Insularity, Sovereignty and Statehood: The Representation of Islands on Portolan Charts and The Construction of The Territorial State

This article investigates the cartographic origins of the idea that the territorial state is a unified, bounded, homogeneous and naturally occurring entity, in a world of equivalent but unique entities. It is noted that this image of the territorial state closely resembles the representation of islands on sixteenth‐century portolan charts, and this suggests a historical link between the Renaissance‐era imagination of islands and the modern imagination of states. The article posits that the concept of territorial unity and boundedness, which appeared on portolan charts to signify islands as obstacles amidst maritime routes of movement, migrated in the late sixteenth‐century to form the basis for representing the emergent concept of the territorial state. It is suggested that the conceptual and aesthetic links between these representations of islands and states has led to an ongoing dilemma for those who seek to comprehend (or cartographically represent) islands that are divided between multiple states.     

Decentralization,the State and Conflicts over Local Boundaries in Northern Ghana

Decentralization projects, such as that initiated by the Rawlings government in Ghana at the end of the 1980s, create a political space in which the relations between local political communities and the state are re‐negotiated. In many cases, the devolution of power intensifies special‐interest politics and political mobilization aiming at securing a ‘larger share of the national cake’, that is, more state funds, infrastructure and posts for the locality. To legitimate their claims vis‐à‐vis the state, civic associations (‘hometown’ unions), traditional rulers and other non‐state institutions often invoke some form of ‘natural’ solidarity, and decentralization projects thus become arenas of debate over the boundaries of community and the relationship between ‘local’ and national citizenship. This article analyses one such debate, in the former Lawra District of Ghana's Upper West Region, where the creation of new districts provoked protracted discussions, among the local political elite as well as the peasants and labour migrants, about the connections between land ownership and political authority, the relations between the local ethnic groups (Dagara and Sisala), and the relevance of ethnic versus territorial criteria in defining local citizenship.     

The Engagement of Territorial Knowledge Communities with European Spatial Planning and the Territorial Cohesion Debate: A Baltic Perspective

Abstract

Recent, dramatic spatial development trends have contributed to the consolidation of a unique territorial governance landscape in the Baltic States. The paper examines the transformation of this evolving institutional landscape for planning practice and knowledge, which has been marked by the disintegration of Soviet institutions and networks, the transition to a market-based economy and the process of accession to the EU. It explores the evolution of territorial knowledge channels in the Baltic States, and the extent and nature of the engagement of actors' communities with the main knowledge arenas and resources of European spatial planning (ESP). The paper concludes that recent shifts in the evolution of these channels suggest the engagement of ESP has concentrated among epistemic communities at State and trans-national levels of territorial governance. The limited policy coordination across a broader spectrum of diverse actors is compounded by institutionally weak and fragmented professional communities of practice, fragmented government structures and marginalized advocacy coalitions.     

Archaeology and the Late Modern State: Introduction to the Special Issue

While archaeologists have always shown great interest in the rise and fall of premodern states, they perennially show little interest in their own. This is particularly troubling because the state is the nexus of power in archaeology. In practice, virtually all archaeology is state archaeology, imbued with and emboldened by state power. It is in this light that contributors to this Special Issue of Archaeologies grapple with the archaeology–state nexus, addressing such timely issues as colonialism, capitalism, and cultural resource or heritage management (CRM/CHM). We outline here the archaeology–state nexus concept and introduce the Special Issue.     

Redemocratization and Decentralization in Brazil: The Strength of the Member States

With redemocratization and the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, Brazil became highly decentralized in terms of the distribution of financial revenue and political strength. As a result, sub-national governments, and especially the states, are now at the centre of the political and financial scene. In the absence of party-oriented politics, regional politicians, and particularly the state governors of the most important states, provide the federal government with ruling coalitions. The central question addressed in this article is what the state governments and their politicians are doing with this political and financial strength. A further point made is the importance of incorporating the states into the framework of analysis of decentralization: at the state level it is possible to identify a number of details about processes which remain too general at the national level and too specific at the local level. Brazil's experience in a decade of political and financial decentralization shows that although decentralization fosters democracy, a variety of other political and economic factors are also of influence, thus exposing the limits of decentralization's impact on policy results.     

