Regional devolution and regional economic success: myths and illusions about power
Regional devolution and regional economic success: myths and illusions about power
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区域权力下放和区域经济成功：关于权力的神话和幻想
DOI：
10.1111/j.0435-3684.2006.00212.x
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发表时间：
2006
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
R. Hudson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Hudson
区域权力下放本身将导致经济成功的命题已经深深植根于关于区域繁荣决定因素的信念和政策话语中，并反过来导致了对这种权力下放的政治要求。在本文中，我以英格兰东北部的案例为背景，试图批判性地考察这些说法。本文首先对权力、区域、国家重组、多层次治理和治理的概念作了一些介绍性的评论，这有助于理解围绕区域权力下放的问题。然后，我考察了英格兰东北部在20世纪30年代作为一个特殊类型的地区在政治和社会上被构建的方式，并提出了具体的问题——这一举措直到今天都具有持久的意义。接下来的六十年，我研究了当代关于区域权力下放与区域经济成功之间关系的说法，正是由于东北地区作为一个具有统一区域利益的地区的悠久历史，这些说法在东北地区找到了肥沃的土壤。然后，我反思了区域规划、区域战略和区域权力下放的过程，以及它们与区域经济复兴的关系。下面是一个简短的结论，强调关于新的治理方式的效力以及谁将成为该区域的主要受益者的问题仍然存在。权力下放在多大程度上实际上涉及到将权力转移到地区，以及地区内网络形式的权力对抗资本的结构性权力和塑造中央国家政策的能力，目前仍不清楚。
Abstract The proposition that regional devolution in and of itself will lead to economic success has become deeply embedded in beliefs and policy discourses about the determinants of regional prosperity, and in turn has led to political demands for such devolution. In this paper I seek critically to examine such claims, using the case of the north‐east of England as the setting for this examination. The paper begins with some introductory comments on concepts of power, regions, the reorganization of the state and of multi‐level governance, and governmentality, which help in understanding the issues surrounding regional devolution. I then examine the ways in which north‐east England was politically and socially constructed as a particular type of region, with specific problems, in the 1930s — a move that has had lasting significance up until the present day. Moving on some six decades, I then examine contemporary claims about the relationship between regional devolution and regional economic success, which find fertile ground in the north‐east precisely due to its long history of representation as a region with a unified regional interest. I then reflect on the processes of regional planning, regional strategies and regional devolution, and their relationship to regional economic regeneration. A brief conclusion follows, emphasizing that questions remain about the efficacy of the new governmentality and about who would be its main beneficiaries in the region. The extent to which devolution would actually involve transferring power to the region and the capacity of networked forms of power within the region to counter the structural power of capital and shape central state policies remains unclear.