AbstractsPolitical Science

This dissertation analyses governance in the process of the formation of new regional alliances and spaces in Europe, by studying the case of the Central European Region - Centrope, which is both a region and a political project at the border area of Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. This research aims at illuminating the historically founded relationship between emerging territories and new socioeconomic institutionalisations through unveiling the mode of governance in Centrope. It uncovers the progress and dilemmas of the institutionalization of a new region and regional alliances. The focus is on socio-spatial transformations, bringing in conceptual clarifications to unravel, among other issues, the ways in which actor's alliances are formed and mobilized to defend and promote particular interests grounded within already established, emerging, or potential state spaces. It thus sheds light on the mode of governance and regional development being fostered by the EU in new trans-border regions, as well as on the challenges involved in implementing new spaces in the EU under the absolute rule of a specific notion of competitiveness. This enabled sketching some alternative policy recommendations. (author's abstract)