评迈内克的“国家理由”研究和马基雅维里的国家权力学说

本文主要评述历史学家迈内克在研究国家理由问题时所表现出的历史道德理想主义特点。正是这种理想主义导致迈内克对马基雅维里国家权力等思想的论述失之偏颇。因此,完整地分析、理解马基雅维里国家权力等思想的结构,这不仅对理解马基雅维里的国家理由观,还对理解学术界的各种国家理由批评有所裨益。     

The Green Energy Transition and Peripheral City Development in China: Towards a Local Eco-developmental State

The green energy transition is recognized for its inherent environmental contributions. This article illustrates how it can also reshape the economic landscape and create the conditions for a peripheral city to develop. Drawing on the politics of accelerating low-carbon transition and focusing on the role that local governments play in this process, the authors illustrate how the green energy transition has commercialized wind and solar resources and constructed a new resource control system in northwest China. The Gobi Desert has extensive wind and solar energy resources; having the authority to grant access to preferential sites to exploit these resources empowers local governments to combine their interests with those of other stakeholders to build local capacity and achieve developmental goals. Governments are also able to manipulate renewable energy curtailments to promote infrastructure investment, technological progress, and the grid-parity model. The green energy transition can therefore play a role in upgrading industrial structures, alleviating local poverty, narrowing regional development gaps, and contributing to national environmental improvement. This study provides a theoretical contribution to our understanding of how the local eco-developmental state configures new energy spaces and restructures local governance, and argues that green industrial policies are sometimes actively nurtured by local rather than central governments.     

State Power,Civic Participation and the Urban Frontier: The Politics of the Commons in Karachi

Abstract: A martial state's neoliberal policies opened the nation's frontiers to new forms of globalization. This article investigates the political process that undergirded the military and global capital's sequestration of common land in Karachi and the concomitant contestation by a key civil society organization. Using Foucault's conception of sovereignty and government as an assemblage of authority and strategies of rationalization, this paper analyses the role of state and non‐state actors and changing power configurations in a conflict that surrounded the enclosure of a common and its transformation into a securitized zone of consumption in Karachi's Civil Lines. The conflict highlights the nature of the politics of space and citizenship in Pakistan's primary metropolis.     

Mann and Men in a Medieval State: The Geographies of Power in the Middle Ages

The state-making process represented a major institutional change, as societies moved from being organized according to notions of kinship to being ordered around the power exercised by kings over defined territories. The paper focuses on the medieval state-making process, primarily in a Welsh context; building on Michael Mann's notion of power networks, it is suggested that the mapping of the geographies of power within a society may offer a powerful tool for demonstrating the tentative and gradual nature of this process. Such a methodology also stresses the importance of geography in such a major change in human history.     

Assessing Territorial Impacts of the EU Cohesion Policy: The Portuguese Case

This article examines the territorial impacts of the EU Cohesion Policy in Portugal, between 1990 and 2010, at the national level. To reach some conclusions, after a brief overview of the existing literature on territorial impact assessment (TIA) procedures, we present the main features of a proposed TIA technique, which we called TARGET_TIA, and applied to our study case. This analysis permitted us to go beyond the general scope of the EU Cohesion Policy evaluations, which concentrate mainly on the socioeconomic and environmental dimensions, by placing on evidence other key-territorial dimensions, such as Territorial Governance/Cooperation and Polycentricity. Findings indicate that, in general, the EU Cohesion Policy had positive territorial impacts in Portugal, namely by supporting the construction of absent and necessary physical infrastructures. However, the lack of spatial planning and strategic vision limited a more effective and efficient use of Cohesion Funds in Portugal.     

