THEME - COMPLEXITIES OF MULTI-SCALAR GOVERNANCE IN
CONTESTED ENVIRONMENTS
Jeroen Klink, Artur Zimerman and Vanessa Elias de Oliveira (UFABC)
1. City development strategies and the restructuring of state
spatial regimes.
A growing literature has tried to provide a theoretical underpinning of the
interdependencies between city regional development trajectories, state spatial
policies at its various scalar dimensions and the restructuring of the international
economy from the 1970s onwards. Regulation theory (Boyer, 1990), (Benko, 1996) and
industrial urbanism (Scott, 1998), (Storper, 1997) have both emphasized the transition
of a Fordist to a Post-fordist regime of accumulation and regulation, as well as the
associated implications for spatial trajectories and local economic development
strategies, while (Harvey, 1989) analyzed the shift from managerial urban regimes to
entrepreneurial styles of governance. Others such as (Swyngedouw, 1997) focused on
the scalar dimensions of this debate, and elaborated the concept of glocalization in
order to stress the nested and contested-political nature of scales.
(Brenner, 2004) has grounded productive and spatial restructuring into a more
general analysis on the transformation of what he called state spatial regimes, giving
emphasis on the period from the 1970s onwards. His main argument is that, from this
period onwards, so-called Keynesian state spatial projects (meaning the internal
administrative organization of state spatial policies) and state spatial strategies
(meaning the effective state interventions in space, particularly through investment
programs and regulatory frameworks) have evolved into a rescaled competitive state
spatial regime. He illustrates this hypothesis with the concept of urban locational
policies for the West–European context. The Keynesian spatial projects and strategies
were centered on the objective of redistribution of assets, income and infrastructure,
and the maintenance of territorial cohesion, coordinated by the national state through
relatively homogenous and centralized interventions and institutions. The urban
locational regime, however, represents a shift towards decentralized and customized
area based administrative arrangements, with a prominent role of spatial strategies
and interventions aimed at providing city-regional territorial competitiveness.
Brenner´s analysis, although recognizing the increased prominence of sub-national and
supra-national scales, does not eliminate the role of the nation state; as a matter of
fact, the national scale continues to be actively involved in the restructuring of
regulatory, financial and spatial strategies. Brenner also claims that the rescaled
competitive state spatial regime has increased the instabilities and disparities among
regions within the national and the European space economy, particularly through the
proliferation of competitive urban entrepreneurialism at the metropolitan level.
More specifically referring to the UK-Brazil urban research network, there is a
need to investigate more in detail the underlying directions and significance of the
recent restructuring of state spatial regimes, both in the UK (where shifts from more
networked forms of governance towards an emphasis on localism seems to be
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occurring, coupled with downscaling of responsibilities to local governments and
communities, as mentioned in the position paper elaborated by Sue Brownill) and in
Brazil (see section two of this position paper). Additionally, the research network
should shed light on the limits and potentials of the emerging forms of multi-scalar
governance in terms of generating sustainable development patterns, and joining up
(apparently contradictory) aims of competitiveness, social inclusion and environmental
preservation.
2. The Brazilian scenario.
It goes without saying that the above described theoretical framework on the
restructuring of state spatial regimes, developed within a rather euro-centric context,
cannot mechanically be applied to the geo-historical setting of countries such as Brazil.
In that respect, several authors have emphasized the implications of Brazil´s relative
insertion into the global system as a peripheral and continental space economy,
marked by highly uneven development patterns, and a legacy of incomplete nation
state formation (Sampaio Jr., 1999).
Therefore, the elaboration of more specific hypotheses on the patterns of spatial
and productive regime shifts, which are embedded in the history and geography of the
Brazilian development trajectory, is one of the challenges of the UK-Brazil urban
research network. The subsequent investigation of some of these working hypotheses
might also provide a promising starting point for building new (applied) urban theory
with relevance to the specific Brazilian and South American context.
Recent transitions in its national development model provide elements for a more
specific Brazilian research agenda focused on the theme of state spatial restructuring
and the emerging forms of multi-scalar governance.
Broadly speaking, from the mid 1980s onwards, the Brazilian national
developmental model, with highly centralized and authoritarian policies aimed at
import substitution, industrialization and the construction of a national space
economy, has increasingly been facing challenges in light of the pressure for
democratization and decentralization, the collapse of the debt financed
macroeconomic expansion strategy and the globalization of production systems.
During the 1990s Brazil faced a dramatic shift in its macroeconomic and regulatory
environment, which was characterized by the opening up of the trade-regime,
deregulation and privatization, without compensating technological and industrial
policies (Araújo, 2000). This shift also provoked a process of restructuring of scales and
state spatial policies within the federation, and changing territorial dynamics at the
level of the national space economy. (Becker, 2004) analyzed this process of
restructuring in terms of as an increasing influence of the centrifugal forces of the
international economy on the Brazilian space economy, being mediated and
articulated by state spatial projects and strategies at the various scales. Some
examples to illustrate the argument.
