Conclusion: Regional Power and Territorial Differentiation

Abstract

Mobilisation, decentralisation and governance: these have been the three central ideas which encapsulate the aim of this book, which is to describe the emergence and the dynamics of the region as an entity, using France as a case study. The region-as-entity here stands in for the whole of society, in that, over the long history of state-nation building, it has assumed a wide variety of cultural, economic, social and political realities. These realities take the form of specific identities, of socio-economic cleavages, cultural movements, political organisations, democratic demands, elected institutions and instruments of public policy. The theoretical and methodological challenge for social sciences lies in developing tools which enable us to understand and articulate this range of realities. This book has therefore analysed regions as being loose and flexible political spaces, in which institutionalisation is far from being a one-way process. A variety of actors contribute to the upward, downward and horizontal dynamics which make up such spaces. Institutionalising regional space comprises three dimensions: institutionalisation as a result of cultural, social and political mobilisation; via the implementation of policies for territorial justice and decentralisation; and finally via the deployment of a system of regional governance. Far from this being a static analysis, it is one which allows us to identify the main parameters of public policy change and sketch out a typology of territorial governance models in relation to the ways in which regional power is structured.