The Building Blocks of a Euroregion: novel Metrics to Measure Cross-border Integration

Abstract

The article explores how the notion of European integration at the local level can be conceptualized and measured. Based on a process-oriented inclusive understanding of integration and using relational datasets that maps both domestic and cross-border communication ties among political representatives in four Euroregions along the borders of Hungary–Slovakia and Sweden–Norway, we begin by applying and theoretically dissecting network-analytical metrics based on frequency of ties. Despite finding that such measures capture analytically relevant properties of political cross-border networks, we argue that they are less than ideal for capturing the notion of political integration. Instead, with inspiration from the blockmodeling tradition in network analysis, we propose two novel metrics—cross-border connectivity and integrational overfitting. These metrics not only enrich our understanding of political integration in cross-border settings but also can serve as useful mapping tools for policy-makers. A software client enabling the analysis of these measures supplements this article.

Key Words:

• Cross-border cooperation
• Euroregions
• network analysis
• blockmodeling

Acknowledgment

This research was partly sponsored by Budapesti Közép-Európai Egyetem Alapítvány (CEU BPF). We are grateful for the feedback on previous versions of this article offered by reviewers as well as by participants of the ‘Geographic and social space panel’ at the Sunbelt XXXIII International Network for Social Network Analysis Conference (Hamburg, May 21-25, 2013) and the Department of Public Policy Research Seminar at Central European University (Budapest, September 30, 2013). At Central European University, we are also grateful to Evelyne Hübscher, John Harbord, and students at the ‘DPP Qualitative Methods’ course for careful readings and valuable comments.

Notes

1. The ‘Cross-border Metropolitcan Governance in Europe’ project is a three-year project led by the Centre for Population, Poverty and Public Policy Studies (CEPS/INSTEAD), Luxembourg, funded by the National Research Fund of Luxembourg (See e.g. Dörry and Decoville 2012).

2. ‘EU Border Regions’ is a four-year project led by the University of Eastern Finland, funded by the EU FP7 research program.

3. This Euroregion has recently changed name to “Svinesundskommittén”.

4. As a control question, mayors in OstBoh were also asked to write down the name of the highest political representatives of other local governments in the region. On average, the OstBoh members could name 10.6 of their 21 potential alters. Out of these, 9.2 were from the same country, i.e. the average mayor knows only 1.5 mayor by name on the other side of the border.

5. It can here also be noted that the visualizations indicate that closeness to the border is important but not decisive for cross-border communication. While this is not key to the argument of this paper, it is a detail that my interest those with a more keen interest in Euroregions.

6. The CrossborderBlocker Windows software is freely available for download at http://cnslabs.ceu.hu/