EU spatial policy is a remarkable expression of how this ‘sui-generis institution’ is moving – against all odds – towards increased ‘positive integration’. While its development may be seen as consistent with a ‘European model of society’, it is nevertheless apparent that current political-institutional discourse on spatial policy also reflects the EU’s unresolved contradictions on its way to becoming more ‘effective and democratic’.

Apparently, while progressing in institutionally ‘mainstreaming’ spatial issues, the EU keeps having a hard time developing its policies beyond settings defined by limitedly innovative expert processes and restricted intergovernmental negotiations.

One result of this can be seen in the current trend towards supporting EU-wide policy choices by means of, so-called, ‘evidence-based’ approaches. What remains unaddressed in light of this search for ‘objective’ consensus is the fact that a mature EU spatial policy can only develop through actively engaging in innovative subsidiaritybased forms of agency. This is particularly so in respect of ‘territorial cohesion’, a policy concept which – as even official EU documents admit – can only gain effective meaning through its appropriation and enactment by local-regional governance actors.

The paper discusses these issues in the context of recent developments in EU spatial development policy, and particularly in relation to an analysis of the ‘Territorial Agenda’ process. In light of the features adopted by this process, it argues that it is now both scientifically and politically expedient to address the meaning of ‘territorial cohesion’ as a category of agency, that is, as the expression of concrete patterns of spatially contingent interests, interactions and practices of governance.

Published in the European Journal of Spatial Development (July 2008).

There is a key task facing EU spatial development policy in the future: promoting action spaces that, on the one hand, are the expression of endogenous and selfdetermining regional forces and initiatives and that, on the other hand, are responsive to overarching EU goals and objectives. This can only happen if substantive and procedural inputs ‘from above’ – like overarching goals, resources, and related implementation rules – are not only general enough as not to constrain local-regional mobilization and creativity ‘from below’, but also clear enough as to promote directions of local-regional innovation.

At present, however, this cannot be achieved by agreements on general definitions of spatial development priorities and by the simple delegation of their application to ‘vertical’ subsidiarity-based structures. In the context of the desire to make EU policymaking both more ‘effective and democratic’, on the contrary, what is needed is a capacity to enable local-regional actors to interpret and to enact these priorities in accordance with their legitimate needs. This implies that the EU-wide ‘framing’ of spatial development policies should combine conceptual innovation with a commitment to innovative forms of agency so as to include opportunities for collective learning, implying the production of collective meanings and frames, and the discovery and invention of solutions and of conjoint modes of agency. In line with this perspective, EU spatial development policy should contribute to the building of a framework for mutual legitimation: a system of relationships by which local-regional action corroborates EU goals and objectives by reinterpreting and appropriating them within specific contexts, and by which EU goals and objectives corroborate local-regional action by providing them with a broader scope for justification.

Current debates seem to recognize the centrality of knowledge that is implied by such a system of mutual relationships. However, the kind of knowledge involved is much different from that evoked by ‘evidence-based’ policy and planning approaches. Contrary to what seems to be implied in ‘evidence-based’ approaches, the form of knowledge which needs to be mobilized for this purpose relates more to the development of experience than to the transmission of information. What is needed then is an epistemology of agency. Adopting an epistemology of agency means reversing the instrumentalist nexus between knowledge and agency implied by classical epistemology, seeing knowledge as a precondition for agency. It means acknowledging that the production of knowledge is a dimension of social agency focussing instead on its production process and its producer. This also entails acknowledging that knowledge of EU spatial policy is knowledge produced in relation to the experience of a situation, and that, accordingly, the nature and quality of the social relations involved in that situation is decisive for the quality of the knowledge produced. In this sense, the production of relevant knowledge on spatial development implies an active and experimental attitude towards the promotion of forms of agency in spatial development. Only if it actively addresses this dimension can EU spatial development policy play a role in constructing a more ‘effective and democratic’ European politics.

Berlin University of Technology - ISR – Department of Urban and
Hardenbergstr. 40a
10623 Berlin
Germany
Prof. Dr. Enrico Gualini

/07/2008

Prof. Dr. Enrico Gualini

research

Urban Policy > Urban environment

Land use