When Soft Spaces Harden: The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

Metzger, Jonathan; Schmitt, Peter

doi:10.1068/a44188

Cited by 121 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The most overarching initiative is the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR). It is the first strategy within EU in which a macroregion with several countries is defined with the specific objective to enhance collaboration within that certain region (Metzger and Schmitt 2012). With the strategy initiatives from different sectors are brought together and cooperation is promoted.…”

Section: Baltic Sea Governance and Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem Services in the Baltic Sea

Ahtiainen¹,

Öhman²

2014

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Section: Baltic Sea Governance and Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem Services in the Baltic Sea

Ahtiainen¹,

Öhman²

2014

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“…This is what happened in the Euroregion Šumava and it indicates an overall hardening of the soft space (Metzger and Schmitt, 2012) . Due to the close relations to national politico-administrative hard spaces, the involvement of the individual sections in INTERREG programming and project selection, the management of dedicated EU funds in the SPFs, and a growing host of other services, the Euroregion Šumava has made a substantial contribution to overcoming peripherality .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Euroregions as Soft Spaces: Between Consolidation and Transformation

Telle

2018

ESR&P

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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.

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“…This relative softening of hard spaces must be highlighted because much of the recent literature on soft spaces and fuzzy borders has focused on how newly conceived soft spaces tend to become hardened (cf. Metzger and Schmitt, 2012).…”

Section: Beyond the Fuzzy Maps And Relationality: Penumbral Borders Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Haughton et al (2010) suggest that soft spaces serve as 'glue' that binds more formal scales of planning and government together. Metzger and Schmitt (2012) take this idea further and suggest that soft spaces have a tendency to harden (or become solidified) as a result of the labor of regional spokespersons.…”

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Penumbral borders and planning paradoxes: Relational thinking and the question of borders in spatial planning

Paasi

Zimmerbauer

2015

Environ Plan A

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The 1990s witnessed a rapid rise of relational thinking in economic, urban and cultural geography. This trend accentuated the importance of networks and connections, and challenged the conceptualizations of region in which borders are taken for granted. Relational views have become particularly prominent in the context of strategic planning, especially in the European Union. Drawing on an analysis of 18 strategic regional plans prepared by Finnish Regional Councils and interviews of the planners responsible for compiling them, this article scrutinizes and problematizes the commensurability of open and bounded notions of regions both conceptually and in terms of concrete strategic regional planning. We argue that the rise of the relational approach in planning is a fitting example of policy transfer, and the embracing this thinking causes a 'planning paradox': in strategic planning, planners need to think increasingly in terms of open, porous borders despite the fact that in concrete planning activities, politics, and governance the region continues to exist largely in the form of bounded and territorial political units. We then extend the idea of the planning paradox onto the question of borders and argue that borders in planning could be better understood as 'penumbral' borders rather than porous, since they are not solely either 'hard' boundary lines or 'fuzzy borderscapes', but typically manifest themselves only in certain practices. More generally, our observations suggest that the relational character and possible 'boundedness' of regions is inevitably a phenomenon that is multilayered and complex as well as context-and practice-bound.

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When Soft Spaces Harden: The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

Abstract: Abstract:This paper investigates the first ever so called 'macro-regional strategy' developed

Cited by 121 publications

References 40 publications

Ecosystem Services in the Baltic Sea

Ecosystem Services in the Baltic Sea

Euroregions as Soft Spaces: Between Consolidation and Transformation

Penumbral borders and planning paradoxes: Relational thinking and the question of borders in spatial planning

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