Territorial Keys for Bringing Closer the Territorial Agenda of the EU and Europe 2020

The recent developments of the economic theory suggest that due attention to territorial context increases efficiency and improves delivery of the policies. This in turn calls for better linkages between spatial and socio-economic efforts. The paper analyses the concept of policy territorialization and proposes policy tools for that purpose. The relevant theoretical models are used, mainly evolutionary economics and new economic geography. The key outcome is a set of territorial keys supposed to enhance territorial approach in developmental policies. Also some plausible ways of making use of those keys are proposed and then tested using Polish territory as a case study.     

The Preemptive Power of State Supreme Courts: Adoption of Abortion and Death Penalty Legislation

We offer a theory about public policy adoption that depicts a game between state supreme courts and state policymakers. We hypothesize that court ideological hostility or friendliness operates to discourage or encourage policy enactment, with the likelihood of subsequent court intervention magnifying the relationship. To test the argument we examine the influence of court ideology on the enactment of state abortion and death penalty laws since the 1970s. Empirical analyses provide strong support for our theory, indicating that court ideological hostility or friendliness significantly influenced state abortion and death penalty policy enactments. In addition, the likelihood of court intervention conditioned this relationship, with the most pronounced effect occurring where subsequent court review was mandatory. The findings reveal courts exert important preemptive influence on law without hearing a case. This facet of judicial influence expands the traditional view of actors involved in the policymaking process.     

Beyond the Segmentary State: Creative and Instrumental Power in Western Uganda

The concept of the segmentary state was proposed by Southall, based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Alur people of Uganda, and subsequently applied elsewhere, notably to the putative ancient kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara. Archaeological research, summarized here, has demonstrated that ancient Bunyoro-Kitara was not a segmentary state; indeed, neither was the political system of the Alur. The Nyoro state of the nineteenth century shows a complex interplay of political sovereignty and ritual suzerainty and of accommodation and resistance to central authority. This is understood through examination of the concepts of instrumental and creative power, the latter particularly relevant to negotiations concerning the status of women. The archaeological record of this region is then explored for evidence of earlier expressions of instrumental and creative power. Finally, the paper shows how the archaeological record of Munsa is itself an arena for modern political struggles in which protagonists harness different forms of power.     

The Territorial Impact of the Knowledge Economy: Intangibles and Regional Inequality in Great Britain

Knowledge-based activities are an important source of national and regional competitiveness. In the UK and other European Union countries knowledge industries represent not only one of the fastest growing sources of new jobs, but also account for an increasing share of Gross Value Added (GVA) and exports. Nonetheless, there are also indications that the actual importance of the knowledge economy still remains understated. Within the conventional System of National Accounts, expenditure on intangible assets, such as research and development or human and organizational capital, is not considered either as part of GVA or as investment. In the UK, Marrano et al. (2009 Marrano, M. G., Haskel, J. &; Wallis, G. (2009) What happened to the knowledge economy? ICT, intangible investment and Britain's productivity record revisited, The Review of Income and Wealth, 55(3), 686–716. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4991.2009.00344.x[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) report increased market sector GVA figures by as much as 13% in 2004 after treating intangibles as investment. Considering that expenditures on intangibles vary considerably across regions, it is likely that the territorial impact of this aspect of the knowledge economy has remained largely unreported so far. Spatial inequalities in the investment in intangibles should result in sharper inequalities in regional output. This paper aims to address this issue, first by adjusting the UK regional GVA series for investment in intangibles and second by exploring the trends in regional economic convergence during the period 1991–2004.     

Decentralization, democratization, and health: the Philippine experiment

In 1991, the Philippines joined a growing list of countries that reformed health planning through decentralization. Reformers viewed decentralization as a tool that would solve multiple problems, leading to more meaningful democracy and more effective health planning. Today, nearly two decades after the passage of decentralization legislation, questions about the effectiveness of the reforms persist. Inadequate financing, inequity, and a lack of meaningful participation remain challenges, in many ways mirroring broader weaknesses of Philippine democracy. These concerns pose questions regarding the nature of contemporary decentralization, democratization, and health planning and whether these three strategies are indeed mutually enforcing.