Dr Chris Rumford, Senior Lecturer in Political Sociology, Royal Holloway, University of London
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"Rethinking European Spaces: Territory, Borders, Governance" conference. Royal Holloway, University of London, 21-22 April 2005

Conference update I am pleased to announce that the journal Comparative European Politics will publish a special issue on 'Rethinking European Spaces' in mid-2006. The special issue will focus on the conference theme of the relationship between spaces, borders and governance and the complex dynamics of Europeanization to which they give rise. I hope to be able to make further details available during the conference. For information on the journal please visit: www.palgrave-journals.com/cep/

full programme details and abstracts here

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Plenary speakers include: Barrie Axford (Oxford Brookes), Thomas Diez (Birmingham), Olivier Thomas Kramsch (Nijmegen), Martin Lawn (Cardiff), Ulrike H. Meinhof (Southampton), Tim Richardson (Sheffield).

The conference: The conference will examine the spatial dynamics of contemporary Europe, particularly the development of non- and trans- national spaces, the changing nature of European borders, and emergent forms of spatial governance, particularly those associated with cities, trans-border regions, pan-European networks, and polycentric development. While there is much research being conducted on EU spaces (regions, cities, Euro-land etc.), EU borders (enlargement, cross-border flows and mobilities, problems associated with peripheries), and the nature of EU governance (multi-level, networked, EU-as-polity), there is much less work devoted to understanding the relationship between spaces, borders and governance.

Key themes:
    • European borders and transnational networks
    • Trans-border regions and EU governance
    • Non-national and pan-European spaces
    • Techniques of spatial governance (polycentricity, territorial cohesion)
    • The spatiality of borders
    • Governance of regions, cities, and rural spaces
    • ‘Network Europe’ and civil society
    • Securitization of borders
    • Multi-level governance
Rationale: The issue of EU borders has attracted a lot of attention in recent years, particularly in terms of the problems of maintaining territorial security and the ability to control flows in the context of threats stemming from transnational crime, trafficking, and terrorism in a Europe increasingly characterised by mobilities, networks and ‘borderless Europe.’ Borders are also important because they are increasingly seen to have a spatial dimension, best represented by the idea of ‘borderlands,’ and the fact that EU borders are not necessarily to be found at national or European perimeters but also at airports and other gateways.

The changing nature of Europe’s borders cannot be easily dissociated from the complexity of European space(s). At the same time as national and regional territory is being reinforced and the idea of ‘network Europe’ is gaining some purchase, new European spaces are asserting themselves. On the one hand, we have the emergence of pan-European spaces – the single market, Euro-land, Schengenland, none of which corresponds exactly to EU space - resulting from Commission-led initiatives, and on the other hand, non- or trans-national spaces opened up by global flows and processes acting upon and transforming national territory within Europe. In addition, the Commission is increasingly concerned with the organization of non-EU space as made evident in the recent European Neighbourhood Policy. This is a vision of a Europe in which internal and external, Europe and non-Europe have a new meaning.

European governance is also evolving, in part as a response to new European territorality and also with a view to constructing European spaces as a technique of governance. This can be seen through diverse instruments such as regional policy, the ESDP, the idea of learning regions, and a new agenda for urban governance. There is a strong sense in which EU governance is concerned with the construction and management of European spaces and networks, distinct from the territorial places and spaces characteristic of the nation-state.

Call for papers: I am particularly interested to receive proposals for papers which examine the connection between spaces, borders and governance and the complex dynamics of Europeanization to which they give rise.

Chris Rumford
chris.rumford@rhul.ac.uk

click here for full cover as PDF file Rethinking Europe: Social Theory and the Implications of Europeanization
Gerard Delanty and Chris Rumford (Routledge, 2005)
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