Piping the politics of space: the engagement of scale in regional strategies of economic development

Abstract

I examine the political campaign to bring a state-financed gas pipeline to the Norwegian region of Grenland and its existing manufacturing industry. It is argued that the politics of space for capturing and holding onto investments takes a specifically scalar form within a rescaled state that no longer provides uniform welfare distribution, but still possesses important intervention powers and fiscal capabilities. The campaign asserted that an enhanced regional competitiveness resulting from the pipeline will be in the national economic interest of Norway. I argue that the case study is a good example of broad regional mobilization around a particular policy discourse, as well as an example of how the employment of hegemonic discourses of economic restructuring at the national level may strengthen the thrust of regional strategies of development at the local level.