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Conclusion: Globalization Is What Actors Make of It

Philip G. Cerny

in Rethinking World Politics: A Theory of Transnational Neopluralism

This chapter focuses on two contemporary theorists of rescaling, Bob Jessop and Neil Brenner. Jessop places this reconceptualization of space within a broad analysis of the changing “capitalist type ... More

This chapter focuses on two contemporary theorists of rescaling, Bob Jessop and Neil Brenner. Jessop places this reconceptualization of space within a broad analysis of the changing “capitalist type of state”; Brenner develops a more circumscribed study of urban governance but places it clearly in the larger context of capitalism and globalization. These authors' depictions of the shape of structural change are examined and it is argued that despite the rigor of these analyses and the many insights they provide, the authors are nevertheless hampered by the elements of classical Marxist analysis they retain, especially their focus on “accumulation strategies” and Marxist theories of value.Less

The State Spatial Process under Capitalism: A Framework for Analysis

Neil Brenner

in New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood

This chapter elaborates the theoretical foundations for the analysis of state rescaling and urban governance restructuring that will be developed in subsequent chapters. It introduces some initial ... More

This chapter elaborates the theoretical foundations for the analysis of state rescaling and urban governance restructuring that will be developed in subsequent chapters. It introduces some initial methodological premises and categories through which the geographies of state space under modern capitalism may be analyzed. On this basis, it demonstrates how the issues of spatiality, territoriality, and geographical scale may be integrated, at a foundational level, into the conceptualization of modern statehood. Building upon the strategic-relational approach to state theory developed by Jessop (1990a), it argues that state space is best conceptualized as an arena, medium, and outcome of spatially selective political strategies. The chapter then extends this conceptualization by outlining some of the broad institutional and geographical parameters within which state space has evolved during the course of capitalist development. This line of analysis generates a multidimensional conceptual framework through which to investigate contextually specific pathways of state spatial restructuring. It also enables the introduction of a stylized model of state spatial restructuring in western Europe since the early 1960s, that serves to demarcate the theoretical and empirical terrain on which the remainder of this book is situated.Less

Urban Governance and the Nationalization of State Space: Political Geographies of Spatial Keynesianism

Neil Brenner

in New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood

This chapter analyzes the political-economic geographies of spatial Keynesianism, the framework of national and local state territorial regulation that prevailed across much of western Europe during ... More

This chapter analyzes the political-economic geographies of spatial Keynesianism, the framework of national and local state territorial regulation that prevailed across much of western Europe during the ‘golden age’ of Fordist–Keynesian capitalism, roughly from the late 1950s until the late 1970s. It argues that spatial Keynesianism was composed of a variety of spatially selective political strategies through which western European national states attempted to manage the distinctive patterns of urbanization and uneven spatial development that crystallized across western Europe during the Fordist–Keynesian period. It analyzes the destabilization of spatial Keynesianism during the course of the 1970s, a development that opened up a political and institutional space for the subsequent proliferation of state rescaling strategies across western Europe.Less

Interlocality Competition as a State Project: Urban Locational Policy and the Rescaling of State Space

Neil Brenner

in New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood

This chapter investigates the rescaled, growth-oriented, and competitiveness-driven forms of state spatial policy and urban governance that began to crystallize as of the late 1970s, in conjunction ... More

This chapter investigates the rescaled, growth-oriented, and competitiveness-driven forms of state spatial policy and urban governance that began to crystallize as of the late 1970s, in conjunction with widespread concerns about urban industrial decline, intensified interspatial competition, welfare state retrenchment, European integration, and economic globalization. It argues that during the 1980s and 1990s, these new urban locational policies served as key catalysts and expressions of broader processes of state rescaling; they also contributed to an enhanced geographical differentiation of state regulatory arrangements and to an intensification of uneven spatial development across western Europe.Less

Alternative Rescaling Strategies and the Future of New State Spaces

Neil Brenner

in New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood

This chapter develops a general interpretation of the deeply unstable, crisis-prone formation of state spatiality that has been consolidated through the institutionalization of urban locational ... More

This chapter develops a general interpretation of the deeply unstable, crisis-prone formation of state spatiality that has been consolidated through the institutionalization of urban locational policies in post-1980s western Europe. It refers to this new configuration of statehood as a Rescaled Competition State Regime (RCSR), and argues that it contains a number of chronic regulatory deficits and crisis-tendencies. It then considers three alternative forms of state rescaling that have emerged, during the 1990s and early 2000s, in response to these problems — neighborhood-based anti-exclusion initiatives; metropolitan reform initiatives; and interurban networking initiatives. While these rescaled strategies of crisis-management have contributed to the further institutional and scalar differentiation of RCSRs, they have deepened rather than alleviated the political-economic dislocations, regulatory failures, and territorial inequalities that were generated through previous rounds of urban locational policy. In the absence of a broader challenge to global and European neoliberalism, the establishment of an alternative, territorially redistributive framework of state spatial regulation at any geographical scale is likely to be an extremely difficult task.Less

