Researching Social Services of General Interest: an Analytical Framework Derived from Underlying Policy Systems

This paper discusses Social Services of General Interest, a political term of the European Union, which lies at the heart of the European Model of Society and Cohesion concepts. How and why is the organization and provision of services across Europe rooted in, and shaped by, the prevailing national constitutional components of social welfare and spatial planning systems? A high degree of interrelation between these two systems is confirmed and Social Services of General Interest are detected and conceptualized as a substantiation of components of both systems. In a concluding step, an analytical framework is introduced which enables us to research Social Services of General Interest from different angles for the purpose of deploying promising policy solutions

What indicators to use when measuring Services of General Interest?

The services of general interest (SGI) have received increasing attention of the European Union, which considers them a key element of the European model of society. They not only play an important role in the ongoing competitiveness of the European economy, but are also essential for achieving the goal of promoting social and territorial cohesion. Their potential role in the pursuit of the objectives of European cohesion and convergence policies may be significant which calls for an appropriate measurement and analysis of territorial distribution. The indicators are assumed to be a key element in measuring and describing the SGI, however, it is necessary to make a serious reflection how such indicators should be selected. The selection of indicators can be conditioned by several factors, however, it is imperative to make a qualitative reflection on the adequacy and relevance of indicators to analyse the SGI. This reflection runs through the paper. The concept of indicators is addressed, and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The indicators are classified according to the role they play in the cause-effect relations in distinct territories. Three types of indicators are identified. Appraisal of indicators and review of literature render it possible to identify the most frequently used indicators and to see SGI analysis from several perspectives, thus verifying that indicators can present different meanings and relevance, based on a range of factors and the scale of analysis. Some of the uncertainties arising in the SGI territorial analysis, which can contribute to the success of the policy making process, are recognized through an example based on the ICT Telecommunication SGI sub-domain. Some procedures connected with the integration of different types of indicators are proposed in order to limit the emergent uncertainties resulting from their interpretation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Exploring urban and regional infrastructure from a spatial perspective

Urban and regional infrastructures regain interdisciplinary interest in course of the ‘infrastructural turn’. Contemporary questions exceed beyond engineering and technology but reach into social, political, economic, and ecological spheres. Therefore, the ARL:Univie International Summer School 2021 “Urban and Regional Infrastructures” invited international young researchers to Vienna to discuss the state-of-the-art of infrastructure-related research. This special issue compiles the contributions and opens up the discussion on the present role, effects and future challenges of urban and regional infrastructures to an interdisciplinary planning-oriented scientific community

City-regional policies in the planning systems of Finland and Austria: National initiatives and European opportunities

The potential of city regions to frame spatial development is widely acknowledged, and lately increasingly supported by top-down policy interventions. This article investigates and compares national city-regional policies in Finland and Austria. Owing to differences in their administrative systems, planning traditions and political agendas, the two countries rely on a distinct set of policy interventions. Moreover, the article addresses city-regional policies originating from the European Union and discusses their overlap and complementarity with national initiatives. The three cases provide examples of regulatory, discursive and remunerative policy interventions, which either explicitly or implicitly support city-regional cooperation. The plurality of interventions confirms the understanding of city regions as soft spaces, in which there is no single ideal approach to governance and planning. Instead, city-regional cooperation can be understood as diverse and multi-layered processes, which might require a plurality of policy responses.Peer reviewe

The gradual city-ness and town-ness of public service locations : Towards spatially sensitive sector policies

Location policies of public services such as health care have a great impact on urban and regional structures. Hence, we criticise the general failure of national public sector policies to account for regionally unequal conditions. Conversely, we question the sufficiency of current regional planning concepts for a spatially sensitive location policy of public services. In this theoretical-conceptual contribution, we review the literature on public service provision and the logics of public facility location systems, especially concerning their explanatory value under different regional urbanisation conditions. We reinterpret the conceptual limits of the prime planning concepts of ‘central places’ and ‘polycentricity’ – represented by their underlying spatial logics of hierarchy and complementarity – by employing the ‘central flow theory’ of Taylor, Hoyler, and Verbruggen. With the help of the ‘territory-place-scale-network (TPSN) framework’ of Jessop, Brenner and Jones, we perform a conceptual shift to ultimately outline an integrative ‘central places and flows planning approach’. It accounts for unequal regional conditions for public service locations, and thus manages to integrate economic, political, and spatial components of service provision. We illustrate the feasibility of the central places and flows planning approach using the case of the Finnish social and health care sector. The (failed) Finnish governance reform plans of 2015–2019 for the health care sector are a telling example of spatially un-sensitive sector policies. The reform plans wanted to advance free market elements and enhance the free choice of clients. These aims implicitly re-enforced centre-favouring conditions at the expense of peripheral regions.Peer reviewe

Transboundary Planning and Governance: from challenge to solution in times of crises?

This article introduces the AESOP Thematic Group “Transboundary Planning and Governance” and its recent organisational and thematic changes. It also scans recent research from the viewpoint of two interlinked key dimensions of transboundary planning and governance: scale and scope. By doing so, the article aims to highlight promising research perspectives related to transboundary and integrated planning, crossing administrative borders and siloes respectively. This is especially relevant with a view to the multiple crises society is currently facing. To date, transboundary planning and governance is often portrayed through the challenges it is facing. However, as this article argues, there is a need to move forward and focus on how the transboundary setting – often more flexible and malleable than other governance contexts – can make a contribution to address current crises.

European types of political and territorial organisation of social services of general interest

It is commonly understood across Europe that the provision of Social Services of General Interest (SSGI) is important. Several official documents guarantee every EU citizen access to, and the availability of, SSGI. Nevertheless, when it comes to producing, financing, administrating and territorially organising SSGI, the approaches and practices used across the various European states differ significantly while often mirroring the functioning of the social welfare and national administrative planning systems that prevail on the ground. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic analysis of how European states (the EU 27 plus Croatia and the EFTA countries of Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) cope with the organisation of SSGI in the fields of education, care, labour market, social housing and insurance schemes. Outlining the similarities and differences of the various national approaches leads to the creation of a European typology of SSGI organisation. This typology will then be compared to existing typologies and classifications of social welfare and spatial planning systems.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tensions in city-regional spatial planning : the challenge of interpreting layered institutional rules

The paper studies city-regional spatial planning from an institutional perspective. It applies theories of discursive institutionalism and gradual institutional change to analyse the dialectics of spatial planning and governance between discursively constructed city-regions and the pre-existing regional and local institutional territories. A strained dialectical relationship emerges when city-regional strategic spatial planning is instituted as a supplementary programmatic layer onto the existing strongly regulatory statutory planning, yet leaving intact its deeply institutionalized core-level meaning. Through the case study of the Kotka-Hamina city-region of Finland, the paper explores a situated city-regional attempt to overcome these tensions and generate policy-level change by blending the layered rules and reinterpreting their meaning.Peer reviewe