Regional Behaviour

Political Values and Economic Growth in European Regions

Dimitrios C. Christopoulos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351760676
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

This title was first published in 2001. In the framework of the EU, a number of policies have been devised for regions in order to facilitate their balanced economic development. The author argues that the focus on regional planners and their actions in academic literature has obscured the importance of regional elites in this process. The author compares Western Scotland and the west of Crete, focusing on the wider regional political and business elites within these regions, and attempting a comparison of elite attitudes within regions and between regions.

Chapter One

Elites in the Regional Context

Can the behaviour of key actors at the regional level be partly responsible for differentials in the performance of regions? That question relating to the possibility of ascribing to wider regional elites a specific role as paragons of growth in regions underpins most research and scholarship in this volume. Regional behaviour for the purposes of this exposition refers to the behaviour and attitudes of elite groups at the regional level. The definition of region accepted here is that of a territorially defined administrative area. An account of the problems of definition for regions is given by Kimble (1951) who questions how meaningful it is to accept the regional concept and Gilbert (1960) who suggests integrating the physical and economic notions of the concept of a region. Furthermore, in the case of Scotland it has been convincingly argued that the wider geographically defined region has the characteristics of a nation (Kellas, 1989). In this volume, unless otherwise stated, I refer to nation states as nations and all their subdivisions as regions.

Interest in regional development within the context of European integration is linked to the possibility that an integrated European market can lead to economic agglomeration at core regions that would further hamper the competitiveness of the weakest peripheral regions. At the same time the sheer size of anticipated market transformations, could mean that any market changes will be very difficult to counteract once in place.¹ Regional inequality goes in tandem with the bleak possibility of great economic disparities that breed hardship and offend our sensitivities on social equity. They are characterised by a chronic under-utilisation of resources. It is not therefore surprising that the EU and the consisting national governments are so preoccupied with regional development and welfare. I am not suggesting, of course, that concern with regional development is on the ascendant in all member states. Regional development efforts in the UK for instance have been characterised as inconsistent since the beginning of the fourth Kondratieff cycle in the late 1940s (Prestwich and Taylor, 1990). A complicating factor to this picture is provided by the attempt since 1979 to redefine the welfare state in Great Britain (Pierson, 1991), as the ‘Conservatives have stressed decreased intervention by central government and placed much more emphasis upon national economic growth’ (Prestwich and Taylor, 1990, p. 160). The Labour government has attempted to reconfigure that agenda since 1997 with devolution of regional development powers to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. It has also deconcentrated some decision making power to the ten English Regional Development Agencies, without however following it up with an endowment of the requisite financial resources or autonomy.

Accepting the fact that European Member States are, most of the times, too small or ill-equipped for a comprehensive evaluation of regional problems and adoption of appropriate assisting measures, is one of the reasons behind the prominent position of European regional economics in current academic literature.² Furthermore, the increase of trade and the integration of world financial markets has made mutual interdependence a feature of policy planning. The abolition of state subsidies and the limitation of financial instruments available to member states is one more reason that regional policy has to emanate (or at least be coordinated) at the European Union level. The trend towards globalisation of world production and distribution patterns, further affects inter-regional disparities in Europe.³ A final consideration is of European regions’ integration into the European economic system, which means that (relevant to their degree of integration) any slumps in their performance become crucial for the rest of the EU. The potential impact regional actors’ behaviour can have, as a distinct factor of regional development and competitiveness, justifies a preoccupation with attitudes of regional elites.

Within this framework⁴ I have looked at the interactions and attitudes of elite groups in two peripheral European regions, the West of Scotland (former Strathclyde) and the West of Crete (prefecture of Chania). The goal has been to detect the existence of an influence on regional economic performance from regional elite attitudes and elite interaction. I have, given particular attention to the similarity or divergence of elite attitudes within regions. I have effectively hypothesised that the degree of ‘concordance’ between the business and political elite subgroups could be directly correlated with past performance of a region. It is possible that a more exhaustive study could determine the degree to which regional elite concordance can be correlated with a measure of anticipated regional performance.

The role of regional elites as distinct and identifiable actors in European regions has not received particular attention in Social Science literature (exceptions include Leonardi and Garmise, 1992; Putnam, 1993; Dupoirier, 1994), although it is the case that certain regional elites perceive their goals as distinctly different from those of state-national⁵ elites (Council of Europe, 1990; Morata, 1992; Newman, 1994). This could be viewed in tandem with the creation of a ‘third level of governance’ within European regions (Harvie, 1994), the emergence of a ‘variable geometry state order’ (Keating, 1992, p.60) or of ‘multi-level governance’ (Marks, 1993; Keating and Jones, 1995). The relevance and implications of these developments to a transformation of elite interaction at the regional level I will examine in the concluding chapter of this book.

