This book explores how political, economic and social crises in Europe have led to electoral realignments, territorial forms of politics and new nationalisms. Since the 2008 financial crisis, European countries have faced economic stagnation, rising inequalities, worsening social conditions and strains on public services. These developments had major consequences on the political landscape, challenging the ability of political institutions to ensure integration and cohesion. Changes in the scale of politics have emerged; local and regional governments have engaged in redistributive politics in opposition to ‘austerity’ at state and European levels. The chapters in this book investigate these interactions with an interdisciplinary perspective. This edited volume explores the political framing, economic drivers and social dynamics of recent transformations in the territorial bases of politics. Inequalities, Territorial Politics, Nationalism will be of great relevance to advanced students and researchers in the fields of comparative politics, international relations, comparative federalism, and public policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Territory, Politics, Governance.

The birth of democracies owes much to the interventions and mobilizations of ordinary people. Yet many feel as though they have inherited democratic institutions which do not deliver for the people – that a rigid democratic process has been imposed from above, with increasing numbers of people feeling left out or left behind. In this well-researched volume, leading political sociologist Donatella della Porta rehabilitates the role social movements have long played in fostering and deepening democracy, particularly focusing on progressive movements of the Left which have sought to broaden the plurality of voices and knowledge in democratic debate. Bridging social movement studies and democratic theory, della Porta investigates contemporary innovations in times of crisis, particularly those in the direction of participatory and deliberative practices – ‘crowd-sourced constitutions’, referendums from below and movement parties – and reflects on the potential and limits of such alternative politics. In a moment in which concerns increase for the potential disruption of a Great Regression led by xenophobic movements and parties, the cases and analyses of resistance in this volume offer important material for students and scholars of political sociology, political science and social movement studies.

Place-based strategies are widely discussed as powerful instruments of economic and community development. In terms of the European debate, the local level – cities, towns and neighbourhoods – has recently come under increased scrutiny as a potentially decisive actor in Cohesion Policy. As understandings of socio-spatial and economic cohesion evolve, the idea that spatial justice requires a concerted policy response has gained currency. Given the political, social and economic salience of locale, this book explores the potential contribution of place-based initiative to more balanced and equitable socio-economic development, as well as growth in a more general sense. The overall architecture of the book and the individual chapters address place-based perspectives from a number of vantage points, including the potential of achieving greater effectiveness in EU and national level development policies, through a greater local level and citizens' role and concrete actions for achieving this; enhancing decision-making autonomy by pooling local capacities for action; linking relative local autonomy to development outcomes and viewing spatial justice as a concept and policy goal. The book highlights, through the use of case studies, how practicable and actionable knowledge can be gained from local development experiences. This book targets researchers, practitioners and students who seek to learn more about place-based based development and its potentials. Its cross-cutting focus on spatial justice and place will ensure that the book is of wider international interest.

This book reflects the broad reception of cosmopolitan thought in a variety of disciplines and across international borders.

Global risks, mobilities and interdependencies transnationalize local life and working worlds. These processes lead to an inner globalization of societies in which worldwide constellations of »reflexive« (Ulrich Beck), »multiple« (Shmuel N. Eisenstadt), »entangled« (Shalini Randeria) and »global« (Arjun Appadurai) modernities simultaneously and immediately clash in social action: a process of cosmopolitanization in which »the global« is localized and »the local« is globalized in radical new ways. In this book, an international selection of prominent critical thinkers address this premise and provide their interpretations of imminent challenges, concomitant social dynamics and political implications. With contributions by Arjun Appadurai, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, Edgar Grande, Maarten Hajer, Ronald Hitzler, Wolf Lepenies, Anna Tsing, Angela McRobbie, Bruno Latour, Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger, Hans-Georg Soeffner, Natan Sznaider, Anja Weiß and Yunxiang Yan.

This volume purports to explore the legal and political issues triggered by the new wave of secessionism. More specifically, those issues concern the interplay between notions of democracy (and democratic ends and means) and law (and the rule of law and constitutionalism). Against this background, the editors use amorality in order to escape the terrain of the justification of secession by making a distinction between the democratic theory of secession and the theory of democratic secession. In the first section, the theoretical nexus democracy-secession has been approached both from a legal and political theory perspective. The second section of the book examines the instruments that the theory of democratic secession invokes in order to justify secession and presents both legal and political science contributions. The third section focuses on social movements and political actors. The fourth section focuses on two case studies due to the awareness of the importance of the difference between secession in a democratic occidental context (which call into play the discussion of the democratic theories) and separations in a non-democratic context (where the nexus between secession and democracy is not really central).