Euroregions as Soft Spaces: Between Consolidation and Transformation

Abstract

<jats:p> National borders constitute barriers to social, economic and political processes and, thus, tend to contribute to the peripheralisation of border regions. The paper compares the evolution of two euroregions in peripheral central European border regions, whose objective is to overcome such negative border effects by promoting cross-border cooperation at the regional level. On a theoretical level, the paper argues for an understanding of euroregions as soft spaces. Rather than viewing them primarily as instances of state rescaling, the paper emphasizes their role as adaptive service providers for local constituencies. It is suggested that their long-term stability depends on their relation to, and the internal dynamics of, politico-administrative hard spaces at the regional, national, and supranational level. While hard spaces are associated with the notion of the Weberian bureaucratic state, soft spaces combine many of the ideas of the New Public Management literature. Building on an organizational ecology perspective, the paper forwards the argument that stable, resourceful, and accessible hard spaces constitute a predictable and engaging environment within which softer arrangements may compete for the delivery of services. However, the interplay between soft and hard spaces tends to have an impact on the euroregions’ agendas. While EU cohesion policy provides incentives to strengthen horizontal cross-border coordination, the organizational integration of the two euroregions remained rather loose, testifying to the continued importance of domestic prerogatives.</jats:p>

A territorial scale-based model for Euroregions and its implications for Cross-Border Cooperation in maritime contexts

“…In turn, this may help quell suspicions over autonomist or separatist tendencies (Perkmann, 2000(Perkmann, , 2003(Perkmann, , 2005. Moreover, it would transmit the image of Euroregions as soft spaces and examples of institutional entrepreneurship for policy formulation and implementation scenarios (Miörner et al, 2018;Telle, 2017;Perkmann and Spicer, 2007).…”

“…The meaning of Euroregional cooperation. Telle (2017) provided an alternative explanation of the utility of Euroregions through his adaptation of the theory of soft spaces. His research elaborates a conceptual distinction between i) hard spaces defined by the boundaries of national politico-administrative units and ii) Euroregions as soft spaces made by the flexible governance arrangements between them.…”

Polarization of Living Standards among Administrative Units Engaged in Cross-Border Cooperation—The Example of Polish Municipalities of Euroregion Baltic

“…The literature on the subject includes a wide variety of publications dealing with regional development and cross-border cooperation in Euroregions [1,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], acknowledging its importance while also delineating the benefits and limitations of this form of international cooperation.…”

“…Perkmann [15], Scott [16], Yoder [17], Passi [18] and Lepik [19] outlined the potential of euroregions including regional point of view. Telle [20], Medeiros [21] and Jeřábek [22] came with the refreshed attempt after almost two decades of its functioning. From polish perspective, with hopes and expectations, it was well-described by Malendowski [23,24] and Palmowski [25], especially before polish accession to the EU.…”

Mapping the cross-border cooperation ‘galaxy’: an exploration of scalar arrangements in Europe

“…Nevertheless, in the context of European integration, 'formal' territoriality can be accompanied by 'soft spaces' (Allmendinger and Haughton 2009), which 'may be seen as one element of a complex governance landscape, where territorial and relational, hard and soft forms of space interact in the socio-political construction of the cross-border region at multiple scales' (Walsh, Jacuniak-Suda, and Knieling 2015, 151). The politically negotiated, fluid and fuzzy nature of cross-border territories as 'soft spaces' can be observed in the (re-)definition and adaptation of the membership and geographical boundaries of CBC initiatives over time (Telle 2018). Therefore, the existence of a 'multi-level territoriality system' can be postulated, in which processes of rescaling lead to emerging new policy scalescross-border territories being one example of several existing formsthat add a secondary, pooled territoriality to domestic, state-centric territorialities (Chilla, Evrard, and Schulz 2012).…”