Week 5

Question 1

Double peripherality (House, 1980)

Answer 1

Explanation of why socio-economics are sometimes similar across borderlands.
1) areas suffer from being territorially marginal - away from political centers, metropolitan areas; they are peripheral areas 2) adverse effects of frontier – e.g. trade is harder across border areas. borders create a distance-like effect. costs of trade increase across borders.

Question 2

Solutions to double-peripherality

Answer 2

1. Protectionist policies
2. Stimulate development. Try to limit effects — stimulate periphery to periphery interaction (EU focuses on 2nd one)

line of thinking has changed: border as barrier —> border as trigger for development

Question 3

Organizations through which EU stimulates periphery to periphery interaction:

Answer 3

1. Euroregions: Euroregions usually do not correspond to any legislative or governmental institution and do not have direct political power. about strengthening ties between already existing structures. e.g. Helsinki-Tallinn Euroregion, Oresund euroregion in Denmark and Sweden.
2. Interreg: Since 1989. Financial instrument. 3 types of agreement
   A: cross border cooperation. international sub-national entity cooperation (2 regions cooperating, for example)
   B: transnational cooperation - much larger areas, e.g. North Sea region, which includes parts of Denmark, Sweden, norway, UK, etc
   C: interregional cooperation but don’t necessarily border each other. Problem based solutions in places that suffer from similar issues and can collaborate. Could be a Romanian region and a Spanish region that have similar socioeconomic problems

Question 4

“Europe of the Regions”

Answer 4

• creation of open internal market (e.g. Schengen)
• shared feeling of belonging and cohesion
• improve regional competitiveness in globalizing world (also to attract international companies — makes it so easy to have business in all of Europe)

problems: e.g. Euroregions have no administrative power

Question 5

Tourism as driver for cross border collaboration (5 points)

Answer 5

1. Tourists attracted to borderlands
2. One of easier sectors for cooperation: if you can’t agree on tourism, probably more complex to agree on things like health, economics, etc.
3. Politically not sensitive
4. Symbolic socio-cultural bridging and image of sector —> way to make people get to know each other, politically symbolic too — creating neighbor relations by making sure people visit each other across borders (relates to synergy effects of tourism from class 1)
5. Regional development potential

Question 6

Tourists attracted to borderlands - 4 reasons

Answer 6

1. interesting cultural and natural resources - e.g. going to former wall of Berlin
2. direct and indirect attraction - indirect would be lower taxes, casinos, etc, direct would be visiting wall
3. rich natural resources - e.g. because of natural border (e.g. iguacu) or because they are peripheral and so have by default preserved more nature