Roi mineur et naissance de la majesté dans les discours auliques

The numerous treatises on reason of State are part of a genre which theorises political actions a posteriori. It is not possible for reason of State to be expressed directly and publicly ? How is it staged by the State itself ? Courtly literature, with its subtle dialectic of imitation and idealization, contains abundant material exemplifying this manifestation as representation, all the more significant when it concerns an interregnum. The minor age of the prince, his crowning and the ceremony of his coming of age are essential moments which are surrounded by the rhetoric of praise and during which the State institutes in the prince both the faculty of reason and its own reason: a panegyric reason of State.     

The conflicting logics of cross-border reterritorialization: Geopolitics of Euroregions in Eastern Europe

Europe is currently experiencing an unprecedented process of reterritorialization in the context of European Union integration. Central to this process is the implementation of various cross-border cooperation schemes, commonly known as Euroregions, aimed at redefining fixed, border-induced Westphalian territoriality. The literature on Euroregions has primarily examined the reterritorialization of state power and institutions across borders, documenting the emergence of cross-border governance networks. However, the territorial underpinning of cross-border reterritorialization, as well as the process of territorial constitution of cross-border spaces has been less well explored. This paper examines cross-border reterritorialization from a geopolitical perspective informed by multi-scalar conceptualizations of political territoriality. Actors at supranational, national and local scales often follow territorial logics that are at odds with each other. Competing meanings of territory and territoriality interact to produce a geopolitics of Euroregions that shapes cross-border reterritorialization. The paper focuses on the Euroregions established at the current fringes of the EU, in the Romanian–Ukrainian–Moldovan borderlands.     

A Spatial Typology of Israel on the Basis of Partial-Order Analysis

In the present study, a relatively new analytical technique—“Partial Order Scalogram Analysis with Base Coordinates” (POSAC)—is used to integrate subjective and objective measurements in the same way that other clustering techniques can be used to reduce a large number of observations to a limited number of major groups. The technique is applied to a geographical problem, involving 34 regions in the State of Israel, the economic welfare of which is characterized by means of ten objective socioeconomic variables and five subjective variables. The 34 regions are reduced to 5 manageable geographical spheres.     

Cross-Border Differences and Unfamiliarity: Shopping Mobility in the Dutch-German Rhine-Waal Euroregion

Many international differences can be experienced in shopping spaces on both sides of a national border. Other languages, unfamiliar goods and unknown spatial codes are only a few of the physical-functional and socio-cultural differences that could cause exciting and stimulating situations but could also be perceived as problematic and deterring. This paper analyses perceptions, motivations and practices of cross-border (non-)shoppers and provides insights into ways in which people from cross-border regions deal with differences and the extent to which they interact across borders. The aim is to both theoretically and empirically substantiate the dynamic concept of (un)familiarity by scrutinizing the impact of “push”, “pull”, “keep” and “repel” factors on shopping (im)mobility in the Dutch-German Rhine-Waal Euroregion. These factors are seen as rooted in dynamic processes of constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing differences between places on both sides of the border. In so doing, attention is paid to changing shopping practices and motivations and influencing changing perceptions of international differences. As such, the paper also discusses “familiarization processes” in cross-border regions. The concluding section provides critical reflections on the current European policy approach towards cross-border regional development. In fact, the paper ends with a plea for more instead of less borders, as borders are markers of international differences which could promote cross-border mobility.     

CITIES,TASKS, AND SKILLS

This research applies a task‐based approach to measure and interpret changes in the employment structure of the 168 largest U.S. cities in the period 1990–2009. As a result of technological change some tasks can be placed at distance, while others require proximity. We construct a measure of task connectivity to investigate which tasks are more likely to require proximity relative to others. Our results suggest that cities with higher shares of connected tasks experienced higher employment growth. This result is robust to a variety of other explanations including industry composition, routinization, and the complementarity between skills and cities.