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The development of cross-border regionalism in Europe has given rise to a multitude of academic works focussing on the pattern, signification and evolution of cross-border cooperation. Most previous studies have, however, focused on individual cross-border cooperation initiatives as units of analysis and neglected their spatial relation to other initiatives. By mapping the perimeter, activity, geographical type, scale and spatial relations of 209 initiatives, the current paper provides an updated and more nuanced overview of the geography of cross-border cooperation in Europe. The cartographic exploration from a rescaling perspective reveals the varying accumulation, scalar focus and activity of cross-border cooperation across Europe and leads to the identification of different forms and evolutions of scalar arrangements constituted by their overlapping perimeters of action. The distinction between nested, overlapping and complex arrangements suggests that different scalar processes are involved in the ongoing structuration of cross-border cooperation, and calls for better consideration of these multi-scalar dynamics in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the importance of integrating geographical effects into the analysis of social networks. Specifically, we study the impacts of spatial distance and territorial borders on information exchange within two European cross‐border regions where there is evidence of extensive cross‐border political interaction in the domain of public transportation. We use exponential random graph models to review how these spatial factors influence policy interaction. We show how the effect of distance on the exchange of information between organizations is less obvious than it seems at first sight, when we control for endogenous networks effects with which it tends to be confounded. We also explore moderating effects among the spatial factors studied and in particular how the effect of distance affects information exchange by territoriality. While the probability of interaction decreases with distance in the context of domestic ties, distance does not exert the same friction when it comes to cross‐border ties. These findings suggest that borders are not necessarily a barrier to interaction and that peripheral actors located in border regions may bridge distance in order to access strategic information they do not have access to within their territorial jurisdiction and is likely concentrated in foreign decision centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the symbolic significance of national borders in a cross‐border regional context. The main argument is that the transformation of borders is actually part of a complex and contested process of symbolisation, predicated on articulations between political projects, everyday experience, and collective memories. The Greater Geneva borderscape provides an emblematic case of cross‐border cooperation that is marked by the physical erasure of the Franco‐Swiss border. Rather than an absence of symbolisation, we hypothesise that the border continues to play a symbolic role through its implied "absence" in the affirmation of a cross‐border territorial project. First, we show how the invisibilisation of the border in the Greater Geneva spatial imaginaries is in fact a symbolisation strategy aimed at underlining its obsolete character. Second, we reveal how the discordances between the symbolic recoding of the border by cross‐border cooperation elites and existing popular imaginations and competing meanings weakens the project. To the extent that borders are powerful symbols that are intended to stimulate emotions and a sense of belonging, the ability to mobilise their meaning‐making capacity is at the heart of symbolisation politics, as much for the proponents of open borders and cross‐border cooperation as for the reactionary forces that emphasise national interests and ontological insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to theorize border-making processes in urban contexts as exemplary of the ways in which borders within human societies are formed. In fact, the question as to whether socially meaningful borders are created through state-society and systemic relations or whether they ultimately emerge locally out of social relations is not as trivial as it might seem. The concept of 'bordering' implies non-finalizable processes in which socio-spatial distinction is constantly created, confirmed and challenged. Far from being solely a product of state territoriality and international relations, borders are also social institutions that are constantly created, maintained and re-created as a means of negotiating the complexities of everyday life. Urban contexts reveal much about the rationales and mechanisms behind bordering processes. Our concrete bordering focus is related to place and to place-making processes that reflect the attributions, appropriations and representations of place ideas. As is argued in this paper, urban borders are a nexus between everyday practices of differentiating social space, the instrumentality of place-making, for example, as a project of urban development, and the ontological need for a sense of rootedness in place. Two case studies of urban change in Budapest and Berlin will be developed that illustrate this nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of borders on the performance of metropolitan areas in Europe. An innovative multidimensional conceptualization of border effects into four factors (separation, contact, differentiation and affirmation) is elaborated on and empirically tested. Estimation results confirm the ambivalent effects of the differentiation factor: economic differentials display positive effects, while cultural differences have negative effects on metropolitan performance. For the other factors, the estimations are of the expected sign, but their signal is weak and calls for further research. Ultimately, this exploratory analysis represents a promising attempt to disentangle the intrinsic dimensions of borders and consider their ambivalent effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the role of national governments in the rescaling of cross-border metropolitan governance structures in Europe. In the context of emergent cross-border metropolitan regions, the objective is to highlight the structuring effects of support policies to metropolitan areas at national level, in the context of their politics of scales, on the scalar configurations developed by local and regional actors. Using a comparative approach, the cases of Basel, Geneva and Luxembourg are singled out. The confrontation between German, Swiss and French state policies, and the modalities of the rescaling of levels of governance within the three cross-border metropolitan regions, allows us to underline the considerable influence of national guidelines on scalar reconfigurations. The structuring role of governments in this ‘new cross-border regionalism’ needs to be relativized, however, in functions of the specific characteristics of each context as well as factors relating to the actors involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]