As analyzed by (Fiori, 1995), while the 1988 constitution consolidated a
decentralized framework, with more resources and responsibilities for local and state
governments, in the deregulated and market friendly configuration of the 1990s the
effect was that Brazilian federal relations had become increasingly competitive. The
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overvalued exchange rate and the high interest rates that came along with the
macroeconomic stabilization Plan (the Plano Real, launched in 1994), which were
reinforced by the liberalization of the national trade and investment climate, enabled
the massive entrance of international production chains and financial capital, and set
the stage for what (Fiori, 1995, p.36) provocatively labeled as the “emerging
federation of merchants”.
Pacheco (1998) emphasized the macro-spatial dimension of this new competitive
restructured regime, whereby the limited cohesion and internal trade
complementarities among regions in the national space economy, prevailing under the
developmental regime, were being rapidly substituted by a more fragmented national
space, characterized by a series of archipelagos of competitive regions that were
directly linked to the international economy.
To make the this scenario more complex, more recently, a series of authors (e.g.
Costa, 2007) have claimed that Brazilian regional policy has been gradually shifting
from a traditional spatial Keynesian perspective, aimed at the reduction of
interregional disparities in assets, income and infra-structure through nationally
coordinated policies and programs, towards the promotion of internationally
competitive local productive systems through highly customized and decentralized
projects and strategies.
The above summarized stylized interpretation regarding both the broader
tendencies in productive and territorial restructuring, as well as the emergence of new
state spaces, is by no means consensual. For example, a contrary view has claimed that
in the last few years, particularly through the so-called National Growth Acceleration
Program (PAC) and nationally coordinated minimum income programs, the federal
government has actually been able to reduce socio-spatial disparities, particularly
through the implementation of a series of large redistributive investments in
infrastructure and income and employment generation programs.1 Likewise, authors
such as Figueiredo and Limongi (2001) argue that, despite the intentions towards
decentralization, the regime has in practice remained quite centralized.
3. Implications for a research agenda for the UK-Brazil urban
network – some initial observations.
(i) There is a need to increase our understanding of the broader directions and
significance of the above mentioned shifts in governance. For example,
considering the post 1985 period, would it be possible to analyze the
development trajectory of the Brazilian space economy in terms of a
gradual transition towards what Brenner and others have labeled as a
competitive and rescaled state spatial regime? What are the missing links
and blind spots in this theoretical framework when applied to the specific
Brazilian historical, geo-political and institutional context? What is the
1
At the same time, authors such as Leitão (2009), who undertook a preliminary analysis of the impact of
the PAC program in the state of Pará, argue that it reinforced a highly disparate and unsustainable
development trajectory, inserting the state into the world economy as an exporter of commodities.
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specific role of both Brazilian central, state and local governments and
private stakeholders in state spatial and productive restructuring and the
emergence of alternative forms of urban and regional governance?
(ii) Considering the specific development trajectory of the Brazilian space
economy from the mid 1980s onwards, what is the significance and impact
of the growing role of cities, city regions and metropolitan areas in
thematic areas such as local innovation systems (technological incubators,
fiscal incentives to technological start up firms, networked forms of local
governance that stimulate the interaction between universities,
businesses and local governments), local economic development and
environmental sustainability (including climate change policies)? More
specifically, are these tendencies to be interpreted as emerging spaces of
neo-liberalization (Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Otília et. al., 2000), or, on
the contrary, promising arenas for the radicalization of local democracy
and the mobilization of local society and its stakeholders around a more
inclusive and sustainable development agenda (Cocco, 2010; Harvey,
2005). Or, alternatively, is the restructuring of state spatial spaces to be
interpreted in terms of what Barnes (1996) labeled as a “post pre-fixed”
theoretical framework, whereby, depending on the specific historical and
geo-political context of territories, the emerging city and metropolitan
state spaces are embedded in a much more complex configuration of
socioeconomic, spatial and political forces. According to such a
perspective, the contested, contingent and political nature of state spatial
rescaling could generate specific city development strategies that both
incorporate slum upgrading strategies, participatory budgeting and
inclusionary zoning, while simultaneously promoting a series of large
urban flagship project that trigger real estate valorization and socio-spatial
exclusion. Finally, what are the implications of some of the possible
answers to these questions in terms of setting up comparative research for
the UK/Europe and Brazil?