Elites in the Regions

Behaviour of regional elites is inferred primarily by a concentration on regional elite attitudes.⁶ This is standard practice among behavioural approaches in the social sciences (See Inglehart, 1990; Van Deth and Scarbrough, 1995). At a secondary level a set of semi-structured interviews with key informants has been employed to infer actual behavioural patterns and interaction among elite groups. If regional prospects can be assumed to be linked to elite actions and (by inference) to elite interaction, the behavioural patterns of regional elites become all the more important. My presumption of a sound theoretical basis for interpreting elite relationships was an inducement to attempt an investigation of elite interaction, rather than of wider political and business interactions. Theory, however, is far from settled on issues of elite interaction while it is apparent that investigating within elite interaction (i.e. interaction between elite subgroups in a region) is not tantamount to an investigation of power relationships, a common theme in elite studies. To complicate things further, attitudinal convergence or divergence (concordance or discordance) cannot be equated, without caution, with a sharing of values. While, a sharing of values, between two elite groups, does not necessarily imply that there will be higher interaction.⁷ Higher frequency of interaction, on the other hand, cannot be equated with more effective or productive interaction, which leads to a need to define the ‘quality’ of interaction between elite groups. To avoid circular reasoning it is adequate for the purposes of this work to say that the ‘quality’ of elite interaction is tangential to the hypotheses underpinning the present exposition and will only be mentioned when it further elucidates particular outcomes. So the ‘quality’ of elite interaction will be discussed as a factor that can be distinguished from the frequency or effectiveness of that interaction. No theoretical definition of ‘quality’ can be offered however beyond suggesting that a sharing of values among elites presumably leads to a sharing of objectives, such as regional development. A discussion of the importance of ‘core values’ within a policy network framework by Wright (1991) points to their importance in determining agenda setting and network membership.

In order to define which elite groups to look at it will be of interest to look at certain aspects of the general debate relating to the study of elites. Of particular interest are definitions of elite functions and inter-elite interaction. Questions of whether elites exist as coherent groups, elite transformation as well as the mechanisms by which elites disseminate (distribute or share) power are some of the initial questions considered. Finally, the theoretical issues of relating to the investigation of elites are also directly relevant to a number of methodological issues of elite surveys.

Who are the Elite?

In order to establish a theoretical framework for this analysis, several problems had to be taken into consideration, the most significant of which was to identify a sample. Of particular significance was to take account of: a) the comparative character of the research questions; b) that surveying had to be intensive and cross-sectional rather than extensive and longitudinal; and c) the ability to identify exclusively and interview successfully an elite sample. I proceed here with a rudimentary definition of regional elites that acted as a basis for identifying a sample.

A number of references in the literature, analysed below, make it clear that it is almost impossible to have a watertight definition of who belongs to a regional political or business elite. A definition, to a degree arbitrary, had to be employed so that political and business elites could be selected. I use as a starting point theories by Pareto, Mosca and Lasswell.⁸ Pareto’s notion of a ‘governing class’ which shares the spoils of power with those who defend and sustain it (Finer, 1966, pp.77-81), ties in with the ideas of Mosca who attests that ‘in every political organism the existence and functioning of a ruling class is necessary’ (Mosca, 1972, p.249). According to Mosca ‘in all societies … – two classes of people appear – a class that rules and a class that is ruled’⁹ (Mosca, 1939, p.50) or in Meisel’s analysis of Mosca ‘the history of all societies has been, is, and will be, the history of dominant minorities’ (1962, p.v). So, in both Pareto’s notion of clientelistic power sharing and Mosca’s notion of ‘dominant minorities’ I can trace ideas that can be useful to the contextual setting of regional elites.

C. Wright Mills in his notion of ‘power elites’ incorporates ‘local elites’ as those ‘who possess more than do others of whatever there is locally to possess; [while] they hold the keys to local decision’ (Mills, 1956, p.30). He sees their role as subservient to the power elite of the larger urban centres.¹⁰ Lasswell, on the other hand, defines elites as the influential. ‘The influential are those who get the most of what there is to get … those who get the most are elite’ (Lasswell, 1950, p.3). He further identified power elite participants to possess among other things, a sense of a territorial community (Lasswell, 1965). Territorial identity among regional elites is by definition exclusive and presumably acts as a cohesive force for regional elites distinguishing them ‘against’ all others, while it aligns their interests with those of their region of identification. This notion can be instrumental in understanding territorially identified and landlocked elites, such as the regional elites.¹¹ Lasswell’s notion of ‘influential’ actors is employed here in the selection of regional elites.

