Governance and transportation policy networks in the cross-border metropolitan region of Luxembourg: A social network analysis

Abstract

Two major processes have increased the need for cross-border public transportation policies in European metropolitan regions in the recent past: the imperative of a region’s accessibility within the inter-urban competition and the aspired EU-wide regional harmonization and de-bordering process. Governing such multifaceted issues in cross-border regions requires the implementation of suitable and efficient organizational solutions. In the example of the cross-border metropolitan region of Luxembourg, we discuss the contradicting ‘border effects’ of a complex cross-border governance network. Such flexible policy networks are supposed to make the proclaimed economic, socio-cultural, and spatial European integration work on the very local level. We suggest that the governance typology of Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks offers a useful guiding heuristics for function-specific governance arrangements in cross-border regional contexts. We utilize a method mix of a quantitative social network analysis and a complementary qualitative survey to illuminate structural notions of the policy network relations to relate our empirical results to the conceptual debate on governance structures in the politically proclaimed de-bordering regions within the EU.

Building a cross-border territorial strategy between four countries: wishful thinking?

“…Indeed, it appears that state actors still dominate the cross-border governance sphere and largely influence the outcomes of the debates (De Vries, 2008;Dörry & Decoville, 2013;. The case of the Greater Region is no exception to this rule, and the content of the exchanges expresses the differences concerning each national strategy.…”

A Policy Network Approach to Cross-Border Metropolitan Governance: The Cases of Vienna and Bratislava

“…Appendix 1). As recalled by Dörry and Decoville (2013), this measure appears complementary to the network centrality measure as it is "crucial to differentiate between the organizations that share information without having the power to take final, binding decisions and the ones that effectively lead the decision-making process" (Dörry & Decoville, 2013, p. 8).…”

“…The studies by John (1998) on a selection of French and British cities and by Gissendanner (2004) on German and US cities are prominent examples of this approach. More recently, and directly relevant to the present work, policy networks have also been assessed in European CBC (Dörry & Decoville, 2013;González-Gómez & Gualda, 2013;Walther & Reitel, 2013). In the face of the fragmented territorial settings, diverging interests and dispersed resources that characterize crossborder regional initiatives, policy network analysis provides a highly relevant way of studying the forms and processes of governance.…”

Cross-border cooperation in inner Scandinavia: A territorial impact assessment

“…This is a huge indication of the need to improve cross-border accessibility infrastructures in INS. Nonetheless true, there is a need to take into account that CBC programmes support infrastructure development only to some extent, and when it comes to cross-border transports, experience shows that, for the most part, the is still a strong inertia of central state powers in the EU when it comes to binding project decisions which serve the needs of cross-border commuters (Dörry and Decoville, 2013). iii http://www.norden.org/sv/nordiska-ministerraadet/samarbetsministrarna-mr-sam/ graenshinderarbete/graenshinderdatabasen/aktuella-graenshinder.…”