A.K.F. Faludi
Please Note
32 records found
1
‘Zeitenwende’
The retrenchment – or not – of ‘territorialism’?
‘Zeitenwende’ as announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in relation to Ukraine suggests the retrenchment of ‘territorialism’. I discuss this with a focus on Poland. Western Ukraine has after all been Eastern Poland until becoming part of the Ukrainian SSR in 1939. Enlarged with Crimea, the same SSR declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 at a time when Poland was aiming to join the EU and NATO. Now, Poland is a conduit of assistance, military or otherwise to Ukraine. In due course she may need to reconsider her aspiration, as good as fulfilled now, for being a consolidated nation-state. The alternative in 1919 was something like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of old. That model may become relevant once more. If so, then this would be like my alternative – neo-medievalism – to a territorialism under which nation-states are the exclusive building blocks of the international order. Neo-medievalism stands for political action, including defence, no longer being the exclusive province of the territorial nation-state. If so, then thinking about the state as if it were the owner on behalf of the nation of its territory needs to adapt.
Beyond Territorialism?
Why there is no European spatial planning and what to do about it?
European history and traditions
Revisiting the European spatial development perspective
This chapter is about spatial planning at scales up to that of the Europe Union (EU), more in particular the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) of the 1990s, the closest to a regional design for the EU territory. Contrary to what one might expect, it was, however, not of the EU but of its member states. The latter wanted to get a handle on EU policies relevant to the development of their territories. Their concern was to prevent such policies where they hit the ground to be at cross-purposes with each other and, more generally speaking, to bend EU policies to suit their preferences. In this way, although not of the EU, the ESDP was about EU matters. However, rather than formulating a truly joint vision, member states each looked primarily after their own interests. So, with polycentric development the only recommendation with potential resonance in terms of regional design at the EU scale, when adopted in 1999 as a spatial strategy, the ESDP fell short of expectations. To rebalance the situation more in favor of an EU-led, truly joint approach, an EU shared competence for “territorial cohesion” was introduced. However, by the time this came to pass-2009-the emphasis had shifted away from one overall strategy to initiatives of various types and at various scales. These multiple initiatives, when taken together, form a “cloud” of often overlapping schemes, which seems symptomatic for the very nature of the EU as a diffuse construct.
By definition sovereign, States find themselves inescapably in a situation of permanent competition. Moreover, given that an inherent quality of sovereignty is to exclude obeying whomever else, nobody, neither individuals nor institutions can arbitrate between them. This being the case, in the international arena power becomes the one and only currency. It seems basic even to each State’s survival: in this endless competition, the sustainability of each depends on the capacity to maintain a sufficient level of power.
The Poverty of Territorialism
A Neo-Medieval View of Europe and European Planning
Government and Governance on the Western Balkans
Policy Debate
Taking inspiration from maritime spatial planning, more in particular the Law of the Sea dividing ocean space into zones of graduated control, including areas beyond national jurisdiction (where by definition territorialism does not apply) the paper revisits territories as the building blocks of a political order. From there it proceeds to discussing the power, not to say the delusion of territorial sovereignty, only to revisit neo-medievalism as an alternative ordering principle for the governance of space. Accordingly, though sovereign in theory, stand-along territories are in reality conceptualised as being enmeshed in a web of functional relations, many of which with their own governance arrangements and with many overlaps between them. Which makes imposing an overall order a doubtful enterprise.