The multi-scalar puzzle of social innovation

Yuri Kazepov, Fabio Colombo, and Tatiana Saruis

in Local Social Innovation to Combat Poverty and Exclusion: A Critical Appraisal

Most of the scholars emphasise the local dimension and the bottom-up dynamics as the modus of social innovation. At the same time, they tend to assume that other (higher) spatial, institutional and ... More

Most of the scholars emphasise the local dimension and the bottom-up dynamics as the modus of social innovation. At the same time, they tend to assume that other (higher) spatial, institutional and political levels are hostile to social innovation. These assumptions entail manifold risks for both social research and action. In this chapter, we challenge the idea that social innovation is a solely bottom-up practice, to embrace a more comprehensive and relational approach on how it actually moves between and across scales, depending on the strategies it adopts and on the institutional scalar arrangements framing its development. We do not argue that the local does not play a relevant and special role. Many initiatives are indeed ‘bottom-linked’ and the ‘local’ is the level where all other levels conflate. The case studies´ analysis of the ImPRovE project highlights which scales are mainly involved in social innovation and how opportunities and constraints are distributed among them. A typology on the multiscalar nature of social innovation is proposed, considering the strategies that socially innovative initiatives adopt in order to establish connections between and across scales. Finally, the potential avenues for further research are described to better disentangle the multi-scalar puzzle of social innovation.Less

Using the Manifesto Estimates to Correct Systematic ‘Centring’ Error in Expert and Electoral Positioning of Parties

Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara, Ian Budge, Michael D. McDonald, Robin Best, and Simon Franzmann

in Mapping Policy Preferences From Texts: Statistical Solutions for Manifesto Analysts

Chapter 2 reinforces assessments of the Manifesto-based estimates’ validity by examining the leading alternative indicators of Left-Right party positioning (and of voter-elector positions as well) ... More

Chapter 2 reinforces assessments of the Manifesto-based estimates’ validity by examining the leading alternative indicators of Left-Right party positioning (and of voter-elector positions as well) for centrist bias. First it shows that it exists in all ‘reputational’ survey-based measures owing to the tendency of electors and experts to place their own national centre party at the mid-point of any quantitative scale they are presented with. They then position other national parties around this. Doing so adds little information to the traditional Party Family classification and omits crucial cross-nation variation between countries and individual parties which the CMP-MARPOR estimates pick up. This can then be extracted and used to re-centre and rescale the survey-based measures, including CSES electoral and expert placements. Indeed this is essential for any comparative research based on them which want to avoid systematic unreliability.Less

Theory

Michael Keating

in Rescaling the European State: The Making of Territory and the Rise of the Meso

The modern social sciences have often sought to eliminate territory in the name of universalism. In practice, this has meant reifying the nation-state as the only relevant territorial unit. In ... More

The modern social sciences have often sought to eliminate territory in the name of universalism. In practice, this has meant reifying the nation-state as the only relevant territorial unit. In geography, there has often been a tendency to territorial determinism. Modern understandings of territory avoid both. Territory is seen not just as geographical space but as a sociological concept. Territories are constructed for various purposes and often contested. There is an argument between relational and ‘territorial’ approaches, the former emphasizing the openness of territories and the latter stressing their boundaries and the way in which they enclose systems. Both perspectives are useful, depending on the question being asked. Rescaling refers to the way in which systems are migrating to new territorial levels.Less

Likelihood-Based Approaches to Modeling the Neural Code

Jonathan Pillow

in Bayesian Brain: Probabilistic Approaches to Neural Coding

This chapter discusses likelihood-based approaches to building mathematical models of the neural code. It introduces probabilistic neural models such as the linear-non-linear-Poisson (LNP) model ... More

This chapter discusses likelihood-based approaches to building mathematical models of the neural code. It introduces probabilistic neural models such as the linear-non-linear-Poisson (LNP) model (models of neural response), the generalized linear model (GLM), and the generalized integrate-and-fire (GIF) model. The chapter also examines the methods of evaluating the validity of probabilistic models, which includes cross-validation, time rescaling, and model-based decoding.Less

Shifts in control disciplines and rescaling as a response to network governance failure: the BCJ case, Brazil

Charles Kirschbaum

Chris Ansell and Jacob Torfing (eds)

in How Does Collaborative Governance Scale?

Rescaling might be a response to network failure. In order to describe a network’s modes of governance, this chapter borrows the idea of ‘disciplines of control’. This framework is applied to the ... More

Rescaling might be a response to network failure. In order to describe a network’s modes of governance, this chapter borrows the idea of ‘disciplines of control’. This framework is applied to the Brazil Grows Together (BCJ) case, a policy aimed at pregnant women and early childhood care in a state in Brazil. Constituency pressures at state level lead to rescaling, and higher selectiveness, lead network managers to steer vertical communication and promote broader inclusion of stakeholders. The chapter concludes by suggesting general mechanisms that govern rescaling within the network governance framework.Less

Towards a Fairer Scotland? Assessing the Prospects and Implications of Social Security Devolution

