Mobilizing Regions, Mobilizing Europe

Expert Knowledge and Scientific Planning in European Regional Development

Sebastian M. Buettner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136459429
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Religionssoziologie

Regional development strategies are becoming more similar all around Europe, even though regional differences are more pronounced than ever and many European regions have become more autonomous actors. This thesis of a peculiar standardized diversification of sub-national space in the modern European Union is the point of departure of this book.

Based upon the analytical premises of Stanford School Sociological Institutionalism, Sebastian M. Büttner studies regional mobilization in contemporary Europe from a new and innovative perspective. He highlights the importance of scientific expertise and global scientific models in contemporary regional development practice, and exemplifies their significance with the example of region-building in Poland in the course of EU integration. This new wave of regional mobilization is not just conceived as an effect of local, national or European politics, but as an expression of a larger conceptual shift in governing society and space.

This well researched and clearly argued book not only provides fresh insights into region-building and regionalization in contemporary European space, but also contributes to the new sociology of Europeanization. It will be an illuminating read for scholars and students in Sociology, European and EU studies, International Relations, Cultural Studies, Geography, Regional Science, Polish Studies and related subject areas.

1

Introduction

The study of the conditions of modern life has always been a key concern of sociological reflection. Even the rise and establishment of sociology as an independent scientific discipline is in itself a product of modernity. In fact, with the ‘birth of the modern world’ (Bayly 2004) by the end of the eighteenth century ‘society’ was discovered as a major problematique of social thought. Since then, the search for the driving forces of social change and development has been central to sociological analyses. Whether it be Auguste Comte’s three-stages theory, Karl Marx’s dialectical and materialist philosophy of social change, Herbert Spencer’s utilitarian adaptation of Darwinian evolutionary theory, Emile Durkheim’s functionalist analysis of the social division of labour, or Max Weber’s conception of (occidental) rationalization, the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology were all concerned with the rise of modernity and its ambivalent consequences. Thus, even to this day, for better or worse, sociology is still strongly rooted in these initial foundations of sociological research (cf. Lefebvre 1962; Elias 1969, 1982; Habermas 1990; Schluchter 1996; Münch 2001; Wagner 2001a; Joas and Knöbl 2009).

Consequently, the emergence of sociology as an independent social-scientific discipline has brought about a broad strand of empirical research on social change under the ‘grand narrative’ of modernization which has dominated social thought in the post-war period (Alexander 2003). Modernization theories claim to describe more or less universal laws of change from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ society and the evolution of certain universal features of modern society, such as socio-economic progress, individualism, civil society, or the rule of law in all advanced and modernizing societies (cf. Lipset 1959; Rostow 1960; Deutsch 1961; Gerschenkron 1962; Zapf 1971; Parsons 1964 and 1967). However, after the ‘golden age’ of orthodox modernization theories during the 1960s the preoccupation with universal features of modern society or attempts to create a single narrative of social change were highly contested. Indeed, there is widespread agreement today that modernization theory is dead and that it rested on incorrect and misleading assumptions (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1989; Esteva 1985; Escobar 1995). More than ever before we are informed and enlightened about the errors and failures of all-too simplistic and optimistic beliefs in future progress and evolutionary models of civilization. First of all, so called ‘postmodern theory’ criticizes modernization theorists for their naïve belief in progress and civilization (for an overview: Delanty 2000; Wagner 2001b). The experience of two world wars, the cruel excesses of fascism and totalitarian communism and the threat of atomic war during the cold war between the Western and Eastern blocs were identified as clear indications of the huge barbarian potential of the modern era (cf. Bauman 1991). Second, postcolonial studies and the experiences of developing societies revealed that there is not just one path to modernity and that enforced modernization leads to negative social consequences and potentially even disasters, particularly in less industrialized societies (Chakrabarty 2000). Third, contemporary global history and globalization research have raised attention to the huge diversity and contingency of modernization processes (Appaduraj 1997; Eisenstadt 2000 and 2002a; Knöbl 2006). And last but not least we are also told that advanced modernity might be even more porous, transient and precarious than any epoch before (Giddens 1990; Beck et al. 1994). In sum, the assumption of the expansion of one (primarily occidental) modernity throughout the globe is largely dismissed; the belief in future progress is widely de-constructed as ‘false consciousness’; even the very notion of modernity itself is considered as mere ‘ideology’ or ‘myth’; and we have been enlightened that in fact ‘we have never been modern’, yet (Latour 1993).

