Place-based strategies or territorial cooperation? Regional development in transnational perspective in Italy

Italy has been at the forefront in the implementation of place-based regional development strategies during the 2000s, and it constitutes therefore a privileged point of view to investigate the contents of the approach, its potentialities as well as its limitations. In light of those limitations, several scholars have recently directed their attentions toward a typology of policies – territorial cooperation – which may be regarded as a trans-regional and transnational approach to regional development. In the paper, we offer a review of the main criticisms of place-based strategies and of the main distinctive dimensions and the potential value added of territorial cooperation initiatives, in light of recent debates about territorial vis-a`-vis relational approaches to regional development. The identification of transnational spatial units, joint management authorities and trans-regional strategies, it is argued, may indeed help to overcome some of the limitations of place-based strategies – namely, the risk of policy capture, territorial introversion and communitarian confinement – while incurring in others – institutional isomorphism, technocratic management and democratic deficit. As the European political and economic space become increasingly trans-scalar and networked, the two policy domains may potentially learn from each other, and a new generation of local policies may emerge which are both territorial and relational, place-based and trans-regional.

Italy has been at the forefront in the implementation of place-based regional development strategies during the 2000s, and it constitutes therefore a privileged point of view to investigate the contents of the approach, its potentialities as well as its limitations. In light of those limitations, several scholars have recently directed their attentions toward a typology of policies - territorial cooperation - which may be regarded as a trans-regional and transnational approach to regional development. In the paper, we offer a review of the main criticisms of place-based strategies and of the main distinctive dimensions and the potential value added of territorial cooperation initiatives, in light of recent debates about territorial vis-à-vis relational approaches to regional development. The identification of transnational spatial units, joint management authorities and trans-regional strategies, it is argued, may indeed help to overcome some of the limitations of place-based strategies - namely, the risk of policy capture, territorial introversion and communitarian confinement - while incurring in others - institutional isomorphism, technocratic management and democratic deficit. As the European political and economic space become increasingly trans-scalar and networked, the two policy domains may potentially learn from each other, and a new generation of local policies may emerge which are both territorial and relational, place-based and trans-regional. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.