Restructuring Territoriality: Europe and the United States Compared

The bundling of political authority into mutually exclusive territorial boundaries - territoriality - is a fundamental principle of modern political organization. Indeed, it provides the foundation for other cherished institutions - national sovereignty, citizenship, the modern welfare state, and democracy. Are globalization, internationalization, and Europeanization conspiring to unbundle territoriality? If so, are sovereignty, citizenship, the welfare state, and democracy unravelling as well? Is a new post-national, non-territorial form of political organization, heralded by the European Union, being born? With a focus on Europe, this volume explores these issues from various substantive and theoretical perspectives. The authors find evidence of the diffusion of authority both within and beyond the state, producing novel institutional arrangements and new modes of governance. But the United States may provide more useful insights into the new dispensation than the idea of a post-national, non-territorial politics. Interest in contemporary challenges to democracy run throughout this volume.

Table of Contents:
Part I. Theoretical Frameworks: 1. Restructuring territoriality and authority Christopher K. Ansell; 2. Old and new peripheries in the processes of European territorial integration Stefano Bartolini; 3. Center-periphery alignments and political contention in Late-Modern Europe Sidney Tarrow; Part II. The Transformation of Governance: 4. Sovereignty and territoriality in the European Union: transforming the UK institutional order James A. Caporaso and Joseph Jupille; 5. Social citizenship in the European Union: towards a spatial reconfiguration? Maurizio Ferrera; 6. Islands of transnational governance Alex Stone Sweet; 7. Regional integration and left parties in Europe and North America Gary Marks and Ian Down; Part III. Europe-US Comparisons: 8. The European Union in American perspective: the transformation of territorial sovereignty in Europe and the United States Sergio Fabbrini; 9. Is the democratic deficit a deficiency: the case of immigration policy in the US and EU Bruce Cain; 10. Territory, representation, and political outcome: the United States and the European Union compared Alberta Sbragia; Part IV. Concluding Thoughts: 11. Territoriality, authority, democracy Christopher K. Ansell; 12. Postscript: what inefficient history and malleable practices say about nation states and supranational democracy when territoriality in no longer exclusive Giuseppe Di Palma.

Review :
'This important collection will shape the next wave of scholarship in comparative politics.' David S. Meyer, University of California, Irvine 'Ansell and DiPalma have achieved a rarity in contemporary scholarship: a genuine contribution to the accumulation of knowledge in the social sciences.' Jeffery Anderson, Georgetown University