the presentation

Cross-border governance and beyond:
Economic development in the Greater Region
Julia Affolderbach
University of Luxembourg
AAG Annual Meeting
New York, Feb. 25, 2012
Outline
- Conceptual considerations: multi-level and crossborder governance
- The case of the Greater Region
- Socioeconomic characteristics
- Cross-border institutions
- Facets of cross-border cooperation
- Evaluation of formal cross-border institutions
- Informal arrangements
- Conclusion
New forms of governance
Governance as “fluid, transversal forms of decisionmaking operating above, below and within the cracks
of inter-state hierarchies and markets […] embodied
by a range of actors operating outside the regulatory
framework of historical state-centric institutional
forms.” (Kramsch 2003, 211)
Cross-border governance
Involving
• multiple actors and
• multiple scales
Taking different forms (Hooghe & Marks 2003):
• general purposes or
• task specific
Luxembourg and the Greater Region
Socioeconomic characteristics of
Luxembourg & the Greater Region
• Considerable higher GDP / earner (EUR 88,300
compared to EUR 59,090 in 2003).
• Low unemployment rate (5% compared to up
to 10%).
• Favorable business climate attracting foreign
investment and large numbers of foreign
professionals.
Left: Selected retail
business along the
Luxembourgish border.
Below: Tank tourism in
Wasserbillig, Luxembourg.
Luxembourg
Belgium
Luxembourg
IKEA, Arlon Sterpenich, July 2008
Photo: T. Chilla & C. Schulz
Belgium
France
Luxembourg
Auchan, Mont Saint Martin, July 2008
Photo: T. Chilla & C. Schulz
Cross-border
cooperation in the
Greater Region:
Formal governance
structures
Source: Metroborder 2010
Evaluation of formal cross-border
cooperation
• Lack of cross-border initiatives in respect to retail
development
• Existing cross-border initiatives dysfunctional or
insufficiently equipped to tackle the issue
“QuattroPole does the things its members do anyways. And it
then covers them with a QuattroPole cloak.”
(Interview with public servant, Oct. 2010, translation from
German)
Informal collaboration
1. Information exchange through
personal networks (and other sources)
Information exchange
“Generally, decision makers are well informed
through announcements and media as it is
hard to keep planned large-scale development
a secret. Additionally, the small size of the
region allows actors to watch what is going on
across the border.”
(Government representative, Oct. 2010, translated
from German)
“There is a network at different levels. […]
There is a network that I built up with my
colleagues here, then there is one network
from our customers, the network from our
employees.”
(Interview Nov. 2010, translation from German)
Informal collaboration
1. Information exchange through
personal networks (and other sources)
2. Collaboration and information
exchange through project specific and
short-term projects
Informal collaboration
1. Information exchange through
personal networks (and other sources)
2. Collaboration and information
exchange through project specific and
short-term projects
3. Informal channels
“We have problems and we try to solve them
using informal channels. Theoretically, we
would have to go through Luxembourg, via
Berlin to Saarbrucken and back and that
doesn’t work. Hence, we solve the problems
using our possibilities and that works
extremely well.”
(Mayor, Nov. 2010, translation from German)
Acknowledgements
The research project is co-funded through an AFR-Marie Curie
postdoctoral grant by the Fonds National de la Recherche
Luxembourg and the Marie Curie Actions of the European
Commission (FP7-COFUND).