However, if we look around, if we look in particular at what states, countless development agencies and professionals do and aspire to these days, we cannot avoid getting the impression that the spirit of modernization, the old belief in future progress and the governability of the fate of human development, is as vivid as ever. It even seems, in fact, that the decade of criticism and the ‘legitimation crisis’ (Habermas 1975) of highly industrialized Western modernity during the 1970s have been followed by an era of an ever more optimistic and radical belief in future progress (Alexander 2003). The revival of market liberalism and laissez-faire capitalism introduced and promoted by Anglo-Saxon governments at the beginning of the 1980s can be seen as a clear indication of this new paradigmatic shift. Fuelled by the break-down of communism we now, more than ever before, have the feeling that we live in ‘one world’ that is rapidly growing together through pragmatic and utilitarian interests and exchanges across former state borders (Fukuyama 1992). Beyond that state bureaucracies and ever more international organizations outline more and more programmes, strategies and funding schemes to foster socio-economic growth and human development. Apart from traditional state organizations all kinds of humanitarian organizations are constantly concerned with human aid and development. Indeed, the current wave of globalization is marked by a huge worldwide spread and expansion of modernist efforts and aspirations; and stronger than ever before modernist principles and practices are being institutionalized and enforced on a global scale (cf. Tenbruck 1990; Rosenau and Czempiel 1992; Meyer 2000; Lechner and Boli 2005).

Hence, there is a huge gap between the critical discourse of modernity and everyday aspirations and practices of social government and ‘social mobilization’ (Deutsch 1961). If we took the critics of modernity seriously, we would have to step back from forward-looking planning and attempts at changing and shaping the world – at least many development programmes would have to be enforced differently. It seems, however, as if the critical voices are not heard and regarded much in political practice and everyday life and that the modernist enthusiasm of actively shaping and engineering the conditions of human life is unbroken. This, in my opinion, needs more careful and more rigorous attention both in theoretical conceptions and empirical research of contemporary sociology.

Modernizing practices: intended projects of change and development

Certainly, a simple equation of the notion of ‘development’ with conceptions of some sort of linear and evolutionary ‘progress’ which is implicit in orthodox modernization theory is highly problematic and cannot be upheld (Nederveen Pieterse 2001; Long 2001; Ziai 2007). Paths of social change are discontinuous and contingent, and the question of appropriate means and ends of ‘development’ is a matter of constant competition and contestation both in political and intellectual discourses. Thus, we have to distinguish carefully between the overall modernist impetus of contemporary development thinking and practice, which perpetuates the belief in future progress and improvement, and the analytical concept of ‘modernization’ as a certain model of development.

In 1977, i.e. long before the rise of the postmodern critique of modernity and modernist theories of social change, but obviously in reaction to the then rising criticism of conventional modernization theories, the German sociologist M. Rainer Lepsius (1990b [1977]: 211ff.) acknowledged this tension and proposed a non-deterministic relational notion of modernization. Apart from the three conventional notions of ‘modernity’ and ‘modernization’ – i.e. 1) a mere Anglo-Americanization; 2) a teleological project resting on predefined patterns of change; and 3) an evolutionary process of convergence in social structures – he proposed a fourth, more mundane and practice-centred notion of modernization as a process of planned and intended development; a fairly ‘political project’ that aims to improve the performance of social systems deliberately:

Modernization, as understood in these terms, is not predefined any more by constantly determined goals of development, but by standards of expectation that are politically relevant, which can be directed principally to all kinds of goals and emerge due to the experience of a relative backwardness in relation to certain reference groups, that is to say reference countries. Certainly, not all standards of expectation which are prevalent within a certain population become relevant, but only those with the power to assert themselves at the political level. This can be achieved by elites in all possible variants (above all, political elites or military elites, of course), but it can also be caused by horizons of expectations that are carried by non-elite groups, who address certain demands to the ruling elites and sanction non-achievement by deprivation of legitimacy.