(iii) What are the socio-economic and geo-political forces behind the restructuring
of specific state spatial projects, strategies and scales? For example,
regarding the evolution in Brazilian metropolitan governance, – roughly
speaking, from a more top-down and uniform regulatory approach in the
sixties/seventies to a more ad-hoc, customized and decentralized regime
in the post 1990 period-, is the present institutional vacuum of
metropolitan areas to be interpreted as another stage in the continuing
move towards fragmentation and neo-localism at the level of the Brazilian
space economy? Along the same lines, regarding the regional scale, has
traditional redistributive development policy been replaced by more
customized territorial interventions, aimed at enabling the creation of
specific, and internationally competitive, local production systems and
clusters in such resource and energy intensive segments as agro-business,
minerals and metallurgy? And if so, what have been the consequences of
this state spatial restructuring at the regional scale, both in terms of
environmental and social sustainability?
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(iv) Some of these and additional questions that will arise along the collective
construction of the UK-Brazil urban research network are to be addressed
by tapping into available and new case material, both within the UK and
Brazil. More specifically referring to Brazil, considering both its continental
size and the diversity of its urban (and urban-rural) network, a series of
different cities (and perhaps peri-urban territories) should be selected
according to established criteria (e.g. geographical regions, relative ranking
in the urban hierarchy).
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4. Selected references
Almeida, M.H.T. (2007) “O Estado no Brasil Contemporâneo: um passeio pela história”. In: Melo, C. R. &
SÁEZ, M. A. A Democracia Brasileira: balanço e perspectivas para o século 21. Belo Horizonte: Editora
UFMG.
Araújo, T. (2000). Ensaios sobre o desenvolvimento brasileiro. Heranças e urgências. Rio de Janeiro:
Revan/Fase.
Barnes, T.J. (1996). Logics of dislocation. Models, metaphors and meanings of economic space. New York
and London: The Guilford Press.
Becker, B. (2004). Uma nova regionalização para pensar o Brasil? In: E. Limonad, R. Haesbaert, R. Moreira
(Eds.) Brasil, Século XXI Por uma nova regionalização? Agentes, processes e escalas, pp. 11-27. São Paulo:
Max Limonad.
Benko, G. (1996). Economia, espaço e globalização na aurora do século XXI. São Paulo: HUCITEC.
Boyer, R. (1990). A teoria da regulação. Uma análise crítica. São Paulo: Nobel.
Brenner, N (2004). New state spaces. Urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Brenner N and Theodore N, (2002). Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and
Western Europe. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cocco, G. (2010). A mobilização democrática das metrópoles: da crise do projeto aos projetos como crise.
Forthcoming, mimeo.
Costa, E.J.M. da (2007). Políticas públicas e o desenvolvimento de arranjos produtivos locais em regiões
periféricas. Campinas: Tese de doutorado. IE da Universidade estadual de UNICAMP.
Figueiredo, A., and Limongi, F. ( 2001). “Institutional design and policy outcomes:
the role of Congress in budget policy making in Brazil.” Paper presented at the annual
meeting of the National Association for Social Science Research (ANPOCS), Caxambú.
Fiori, J. L. (1995). O federalismo diante do desafio da globalização. In: R. de B. A. Afonso e P.L.B. Silva (Ed.)
A Federação em perspectiva. Ensaios selecionados, 19-38. São Paulo: FUNDAP.
Harvey, D. (1989). From Managerialism to enterpreneurialism: the transformation in urban governance in
late capitalism, Geografiska Annalr, 1, pp. 3-17.
Harvey, D. (2005). A produção capitalista do espaço. São Paulo: Annablume.
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Leitão, K. (2009). The territorial dimension of the Growth Acceleration Program – PAC: A study of the PAC
in the state of Pará and the role of the Amazon in the development in Brazil. Doctoral Thesis. Department
of Architecture and Urban Planning. São Paulo: University of São Paulo.
Otília A., Vainer, C. e Maricato, E. (2000). A cidade do pensamento único: desmanchando consensos.
Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Pacheco, C.A. (1998). Fragmentação da nação. Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
Sampaio Jr. (1999). O impasse da “formação nacional. In: J.L. Fiori (Ed.) Estados e moedas no
desenvolvimento das nações, pp. 415-448. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes.
Scott, A. (1998). Regions and the world economy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Storper, M. (1997). The regional world. Territorial development in a global economy. New York /London:
The Guilford Press.
Swyngedouw, E. (1997) Neither global nor local: “glocalization” and the politicas of scale. In: K. Cox (Ed.)
Spaces of globalization, pp. 133-66. New York: Guilford.
Vainer, Carlos B. Pátria, Empresa e Mercadoria. Notas sobre a estratégia discursiva do planejamento
estratégico urbano, Anais do VIII Encontro Nacional da ANPUR, 24-28 de Maio 1999, Porto Alegre.
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