Sebastian M. Buettner - Mobilizing Regions, Mobilizing Europe

Mobilizing Regions, Mobilizing Europe

Regional development strategies are becoming more similar all around Europe, even though regional differences are more pronounced than ever and many European regions have become more autonomous actors. This thesis of a peculiar standardized diversification of sub-national space in the modern European Union is the point of departure of this book.

Based upon analytical premises of Stanford School Sociological Institutionalism, Sebastian M. Bttner studies regional mobilization in contemporary Europe from a new and innovative perspective. He highlights the importance of scientific expertise and global scientific models in contemporary regional development practice, and exemplifies their significance with the example of region-building in Poland in the course of EU integration. This new wave of regional mobilization is not just conceived as an effect of local, national or European politics, but as an expression of a larger conceptual shift in governing society and space.

This well researched and clearly argued book not only provides fresh insights into region-building and regionalization in contemporary European space, but also contributes to the new sociology of Europeanization. It will be an illuminating read for scholars and students in Sociology, European and EU studies, International Relations, Cultural Studies, Geography, Regional Science, Polish Studies and related subject areas.

Sebastian M. Bttner is Lecturer in Social Theory and Cultural Sociology at the Institute of Sociology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. His research interests include sociology of knowledge and culture, theory of modernity, transnationalization and regionalization in contemporary Europe, theories and practice of social government and social mobilization.

Routledge/European Sociological Association Studies in European Societies

Series editors: Thomas P. Boje, Max Haller, Martin Kohli and Alison Woodward

1 European Societies

Fusion or fission?

Edited by Thomas P. Boje, Bart van Steebergen and Sylvia Walby

2 The Myth of Generational Conflict

The family and state in ageing societies

Edited by Sara Arber and Claudine Attias-Donfut

3 The End of the Welfare State?

Responses to state retrenchment

Edited by Peter Taylor-Gooby and Stefan Svallfors

4 Will Europe Work?

Integration, employment and the social order

Edited by Martin Kohli and Mojca Novak

5 Inclusions and Exclusions in European Societies

Edited by Martin Kohli and Alison Woodward

6 Young Europeans, Work and Family

Futures in transition

Edited by Julia Brannen, Suzan Lewis, Ann Nilsen and Janet Smithsen

7 Autobiographies of Transformation

Lives in Central and Eastern Europe

Edited by Mike Keen and Janusz Mucha

8 Europe and Asia Beyond East and West

Edited by Gerard Delanty

9 Cultural Overstretch

Differences between old and new member states of the EU and Turkey

Edited by Jrgen Gerhards

10 Social Class in Europe

An introduction to the European socio-economic classification

Edited by David Rose and Eric Harrison

11 Conflict, Citizenship and Civil Society

Edited by Patrick Baert, Sokratis M. Koniordos, Giovanna Procacci and Carlo Ruzza

12 Muslims in 21st Century Europe

Structural and cultural perspectives

Edited by Anna Triandafyllidou

13 Internationalisation of Social Sciences in Central and Eastern Europe

The catching up a myth or a strategy?

Edited by Ilona Pln Kovcs and Dagmar Kutsar

14 Baltic Biographies at Historical Crossroads

Edited by Li Bennich-Bjrkman and Aili Aarelaid-Tart

15 Mobilizing Regions, Mobilizing Europe

Expert knowledge and scientific planning in European regional development

Sebastian M. Bttner

Forthcoming:

Religion, Identity and Politics

Germany and Turkey in interaction

Haldun Gulalp and Seufert Gunter

The Road to Social Europe

A contemporary approach to political cultures and diversity in the EU

Jean-Claude Barbier

Mobilizing Regions, Mobilizing Europe

Expert knowledge and scientific planning in European regional development

Sebastian M. Bttner

First published 2012

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2012 Sebastian M. Bttner

The right of Sebastian M. Bttner to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bttner, Sebastian

Mobilizing regions, mobilizing Europe: expert knowledge and scientific planning in European regional development/by Sebastian M. Bttner. 1st ed.

p. cm. (Routledge/European sociological association studies in European societies)

1. Regional planningEurope. 2. Regional planningPolandCase studies. 3. European Union countriesEconomic integration. I. Title.

HT395.E8.B88 2012

307.12094dc23

2011034953

ISBN: 978-0-415-67875-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-09356-6 (ebk)

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It is a common and indeed understandable tendency of people who are occupied with one topic for a long period of time to overestimate and overemphasize their particular field of interest, and to start seeing the world only from this particular point of view. After studying issues of region-building and regional development in contemporary Europe for some time, I do firmly believe, nonetheless, that it is not just my own selective bias that makes me quite bluntly assert here, right at the beginning of this book, that something is happening at the local and regional level in Europe something that has never been so intense and all-embracing as it is today.

These days, regional symbols and idioms are with us in TV advertisements, in lifestyle magazines and even on large billboards at train stations, airports and bus stops. Sub-national areas and regions have become important reference points of both political participation and for sentiments of social belonging. They are celebrated as refuges for stable and authentic identities in an increasingly accelerating and globalizing world that no longer seems to provide stability and collective forms of belonging. And they have become important political actors even in countries without strong regional traditions or federalist systems of state government. Moreover, they have also become active promoters of global flows and market exchanges, vigorously promoting business development and outlining numerous programmes of economic stimulation and revitalizing local infrastructure, human capital and all other resources required for favourable business development. More and more municipalities and regions all over Europe have started to create technology parks, business incubators and other types of knowledge-transfer centres in order to attract new investors and to reinforce the attractiveness, creativity and innovativeness of their local economy. And, against this backdrop, it is certainly more than just an astonishing coincidence that even this book was written to large extent in a science and technology park which is home to the campus of Bremen University and the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) where I had the opportunity to conduct this research project and write my dissertation between autumn 2006 and autumn 2009.