I proceed to examine the power context within which regional elites operate as it is essential in understanding the limits of their actions and scope for interaction. From the multiplicity of local elite groups my interest has been with those most relevant to regional growth. I encountered a number of problems in identifying them not the least of which were theoretical. I had to take account of Ivor Crewe’s opinion that approaches to elites ‘suffer from trying to make reliable statements about elites without first formulating a satisfactory theory of power’ (Crewe, 1974, p. 14). The exercise and dissemination of power by elites is a theoretical consideration with relevance to this research, as a frequent referral to clientelistic and patronage networks reveals. Articles by Clapham (1982) and Gellner (1977) cover the issues relating to the dissemination of power, particularly relevant to Mediterranean clientelism. I will in a number of occasions use clientelistic interpretations of elite interaction to explain findings that apply particularly to the Cretan elite groups. An interesting distinction between the elite groups in the two regions could be based in the existence of clientelistic networks in the case of Crete and patronage networks in the case of Strathclyde.

To further understand the notion of elite interaction it is interesting to examine notions of leadership developed by Wiatr (1973) and Fiedler (1971) which point to changes in the structure of modern society.¹² Wiatr (1973) refers to informal leadership, which can be functional, differentiating it from the formal leadership of elites. He further argues, that political elites exist only when a minority has much greater power than the rest of the community and there is a barrier of entry to the political field by non-elite members. Fiedler (1971) refers to the effect that followers have on leaders, arguing that to a great extent situations form leaders, so that leaders are not independent of the will of their followers.

European elite interaction has received particular attention in the context of policy networks analysis and the existence of multi-level governance (Rhodes and Marsh, 1992; Marks, 1993; Rosenau, 1992). The impressive volume of the relevant literature points to an expanding interest in the role of sub-national actors. A discussion within the policy network context is of inherent interest to an examination of the ‘hollowing out’ of the state (Jessop, 1996) within the context of an emerging ‘variable geometry’ in European polity. The limitations in applying a policy network approach here stem from the generality in the conception of policy networks that diminishes from their explanatory value.¹³ It can be argued that if you will look for policy networks you will find them.¹⁴ So, although I will not use a ‘policy network’ approach in identifying the elites surveyed, a number of the interpretations that will be offered will derive directly from ‘policy network’ explanations.

Any attempt at interpreting elite interaction has to take account of the neo-corporatist perspective according to which ‘elites collude and collaborate rather than compete’ (Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987, p. 143). It has been further argued that ‘state and economic elites are so interpenetrated by each others’ concerns that no sensible boundary line or balance of influence can be drawn’ (Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987, p. 185), while ‘political and economic elites … have shared interests in managing their complex environments, which facilitates cooperative elite bargaining’ (Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987, p. 197). Within this framework I also consider two very distinct possibilities. In the first instance ‘in Britain the unitary structure of the state and the extent to which local government functions have to be centrally handed down by statute … severely constrains the possibility of a viable local corporatism’ (Cawson, 1985, p. 146). The more severe centralism of the Greek state would suggest that similar limitations to local corporatism would apply in the Greek regions. Secondly, it has been argued that ‘countries locked into state corporatism at an earlier stage of development are likely to find it much more difficult to evolve toward … a consensual solution’ (Schmitter, 1979, p.41) which points to the possibility that in Crete state corporatism further inhibits the development of local corporatism. As is the case with the policy networks perspective some of the interpretations offered with the analysis of data later on are associated with the neo-corporatist paradigm.

There are also various alternative elite definitions to the ones I have employed, whose assumptions and simplifications do not lend themselves to this analysis but which can however enhance our conceptual understanding of elite interaction. Contemporary Marxist analysis of ‘class fractions’ I found both inadequate and without the explanatory value sought in a theoretical framework that is primarily concerned with elite attitudes and elite interaction. Poulantzas has provided an interpretation of Marx’s writings dismissing aspects of the analysis by Mosca, Weber, Mills, Michels and Pareto. He argues that ‘certain distinct classe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Graph and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Elites in the Regional Context
• 2 Regional Actors: Catalysts of Regional Growth?
• 3 Local Government in Strathclyde and Crete
• 4 Scottish Regional Elites: The Challenge of Post-Industrial Regeneration
• 5 Cretan Local Elites: A Struggle Against Centralisation and Clientelism
• 6 The Prospect of Devolution
• 7 Attitudes and Economic Growth
• 8 Regional Elite Behaviour
• Appendix: On Methodology and Validity
• Bibliography