Cross-border Policy Networks in the Basel Region: The Effect of National Borders and Brokerage Roles

Abstract

This paper provides evidence of how national borders affect the structure of policy networks. Our analysis of the Basel cross-border metropolitan region located across Switzerland, France and Germany considers the case of public transportation in border regions. Using a social network analysis of the relationships between 44 actors, we show that national borders play a diminishing role in the formation of policy networks for both information exchange and decision making. Local actors develop different brokerage roles according to their country of origin: Swiss actors function as coordinator and representative brokers vis-à-vis actors located in France and Germany.

Contested ‘Relational Policy Spaces’ in Two European Border Regions

“…It is within this area that most of the political and financial efforts for improving transport policies have been developed. It also illustrates the current refocusing of cross-border cooperation at the scale of the urban area (Walther and Reitel, 2013). The focus on the core urban area is obvious in some of the sketch maps drawn of the Basel region by Swiss, German, and French actors, who distinguish between the urban agglomerations, where tramways are important, and the larger functional area, from which most cross-border workers commute by train.…”

Disclosing the Relational Structure of Institutional Cross-border Cooperation in Two Cross-border Regions in Europe

“…In an initial step,Soeters(1993), proposed a network theory for the study of Euroregional networks in the MaasRhine Euroregion.The policy network approach is proposed also by Perkmann (1999Perkmann ( , 2002 as the most appropriate means of explaining European cross-border cooperation. There are recent case studies applying social network analysis to the study of cross-border cooperation policies using the policy network approach (Brunet-Jailly, 2006;Walther andReitel, 2013, Sohnand Giffinger, 2015;Dörry and Decoville, 2016;Dörryand Walther, 2015). These case-studies allow for a new perspective wherein crossborder policies -such as national policies -are dynamic processes in which multiple actors interact.…”

“…This latter type of programme was that of the former Interreg, a community initiative with the fourth programme period [2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012][2013]. Two of the 60 programmes are the Central Baltic Interreg IV A Programme 2007-2013 (2011) and the Operational Programme for Cross-border Cooperation: Spain -Portugal, 2007-2013(Poctep, 2011. These programmes (Regional Policy, 2016a), are the operative frame for cooperation in cross-border regions' object of analysis in this paper: the border region between Southern FinlandEstonia (SFE) as one of the three sub-programmes of Central Baltic Interreg IV Programme; and the border region Alentejo-Algarve-Andalucía (AAA) as one of the five areas of cooperation within Poctep.…”

“…This longevity has caused CBC to be targeted through a number of different approaches: as an historical process of progressive convergence between regions with different developmental stages; as European Territorial Cooperation policy with an expected impact over the socioeconomic characteristics of border regions and the population; as the study of drivers and obstacles of CBC in case studies of cross-border regions; or as the study of transnational institutions leading cross-border cooperation.As part of the recentsociological immersion in regional and European studies, we employa social capital and more specifically network approach that, on the one hand, comprehends the study of the dynamic social and cultural aspects of the citizenship living in cross-border regions (anonimized, 2014) and, on the other hand, studiescross-border policies as networking processes, or as a form of governance by networks (Sohn and Giffinger, 2015;Walther and Reithel 2013).…”

“…The database consists of project profiles that were available electronically in both sub-programmes (Central Baltic Interreg IV A Programme 2007-2013, 2011and Poctep, 2012. Every approved project contains informationrelating to its participating institutions.…”