Catalan independence. On the other hand, the League dropped its regionalist agenda and even became a state‐wide party. By comparing these two cases, this article aims to shed light on the mechanisms that lead to the radicalisation or moderation (and even abandonment) of regionalist parties’ territorial demands. These opposite movements have broader implications, since they have been accompanied by increasing polarisation of territorial politics in Spain and the de‐politicisation of this issue in Italy.

Brexit : Territorial Politics, Territorial Processes and Narratives of Territorial Identities

Il existe plusieurs définitions de la cohésion territoriale, mais définir spatialement les idées de souveraineté, de juridiction, d'administration et de citoyenneté devrait être au cœur de cette définition. Un territoire institutionnel (l’UE, les nations, les régions, les départements…) est défini par ses caractéristiques, par le pouvoir qui s’exerce en son sein et par son identité. Les questions du développement des territoires et des identités territoriales ont influencé le référendum sur le Brexit. Les crises financière et économique de 2007/2008 ont amené des gouvernements à adopter des mesures d’austérité qui ont affaibli la cohésion territoriale à tous les niveaux. Le référendum de 2016 a mis en lumière ces inégalités : la plupart des grandes villes ont voté pour rester dans l'UE et la plupart des plus petites villes et les campagnes ont voté pour quitter l'UE. La majorité des Ecossais et des Irlandais du Nord ont voté pour rester dans l'UE mais la campagne référendaire a alimenté la nationalisme anglais qui, jusque-là, s’exprimait en marge du débat politique. Si les inégalités territoriales ont eu une influence sur les électeurs, ces derniers ont également étaient influencés par la mobilisation des identités territoriales. Cet article étudie la manière dont les identités territoriales ont été mobilisées lors de la campagne référendaire qui a conduit à quitter l’UE. L’UE a été présenté comme une organisation hostile aux territoires qui pâtissaient d’une trop grande ouverture européenne aux réfugiés et aux migrations. Ce registre a trouvé un écho particulièrement fort chez les habitants des plus petites villes et des campagnes. Par ailleurs, le référendum a alimenté des visions très différentes des identités nationales au sein du Royaume-Uni. Ceci constitue aujourd’hui un défi quant à l’unité de la Grande Bretagne. La controverse sur le sens du territoire est au cœur du projet européen. Il y a donc aujourd’hui un besoin urgent de recherche sur l’économie politique de la cohésion territoriale.