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.
Introduction: Inequalities, territorial politics, nationalism 1. Beyond the nation-state: territory, solidarity and welfare in a multiscalar Europe 2. New perspectives on old inequalities: Italy’s north–south divide 3. Inequality and voting in Italy’s regions 4. A bourgeois story? The class basis of Catalan independentism 5. Policy learning to reduce inequalities: the search for a coherent Scottish gender mainstreaming policy in a multilevel UK 6. The Process of Rescaling Interests in the Belgian Context: The Impact of Regional Governmental Strength
Donatella Della Porta is Professor of Political Science, Founding Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences and Director of the PhD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). Michael Keating is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen `and General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Academy of Social Sciences. Mario Pianta is Professor of Economic Policy at Scuola Normale Superiore, Classe di Scienze Politico-Sociali in Florence, head of the ‘Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Institute of Advanced Studies’, President of the Società Italiana di Economia and Co-chief Editor of the journal Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.