(Lepsius 1990b [1977]: 224, translated from German by S.B.)

Whilst the first three notions of modernization are highly contested and have been discredited by the critics of the modernization theory, it is this latter notion proposed by Lepsius which helps to capture the spirit of active intervention that remains vivid to this day, and it is this notion that is at the heart of the study at hand. This notion unhinges the concept of modernization from predefined and evolutionary notions of social change. Modernization is no longer regarded as a teleological process, but an intended project of change that is highly dependent on contingent goals and intentions, on the ability to mobilize respective resources that are regarded as necessary to achieve these aims and on the abilities of development agents to enforce their modernizing agenda. According to Lepsius, such a ‘relative’ and ‘relational’ conception of modernization was open to failure and non-intended consequences. Thus, everything is possible and conceivable depending on contingent social, political, economic and cultural conditions and on respective historical constellations of social forces within a certain society. Some projects of modernization may be quite limited in scope and remain incomplete. The intended effects may not appear, or the intended projects of modernization may get out of control and transcend the confined areas of planned intervention. However – and this is decisive for an understanding of all of the subject matter of this book – these intended processes of change are decisively and predominantly shaped by ‘cultural’ factors and standards: namely, by prevailing expectations of ‘development’, prevailing notions of ‘modernity’, prevailing conceptions of how to achieve future goals and aspirations, and on the imitation and adaptation of successful role models.

Transnationalization and amplification of modernizing practices

When Lepsius introduced his relational and practice-centred notion of modernization, he was mainly referring to the world of nation-states during the era of ‘organized modernity’ (Wagner 1994). He referred to large-scale ‘modernization offensives’ of nation-state governments and national elites in the period between the mid-nineteenth century and the era of postcolonial nation-building after the Second World War. However, in the second half of the twentieth century we have witnessed the emergence of a whole range of new development actors and agents of change and future progress. Over the past decades, the efforts made on the development front have become both more globalized and more localized simultaneously. In fact, the focal points of development, the centres of authority and the places of planning and determining modernizing projects have become increasingly dispersed (Nederveen Pietersee 2001; Hwang 2006). Hence, the agendas of development are increasingly determined beyond and across the level of nation-state governments, such as international organizations, international expert circles and even non-governmental organizations (cf. Evers and Gerke 2005; Deacon 2007); and they are also increasingly determined at the sub-national level by the municipalities and regions that implement development interventions on the ground.

This shift is particularly visible on the European continent, which has experienced substantial supra-and transnational integration and the emergence of a European authority with its own and distinct competences and policy measures over the past 50 years (Green Cowles et al. 2001; Rumford 2002; Featherstone and Raedelli 2003; Zürn and Joerges 2005; Bartolini 2005; Liebert et al. 2006). At the same time, we can observe a more pronounced role for sub-national regions as focal points of policy intervention and a more powerful role for sub-national regions as development agents outlining and implementing their own development agendas (Hooghe 1996; Keating 1998; Le Galès and Lequesne 1998).

