1 Introduction
4.1 Geographical insights on policy transfer processes and
Political scientists have been interested in the notion of policy transfer for several decades when studying the processes of policy diffusion, policy convergence and policy learning (Prince 2012: 191; Healey 2013). The idea of policy transfer gained additional popularity after Dolowitz and Marsh’s (1996) widely cited article in which they defined policy transfer as
“a process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions, etc. in one time and/or place is used in the development of policies/administrative arrangements and institutions in another time and/or place.” (Dolowitz and Marsh 1996: 344)
The wide academic appeal of this definition, also among geographers, is explained by how it put emphasis on different actors and the manifestation of voluntary and mandatory characteristics of these processes (Prince 2012: 191). Although this research strand, which is driven by geographical insights (e.g. Peck, Theodore, Brenner, McCann, Ward), is not fully coherent, a common motivation is to emphasise the spatio-temporal dimensions of policy transfer processes and to “move beyond the overly normative, ahistorical and ungeographical accounts of policy transfer present in the political science literature”
(Prince 2012: 191; see also Peck 2011).
By following the development of ideas, strategies, policies and ideologies in regard to local and regional policies after the world wars, it can be stated that there has been a transition from top-down to bottom-up regional development approaches, and moreover, from state-led comprehensive and sectoral development policies focused primarily on heavy industrial projects to a decentralised territorial and more market-oriented approach.
In this approach the focus is on embracing the development potential and resources of the particular regions in question (Pike et al. 2006: 16–17), which are discussed in the previous section. The development and mobilisation of border regions fittingly illustrates this progression towards bottom-up development strategies.
During recent decades, EU policy making has manifested the “New Regionalist”
discourse (see e.g. Harrison 2013; Keating 1997) through regional policies promoting the creation of “competitive” regions, that is, regions are understood to be the main engines of growth (see Molotch 1976). Allocation of financial resources to different forms of cross-border co-operation can be seen as the EU’s effort to reconceptualise the
4 European border regions as spaces for politics,
policies and path-dependent transformation
political-economic space, to lower state borders and to promote the functionality of the European common market (Deas & Lord 2006: 1848–1849; Veemaa 2012). This idea of endogenous development and regional growth factors is well visible in the development of border areas as well, as it is illustrated by the ongoing Interreg programmes. The Interreg V Nord programme, implemented in the North Calotte programme region, to which the Finnish-Swedish border region belongs, states:
“The Nord programme aims to influence attitudes and approaches, which will minimize the obvious border obstacles that exist for the co-operation projects, and to promote cross-border projects in order to be able to develop the region together in an innovative, sustainable and inclusive way. The goal is that different development areas will combine to form a complementary structure, where each element is regarded as a key part of an attractive and prosperous region.” (Interreg Nord 2014: 6–7)
In this regard, the concept of regional identity has been widely employed in EU regional strategies and regional development programmes (Prokkola et al. 2015). The building of cross-border identities is seen as a means to “lower” the obstacles of state borders.
Accordingly, the construction of the identity of a region is argued to strengthen regional consciousness and the feeling of belonging and, consequently, to facilitate co-operation (see also Veemaa 2012). This is done to overcome the effects of strong national identities and identifications, which are seen to hinder the “we-feeling” and associated with vested interest, lack of motivation to co-operate, etc. (Mirwaldt 2012; Fabbro & Haselberg 2009;
Luukkonen & Moilanen 2012).
The way how these rescaling and policy transfer processes take place at the local level is by no means straightforward. It is important to notice that policy transfer is not a top-down process where policies and strategies are “transferred” from one hierarchical government level to another but rather a complex multilevel process that is in many ways dependent on local economic and institutional conditions (Peck & Theodore 2001) (see Figure 3). Indeed, geographers have explicitly criticised traditional policy transfer studies in political science for viewing local and regional actors as objects of policy transfer studies rather than seeing them as the facilitators of these processes (McCann and Ward 2013:
6). In traditional policy transfer studies in political science, the focus has been on the identification and categorisation of traditional transfer agents, yet they have given little attention to the question of agency and to the wider social institutional context which shapes the behaviour of actors (see also Hodgson 2006).
Another issue that geographers have criticised in the traditional policy transfer studies is the question and conceptualization of scale (McCann & Ward 2013). The interrelations between spatial scales and the understanding and definition of the politics of scale were the primary inspiration for geographers to first engage with the concept and ideas of policy transfer. Yet geographers have criticised the “methodological nationalism” and overly strong emphasis on national scale in the policy transfer studies. Although it is acknowledged that national state is a somehow the “authority scale” when examining
policy transfer and the mobility of knowledge and ideas, it should not be understood to constitute the sole context or “ultimate reference point” against which these processes are studied (McCann & Ward 2013: 7). Scales and their logics are social constructs which are produced, reproduced, contested and transformed simultaneously at different institutional levels and locations (Paasi 2004). The adaptation and implementation of EU regional policies such as Interreg and the building of new transnational organisations and institutions are fitting examples of the manifestation of the changing power relations of policy transfer (see Prince 2012). The rescaling of governance functions can be understood to succeed when a new scale gains a sufficient degree of institutional thickness (Amin &
Thrift 1995). Furthermore, new spatial scales of governance, and policy transfer related to them, give impetus for new development strategies and discourses, which can gradually become dominant.
Figure 3. The conceptualisation of policy transfer processes in this thesis.