Abstract
In this book, Michael Keating makes a deep and rich reflection about the role of territory in the current political, social and economic situation in Europe. The book opens with an overview of the most relevant theories about the concept of ‘territory’ and its role in the history of the European state (Chapters 1 and 2). In Chapters 3 and 4, Keating examines functional rescaling concerning social, economic and cultural systems, and underlines how territory is still a key factor in political life. The rescaling process has necessarily influenced the role of institutions and how they act in these new social, economic and political spaces that governments try to regulate and control (Chapter 5). After this, Keating investigates how social and economic interests are adapting to rescaling and how this process influences policy making (Chapters 6 and 7). Chapter 8 is devoted to normative theory and it explains the implications of the rescaling process for self-government and social solidarity, while in Chapter 9 there is a deep and precise analysis of the dynamics of this process, especially how regional governments are becoming strong political actors and how constitutional reforms are now a permanent feature in European politics. The book ends with some reflections on how the 2008 economic crisis has affected the rescaling process.
Despite the fact that some social scientists proclaim the end of territory as a way of political and social organisation and are sure to detect a process of progressive de-territorialisation, Keating demonstrates that instead we are facing a rescaling process that allows the migration of functional systems, political processes and economic organisations towards new levels, both supranational and subnational. The author's study is focused on the emergence of a territorial meso level (the regions) that is growing as an arena for economic development, as a new powerful level of government, as a space for political and social contestation, and as a space for institution building.
Keating's book has the great value that it deals with a major topic of political science – the territorial organisation of the state and the models of power exercise – that involve the emergence of a new space for political production, contestation and competition. This analysis is particularly interesting because it is done in a strictly comparative way, and this allows the author to sustain its theoretical assumptions with a remarkable quantity of empirical connections. The book is particularly interesting for those scholars involved in federalist and European integration studies, comparative politics and policy-making studies.