State Restructuring and Rescaling in Comparative Perspective
Dates
3 - 4 December 2012
Venues
3 December: Leiden University,
Lipsius (room 147/LUF), Cleveringaplaats 1, Leiden
4 December: Gravensteen (room 111), Pieterskerkhof 6, Leiden
Background
An important feature of the modern state system during the
past few decades is the rise of the sub-national state. In
contrast to the earlier period when the national economy was
the main unit of development, sub-national territorial units
have increasingly become the source of growth, competition,
and political contention in a changing global order. The
national state is under pressure to re-articulate and
re-territorialize in relation to both sub- and
supra-national scales. Its institutional, regulatory, and
spatial configurations are restructured to adapt to the
demands of transnational investments and operations. Some
local states have actively engaged in sub-national diplomacy
as well as developmental intervention, the aim of which is
to turn their regions into place-specific coordinates of
global production/investment complexes.
This sets off a highly contentious process. First of all, it
involves a redistribution of state power between the
national administration and various levels of local
authorities. Second, it brings about severe competition
between sub-national regions when they all aspire to become
an epic centre for growth. Third, it forges new alliances
between local authorities, domestic producers, and
international investors in numerous forms, and subverts the
conventional categories of public-private, domestic-foreign,
and national-local divisions. Finally, it encourages the
establishment of informal relations between sub-national
states across countries. During this contentious process,
the boundary of the political is redrawn, and the unit of
political agency is redefined.
Objectives
The workshop seeks to analyze the modalities of state
rescaling through a comparative study of representative
country cases at various spatial scales. The comparative
approach will allow us to reflect on the theoretical
relevance of the notion of state rescaling in Asia and other
emerging economies, in relation to advanced industrialized
countries where it has been used to understand economic
restructuring in the post-Fordist era. The workshop also
aims to produce a special journal issue as a major scholarly
output.
To arouse the interest of the academic and policy
communities in the Netherlands and the surrounding regions,
a seminar series on "Sub-national States and
Trans-national Actors in a Globalising World" will be
jointly organized by the IIAS Centre for Regulation and Governance and the Clingendael Institute. The seminar series will take
place between September and December 2012. The present
workshop will be the climax event in the series of
activities.
Organizers
The workshop will be jointly organized by the IIAS Centre
for Regulation and Governance, the Netherlands and the
Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud, CNRS-EHESS,
France. The co-convenors are Prof. Loraine Kennedy and Prof.
Tak-Wing Ngo.
Registration and
Information
Registration is free of charge. Please visit our website for
the programme and the registration form:
http://www.iias.nl/event/state-restructuring-and-rescaling-comparative-perspective
For enquiries about the seminar, please contact: Ms Titia
van der Maas, t.van.der.maas@xxxxxxx
The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a research and exchange platform based in the university city of Leiden, the Netherlands. IIAS encourages the multidisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and promotes national and international co-operation. It acts as an interface between academic and non-academic partners including cultural, social and policy organisations.
IIAS | P.O. Box 9500 | 2300 RA |
Leiden
www.iias.nl | Contact | Unsubscribe
from IIAS mailing list