Towards Geopolitical Reading of ‘Periphery’ in State Spatial Strategies: Concepts and Controversies

ABSTRACT

This article aims to tackle the inner-regional question within political geography debate addressing an important conceptual and empirical deficit in our understanding of periphery as political construct. It analyses the role of state spatial-making in the process of constructing the narrative of peripherality of subnational territories, in national-territorial politics. It examines the concept of ‘inner region’ as it is employed in state spatial strategy focusing on territories that are ‘locked’ into a configuration outside the core, that is, territories that are peripheral and remote. In particular, study’s concern is with the geopolitical rationality that implicitly guides policy framework in the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) and the new Metropolitan Cities in Italy. If inner regions and city-regions become a particular expression of state space-making, their development offers considerable opportunity for shedding more light on the relationship between local dynamics and wider geopolitical relations. Against the only apparently neutralizing discourses of citizenship, polycentrism, and economic development which dominate that policy, the new strategy is a highly geopolitical instrument potentially accelerating the neoliberalization of peripheral regions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In Italy, there is extensive debate concerning SNAI and inner regions, outlined especially by urban and regional scholars (see for instance De Rossi 2018). The whole Italian Pavilion ‘Archipelago Italia’, at the Biennale Architettura 2018 in Venice, investigated the Italian inner areas (www.arcipelagoitalia.it). Additionally, the SNAI has also been relaunched in the new Piano Sud 2030 (South Plan 2030, February 2020) for Southern Italy, developed by the Ministry of the Territorial Cohesion and South.

2. Reports, documents, databases, and sources on Inner Areas and SNAI are available on the Italian Territorial Cohesion Agency website: http://old2018.agenziacoesione.gov.it/it/arint/index.html

3. During the 1990s, Italy has been affected by institutional reforms related to a serious political and institutional crisis, and characterised firstly, by a strong effort towards decentralisation of administrative competencies from national state to local authorities, and secondly, by new urban and regional policies (Governa and Salone 2005).

4. In Italy, regions have had significant legislative and administrative powers since 2001 constitutional reform, which granted them exclusive legislative power with respect to any matter not expressly reserved by the state.

5. The 72 selected project areas consist of 1,077 municipalities (13% of Italian municipalities), 3.5% of the national population, and 16.7% of the national territory.