Social Capital Design and Polycentric Metropolitan Competitiveness: The “Grande Région” Agenda

Abstract

Social capital has been considered by some scientists such as Putnam as a resource benefitting territories, and the role of public institutions in the design of such a capital has been increasingly emphasized over recent years. The objective of this article is to analyze the role played by the euroregional institution in configuring social capital linkages for the benefit of territorial competitiveness. The article is based on the analysis of the “Grande Région” case, a euroregion whose central and cross-border part is characterized by a metropolization process concerning many cities. Does the “Grande Région” executive power connect itself with urban civil society representatives in favor of a metropolitan and polycentric competitiveness? Our hypothesis is that the euroregional leaders design “weak ties” (Granovetter, M.S. 1973. The Strength of Weak Ties American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–1380) and a bracing social capital at the scale of the multi-polar urban area