Consequently, this book is concerned with the amplified diffusion of both development thinking and practice in contemporary Europe and the expansion and perpetuation of the ‘spirit’ of instrumental activism and social mobilization all around the European continent.¹ More particularly, it is concerned with the massive expansion of standardized practices of social mobilization to sub-national spaces over the past decade and the emergence of regions as ‘strategic’ development actors that are proactively planning and implementing their own agendas of development. This process certainly correlates strongly with the intensification of European integration and the creation of a common European Single Market during the 1990s and an increasing Europeanization of regional policy agendas during the past two decades (cf. Keating 1994; Hooghe 1996; Leonardi 1995, 2005; Stone Sweet et al. 2001; Bache 2008). However, this more recent upswing of regional mobilization is not just an effect of ‘national’ or ‘European’ political activities. Rather it must be seen as an expression of a more general and global transformation of modernity and of a broader conceptual shift in governing society and space.

It can be observed, moreover, that the more visible and pronounced the differences amongst sub-national areas have become over the past decades, the more similar and homogenous also the activities and structures of European regions have become. In fact, the strategies of development the regions choose and implement are based on relatively similar principles and models of regional mobilization that are widely shared and taken for granted amongst both experts and policy-makers alike. This paradox of an increasing standardized diversification of sub-national areas all around Europe is at the centre of this study, and it is analysed on the basis of an analytical perspective which deliberately focuses on the macro-structural contexts and the transnational conditions of region-building in contemporary times rather than on local institutions, traditions and actors.

Mobilizing regions, mobilizing Europe: the main research focus

The study which is outlined in this book departs from classical assumptions of sociological neo-institutionalism – more particularly, the so called ‘world-polity approach’ as it was proposed by John W. Meyer and his collaborators at Stanford University – and develops a particular macro‑phenomenological perspective on the emergence of distinct sub-national regional ‘actors’ with pronounced agendas of social mobilization. It is argued that over the past 20–30 years a robust common sense on the necessity of regional development and on some of the fundamentals of ‘prudent’ regional development practice has emerged among experts from many parts of the world fuelled both by academic discourse and political initiatives. In the framework of European regional development policies – above all, the so-called ‘EU Cohesion Policy’ – some models and practices of regional mobilization have been strongly promoted and institutionalized, fostering the diffusion of highly generalized development standards to localities and local lifeworlds all around Europe.

Hence, from this particular analytical perspective ‘Europeanization’ is considered, first and foremost, as a modernizing project that mobilizes society – i.e. individuals, (political) actors, organizations, nation-states, and even the most ‘peripheral’ and ‘outermost’ localities and regions of the European Union (EU) – on the basis of relatively similar models, standards and aspirations of future development. It will be shown that the all-encompassing mobilization of sub-national units in contemporary is largely embedded in a highly rationalized ‘culture’ of professionals and expertise, the so-called ‘world culture’ (Meyer), which is considered to be the primary cultural account of what is commonly referred to as ‘modernity’ and fosters the diffusion of rationally justified and often scientifically approved ‘world-cultural’ models and practices. The more highly generalized and scientifically approved justifications of development gain ‘practical validity’ (e.g. by way of institutionalization), the more the modernist ethos of ‘instrumental activism’ becomes the driving force of social change which is the prerequisite, in turn, for further expansion of rationalized structures (Meyer et al. 1997; Münch 2001).

Having said this, it is one of the major aims of this book to show how and to what extent both the rather general and global process of world-cultural diffusion and the more particular process of Europeanization are interrelated and interwoven. It is the aim to show that EU policy programmes, such as the EU Cohesion Policy, are strongly ‘world-cultural’ in itself reinforcing, accelerating and specifying the diffusion of ‘world-cultural models’, and thus fostering the expansion of certain expert practices and agency-based developmental imperatives all around the territory of the European Union. Hence, in line with new sociological approaches in EU and Europeanization studies (cf. Delanty and Rumford 2005; Favell and Guiraudon 2009; Münch 2010) this book provides an account of Europeanization which situates the particular social and cultural dynamics of policy-making and institution-building in the European Union within the broader picture of globalization. However, this analysis is not limited to the study of transnational discourses and overarching institutional structures. It also further elaborates and specifies the thesis of a reinforcing world-cultural mobilization of sub-national territories in contemporary Europe by means of a comparat...