Cross-border Policy Networks in the Basel Region: The Effect of National Borders and Brokerage Roles

Abstract

This paper provides evidence of how national borders affect the structure of policy networks. Our analysis of the Basel cross-border metropolitan region located across Switzerland, France and Germany considers the case of public transportation in border regions. Using a social network analysis of the relationships between 44 actors, we show that national borders play a diminishing role in the formation of policy networks for both information exchange and decision making. Local actors develop different brokerage roles according to their country of origin: Swiss actors function as coordinator and representative brokers vis-à-vis actors located in France and Germany.

Acknowledgements

This research is part of the ‘MetroNet – Cross-Border Metropolitan Governance in Europe: A Network Analysis Approach’ project supported by the National Research Fund of Luxembourg (C09/SR/03). In addition to Basel, MetroNet is a comparative project that deals with three other case studies (Lille, Luxembourg and Vienna-Bratislava). Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in New York City in February 2012 and at the UK Social Networks Association (UKSNA) Conference in July 2011. The authors thank Dimitris Christopoulos, Sabine Dörry, Frédéric Durand, Jen Nelles and Christophe Sohn for their helpful comments and Rita Schneider-Sliwa for her help during the interviews. Luregn Lenggenhager and Anasse El Maslohi provided excellent research assistance.

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