New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood

by Neil Brenner

In this synthetic, interdisciplinary work, Neil Brenner develops a new interpretation of the transformation of statehood under contemporary globalizing capitalism. Whereas most analysts of the emergent, post-Westphalian world order have focused on supranational and national institutional realignments, 'New State Spaces' shows that strategic subnational spaces, such as cities and city-regions, represent essential arenas in which states are being transformed. Brenner traces the transformation of urban governance in western Europe during the last four decades and, on this basis, argues that inherited geographies of state power are being fundamentally rescaled. Through a combination of theory construction, historical analysis and cross-national case studies of urban policy change, 'New State Spaces' provides an innovative analysis of the new formations of state power that are currently emerging. This is a mature and sophisticated analysis by a major young scholar

Genres: Urbanism, Cities, Philosophy, Urban Studies, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[sdw · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a readable book! Brenner examines the contemporary production of space and refutes the idea that nations no longer matter under contemporary globalization. The first half of the book sets up the theoretical framework for the contemporary meaning of space and nation through ideas of territorialization and scale. The second half examines what this framework means for understanding the reterritorialziation of urban spaces in Europe in the contemporary period. Specifically, he thinks the nation gets reconfigured through the relationship on the supranational (transnational) and subnational (cities or regions). Yet he refuses to dismiss the nation-state, showing how the polices of the nation-state help re-territoralize and rescale urban areas. Brenner is all about “post-disciplinarity.” He feels that we should use whatever discipline or combination of disciplines is most applicable to the process we are studying.

[Abby Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book New State Spaces by Neil Brenner expands current state theory in a post-disciplinary manner by looking at influences of urban areas on rescaling European statehood from the 1970s to the present (Brenner 2004:4). Urban policies and national-state institutions have resulted in the recalibration of scalar hierarchies and interscalar relations [supranational, national, regional, urban, etc.] under Capitalism (Brenner 2004:7). The first half of the book outlines Brenner's framework for understanding rescaling processes while the second half of the book examines these processes evolving in 20th century Europe. His understanding of statehood as a process opposes a static view of scale focusing only on local, urban, regional, national, and global. Another key point Brenner highlights is "uneven development" where "social, political, and economic processes are not distributed uniformly" (Brenner 2004:8). With globalization, "uneven development" is occurring - certain cities and metropolitan areas have prospered in recent years compared to neglected locations that flourished during early Industrialization. Globalization scholars have been looking concepts of de-territorialization [to remove global barriers] and re-territorialization [to create new arrangements for accelerating capital]. Brenner believes de/re-territorialization "are mutually constitutive, if highly conflict, moments of an ongoing dialectic through which political-economic space is continually produced, reconfigured, and transformed under capitalism" or a "rescaling of the state" (Brenner 2004:64). Brenner describes the statehood process over time: Fordist- Keynesian Capitalism of the 1950s to the 1970s with the Keynesian welfare state; post-Keynesian competition states of the 1980s; and resultant Rescaled Competition State Regimes (RCSRs) in the 1990s.

It will be interesting to see how Brenner's view of statehood compares with two previous authors: David Harvey and Charles Tilly. Brenner says "the notion of statehood seems to me a more precise basis for describing modern political institutions, because it does not ontologically prejudge the configuration of state scalar organization, the level of state centralization, or the degree of institutional isomorphism among state agencies" (Brenner 2004: 4). He looks at projects/strategies of the statehood trajectory. The most recent form of statehood are RCSRs - which position key sub-national spaces in a supra-national framework to accelerate capital (Brenner 2004:260). Harvey felt states were operating under a neoliberal agenda (Harvey 2005: 2). Harvey argued state's involvement in protecting neoliberal practices varied: companies donated money to politicians, social goods were privatized, international institutions required free market expansion, and a move from government to governance allowed for decision-making by those with money power (Harvey 2005: 71-78). Tilly believed national-states were "states governing multiple contiguous regions and their cities by means of centralized, differentiated, and autonomous structures" (Tilly 1990:2). National-states tend to promote state growth around commercial enterprise, formalizing class relations in state administration, minimal administration to wage war, and engagement in capital accumulation (Tilly 1990:150). In summary, Brenner highlights rescaled networks resulting from new forms of capital accumulation whereas Harvey and Tilly are more focused on existing scales. Brenner and Tilly both highlight the role of urbanization in modern-state development. Brenner seems to agree with Harvey that state institutions can promote market regulation, but he also emphasizes the role of networks in uneven development. Overall, I appreciated Tilly's perspective of state development most. Tilly seemed to give equal credence to resources of capital and coercion [power] in national-state growth. Unlike Harvey, he didn't state capital was the only driving force. For example, some low-income regions were creating state boundaries using top-down coercive tactics. Brenner seemed more interested in scale of regulation and economies, but I didn't feel he was critically and fully evaluating Capitalism. Nevertheless, I appreciated Brenner bringing attention to the new scales in operation for statehood and how those scales serve to enforce inequalities and polarizations.

[Pepe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The theoretical framework from Levebfre in this book is really amazing and very strong. I could not connect, however, to the characters of city-suburban that Brenner elaborates with examples of western cities. Apparently, the postcolonial space has strikingly different characters and development, which need to be explained further -- but I believe it's not his duty since he states so early in this book that he in no way is interested in generalizing his findings and analysis. I also wonder about the missing rural-urban connection in western Europe, or at least I would like to know why it doesn't make it to the analysis of the reconfiguration of space in post-Fordist West Europe.