IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v30y2012i1p29-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reconsidering the English Question as a Matter of Democratic Politics and Spatial Justice

Author

Listed:
  • Krisztina Varró

    (Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9108, NL-6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the implications of state territorial decentralization for the management of uneven regional development and spatial justice. It is argued that accounts of post-1997 UK devolution and the treatment of ‘the English question’ with a similar concern have tended to dismiss government policies against the backdrop of an uncritical view of spatial Keynesianism. Furthermore, these accounts have not succeeded in capturing the interconnectedness of the issues of democracy, solidarity, and spatial justice. In order to address these shortcomings I elaborate on a perspective that draws on insights of postfoundational political thought and interprets justice as democratic practice. This perspective reminds us that any notion of solidarity between people sharing a ‘national space’ and, consequently, any understanding of spatial justice is always politically constructed. Accordingly, the main task becomes to ‘unimagine’ the nation as a community of pregiven interests and to examine the obstacles to a meaningful debate on the institutional supports of solidarity.

Suggested Citation

  • Krisztina Varró, 2012. "Reconsidering the English Question as a Matter of Democratic Politics and Spatial Justice," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 29-45, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:30:y:2012:i:1:p:29-45
    DOI: 10.1068/c10215r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c10215r
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c10215r?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Harrison, 2007. "From competitive regions to competitive city-regions: a new orthodoxy, but some old mistakes," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 311-332, May.
    2. Brenner, Neil, 2004. "New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270064.
    3. Erik Swyngedouw, 2009. "The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental Production," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 601-620, September.
    4. Martin Jones, 2001. "The Rise of the Regional State in Economic Governance: ‘Partnerships for Prosperity’ Or New Scales of State Power?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(7), pages 1185-1211, July.
    5. John Harrison, 2008. "Stating the Production of Scales: Centrally Orchestrated Regionalism, Regionally Orchestrated Centralism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 922-941, December.
    6. Ray Hudson, 2007. "Regions and Regional Uneven Development Forever? Some Reflective Comments upon Theory and Practice," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(9), pages 1149-1160.
    7. Mark Goodwin & Martin Jones & Rhys Jones, 2005. "Devolution, constitutional change and economic development: Explaining and understanding the new institutional geographies of the British state," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 421-436.
    8. Andrew E.G. Jonas & Kevin Ward, 2007. "Introduction to a Debate on City‐Regions: New Geographies of Governance, Democracy and Social Reproduction," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 169-178, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Clelland, 2020. "Beyond the city region? Uneven governance and the evolution of regional economic development in Scotland," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(1), pages 7-26, February.
    2. Michael Buser, 2014. "Democratic Accountability and Metropolitan Governance: The Case of South Hampshire, UK," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2336-2353, August.
    3. Andrew Beer & Terry Clower, 2009. "Specialisation and Growth: Evidence from Australia's Regional Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(2), pages 369-389, February.
    4. John Harrison & Michael Hoyler, 2014. "Governing the new metropolis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2249-2266, August.
    5. HaeRan Shin & Se Hoon Park & Jung Won Sonn, 2015. "The emergence of a multiscalar growth regime and scalar tension: the politics of urban development in Songdo New City, South Korea," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(6), pages 1618-1638, December.
    6. Harrison, John, 2012. "Towards the new "regional world"?," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Growe, Anna & Heider, Katharina & Lamker, Christian & Paßlick, Sandra & Terfrüchte, Thomas (ed.), Polyzentrale Stadtregionen - Die Region als planerischer Handlungsraum, volume 3, pages 10-21, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    7. John Harrison, 2011. "Global City-region Governance, Ten Years On," Chapters, in: Ben Derudder & Michael Hoyler & Peter J. Taylor & Frank Witlox (ed.), International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities, chapter 27, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. John Harrison, 2008. "Stating the Production of Scales: Centrally Orchestrated Regionalism, Regionally Orchestrated Centralism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 922-941, December.
    9. John Harrison, 2014. "Rethinking City-regionalism as the Production of New Non-State Spatial Strategies: The Case of Peel Holdings Atlantic Gateway Strategy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2315-2335, August.
    10. Martin Jones & David Etherington, 2009. "Governing the Skills Agenda: Insights from the Sheffield City-Region," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 24(1), pages 68-79, February.
    11. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    12. Gordon MacLeod, 2013. "New Urbanism/Smart Growth in the Scottish Highlands: Mobile Policies and Post-politics in Local Development Planning," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(11), pages 2196-2221, August.
    13. lain Deas & Alex Lord, 2006. "From a New Regionalism to an Unusual Regionalism? The Emergence of Non-standard Regional Spaces and Lessons for the Territorial Reorganisation of the State," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(10), pages 1847-1877, September.
    14. Roger Keil, 2011. "The Global City Comes Home," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2495-2517, September.
    15. Andrew E. G. Jonas & Andrew R. Goetz & Sutapa Bhattacharjee, 2014. "City-regionalism as a Politics of Collective Provision: Regional Transport Infrastructure in Denver, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2444-2465, August.
    16. Eugene McCann, 2017. "Governing urbanism: Urban governance studies 1.0, 2.0 and beyond," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(2), pages 312-326, February.
    17. Xiaobo Su, 2012. "Transnational Regionalization and the Rescaling of the Chinese State," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(6), pages 1327-1347, June.
    18. Dan He & Zhijing Sun & Peng Gao, 2019. "Development of Economic Integration in the Central Yangtze River Megaregion from the Perspective of Urban Network Evolution," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-18, September.
    19. Jouni Häkli & Kirsi Pauliina Kallio & Olli Ruokolainen, 2020. "A Missing Citizen? Issue Based Citizenship in City‐Regional Planning," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5), pages 876-893, September.
    20. Allan Cochrane, 2012. "Making up a Region: The Rise and Fall of the ‘South East of England’ as a Political Territory," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 95-108, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:30:y:2012:i:1:p:29-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.