IS THERE A NEW ‘TRUST’ IN INNER SCANDINAVIA? EVIDENCE FROM CROSS‐BORDER PLANNING AND GOVERNANCE

Inner Scandinavia is one of the Swedish‐Norwegian INTERREG‐A three sub‐programmes, and has been working in operationalizing cross‐border projects in the border area since 1994. To date, several cross‐border strategies have been implemented, one for each programming period of the INTERREG‐A programme. This article investigates whether these strategies can be regarded as a type of cross‐border planning mechanism in promoting territorial development of the border region. It does so by developing a typology, which captures the essentials of spatial planning, against the background of which the article also analyses Inner Scandinavia governance structures, which involves a whole set of interconnected territorial partnerships between five border counties: Hedmark, Østfold, Akershus (Norway), Värmland and Dalarna (Sweden). Here, the main goal is to see if the Inner Scandinavia governance structure, which was recently altered by the inclusion of the Hedmark–Dalarna cross‐border committee, also known as TRUST, is favourable to the implementation of a genuine and long‐term cross‐border spatial plan, with the ultimate goal of reducing the barrier effect and improving the territorial capital along the cross‐border region. Project dokuments and interviews indicate that the existing cross‐border governance model in Inner Scandinavia, led by the INTERREG‐A Steering Committee, produced substantial progresses in reducing the barrier effect, in all its dimensions, and in supporting the territorial development across the border area. Consequently, the role of other cross‐border governance structures should be confined to promoting the active involvement and mobilization of local and regional actors in the cross‐border cooperation process, and in implementing several cross‐border projects with local/regional significance.     

The historical dynamics of ethnic conflicts: confrontational nationalisms,democracy and the Basques in contemporary Spain*

ABSTRACT. All the historical moments in which the Basque debate reached political protagonism in contemporary Spain coincided with political contexts of institutional democratisation. The debate on patriotism in the Basque Country is connected with a uniform narrative regarding the Basques and their moral distance from the Spanish nation: the ‘Basque problem’. This narrative has fostered a confrontational discourse between Spanish and Basque nationalism. It has also promoted recourse to specific stereotypical images of the Basques, which bind ethnicity to collective identity. Such representations reveal that the invention of the Basque country as a uniform ethnic collective had much more to do with the internal contradictions of Spanish national identity – and later of Basque identity – than with the existence of a secular conflict between Basques and Spaniards. The Basque case shows that every ‘ethnic conflict’ requires adequate contextualisation in order to avoid simplifying its origins and past pathways to make it conform to present uses.     

Reaching across: institutional barriers to cross‐ethnic parties in post‐conflict societies and the case of Northern Ireland

This paper investigates the paradox in post‐conflict societies of continued marginality of cross‐ethnic parties despite significant convergence in public attitudes and identities. In so doing, it examines the argument that parties that attempt to reach across the divide are constrained by consocational institutions designed to accommodate rival identities in such environments. The paper explores this puzzle in the context of Northern Ireland, drawing upon qualitative evidence from elite interviews and focus groups collected in 2012 and 2013. It concludes that cross‐community parties operating in the region do encounter formal institutional barriers, but that such barriers only partially explain the phenomenon and an interplay between formal and informal constraints underlies their position of relatively limited electoral success.     

Partition,consociation, border‐crossing: some lessons from the national conflict in Ireland/Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT. Outlining Ireland's long history of ethno‐national conflict, and the recent protracted ‘peace process’ in Northern Ireland, contextualises a critique of the problems underlying such conflicts, and the difficulties in transforming externally imposed conflict management into self‐sustaining conflict resolution. It is argued that the problems and difficulties are deeply rooted in a thoroughly modern complex of nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty and representative democracy. These are knotted together in a common denominator of territoriality, and the nub of the problem is the ‘double paradox’ of democracy's undemocratic origins in the present. Territoriality, the use of bordered geographical space, is a powerful and ubiquitous mode of social organisation which simplifies social control. But it can grossly oversimplify and distort social realities, particularly at borders and especially where territory is contested, thereby reinforcing other distorting simplifications typically found in ethno‐national conflicts. In consequence, radical remedies are needed if the problems are to be overcome. Making ethno‐national peace paradoxically calls for more creative border‐crossing conflicts around other issues.     

国外学术界对1969年中苏边界冲突的最新研究

作为中苏关系史中的重要事件,1969年中苏之间一系列的边界冲突不仅是自20世纪60年代初以来中苏关系恶化到达顶点的标志,而且是影响未来中苏关系、中美关系甚至冷战结局的重要因素。目前国外学术界对于中苏边界冲突已经有了一些新的研究成果,从最初着重探寻事件发生的真相,到后来较多地探讨该事件     

大都市区跨界边缘城市的演进机制与类型研究——以南京毗邻地区为例

摘要: 跨区域要素流动的加快,促使位于大都市跨界地区的边缘城市成为大都市竞争力培育的前哨,文章以南京毗邻地区为例,对大都市区跨界边缘城市的生成、演化和重构过程进行全面考察。首先,研究指出,南京跨界边缘城市的演进经历了生产要素扩散下的工业村镇、工业贴边发展的单一功能区、居住郊区化导向的新市镇,以及协同治理下的社会融合四个阶段,形成了一种以工业资本承接为先导,市场资本参与为支撑,社会资本融合为保障的独特发展路径。其次,中国的跨界边缘城市是在边缘区城镇化建设过程中逐步演化的,并形成产业型、居住型、综合性型等发展类型。最后,在理论层面讨论了中国特色边缘城市的特殊性,以期为大都市区一体化发展提供启示。