Nicola McEwen

in A Wealthier, Fairer Scotland: The Political Economy of Constitutional Change

Following the Scotland Act (2016), the Scottish Parliament now has significant autonomy over aspects of social security. This chapter examines the scope of the new social security powers and some ... More

Following the Scotland Act (2016), the Scottish Parliament now has significant autonomy over aspects of social security. This chapter examines the scope of the new social security powers and some early decisions on their implementation. It suggests that the focus of the new powers, their interdependence with the UK welfare system, and demographic and financial challenges will constrain radical change.Less

Territories and scales of economic governance

Mark Goodwin, Martin Jones, and Rhys Jones

in Rescaling the state: Devolution and the geographies of economic governance

This chapter builds on chapter 3 by focussing on the ways in which the new institutions of economic governance represent a rescaling, as well as a restructuring, of the state. It shows how we have ... More

This chapter builds on chapter 3 by focussing on the ways in which the new institutions of economic governance represent a rescaling, as well as a restructuring, of the state. It shows how we have witnessed a complex rescaling of economic governance, both vertically between different scales, and horizontally between institutions operating over the same territorial jurisdiction. It will show how the UK's asymmetrical devolution settlement has meant that these new scales and territories of governance are uneven across the four devolved territories.Less

Gender, PMSCs, and the Global Rescaling of Protection: Implications for Feminist Security Studies

Maya Eichler

in Gender and Private Security in Global Politics

Feminist scholars have long argued that who protects, who is defined as needing protection, and what relations of power are created between protector and protected are fundamentally gendered. This ... More

Feminist scholars have long argued that who protects, who is defined as needing protection, and what relations of power are created between protector and protected are fundamentally gendered. This chapter interrogates the gendered politics of protection in view of the increasing reliance of states on private military and security companies to wage war abroad. PMSCs have an active interest in extending the politics of protection to a global scale in order to extend the market for security. This rescaling of the politics of protection relies on and reinforces gendered as well as racial hierarchies between protector and protected and exploits the instabilities caused by global inequality and uneven development. These developments require a feminist rethinking of the politics of protection beyond the public sphere and the nation-state.Less

Openings: The Urban Question as a Scale Question?

Neil Brenner

in New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question

For over a century, the urban question has generated intense debate on matters of conceptualization, method, and interpretation. Since the 1990s, in the context of debates on post-Fordism, ... More

For over a century, the urban question has generated intense debate on matters of conceptualization, method, and interpretation. Since the 1990s, in the context of debates on post-Fordism, globalization, and urban restructuring, the urban question has been redefined as a question of scale. Why has this scalar redefinition of the urban occurred, and what does this mean for urban theory and research? What are its analytical possibilities and dangers? In what ways does such an approach reframe the long-standing emphasis on the “city” as the core focal point for urban studies? This opening chapter elaborates these questions in intellectual and geopolitical context, thus setting the stage for the explorations of urbanization, state spatial restructuring, and rescaling processes that follow in the rest of the book. This chapter also situates the book’s argument in relation to contemporary debates on abstraction, generalization, comparison, and contextual particularity in critical urban theory.Less

Between Fixity and Motion: Scaling the Urban Fabric

Neil Brenner

in New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question

In what sense are scales socially produced and politically contested? Beginning in the 1970s, radical geographers offered a series of innovative approaches to this question, connecting it ... More

In what sense are scales socially produced and politically contested? Beginning in the 1970s, radical geographers offered a series of innovative approaches to this question, connecting it systematically to theories of capital accumulation, uneven spatial development, state space, and contentious politics. Against that background, this chapter excavates the distinctive scalar analytics that are embedded within several key ideas of David Harvey and Henri Lefebvre, with particular reference to the fixity/motion contradiction under capitalism, the concept of the urban fabric, the scalar intermeshing of urban space and state space, and the process of rescaling. This analysis generates a scale-attuned theorization of the capitalist urban fabric, a critique of city-centric conceptions of the urban question, and a state-theoretical understanding of the process Lefebvre famously described as the “planetarization of the urban.” This theorization grounds the explorations of urban restructuring and rescaling that are elaborated in subsequent chapters.Less

Restructuring, Rescaling, and the Urban Question

Neil Brenner

in New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question

Since the 1990s, the scalar dimensions of global urban restructuring have been reflexively explored within several major streams of critical urban studies. Against the background of earlier rounds of ... More

Since the 1990s, the scalar dimensions of global urban restructuring have been reflexively explored within several major streams of critical urban studies. Against the background of earlier rounds of debate on the shifting spatialities of the urban question, this chapter offers a critical evaluation of these recent scalar turns. What is the theoretical specificity of a scalar approach to urban restructuring? A relatively narrow, but analytically precise, definitional proposal is put forward through a series of theoretical, epistemological, and methodological propositions. This approach aims to destabilize methodologically localist, city-centric understandings of the urban while also distinguishing processes of scalar structuration from other key dimensions of sociospatial relations related to place-making, territorialization, and networking. This relatively abstract definitional foray is the first of several efforts in this book to demarcate the proper conceptual parameters—and limits—of scale in relation to specific terrains of urban studies.Less