What is the relevance of a territorialised
approach to the link between knowledge
and public action?
(part 10)
Caroline Maury
Literature
review
June 2007
1
Table of contents
WHAT IS THE RELEVANCE OF A TERRITORIALISED APPROACH TO THE LINK
BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND PUBLIC ACTION? ......................................... 216
1. Is a territorialised approach to the link between knowledge and public
policies relevant? ........................................................................................ 217
1.1
Why adopt a territorialised approach to the research questions? ...........................217
1.2
‘The territories strike back’ (Muller, 1992).......................................................................217
1.3
Local governance: knowledge and public action in an uncertain environment ..219
1.4
And yet it moves! Procedural policies in which a meaning is constructed for the
action as it is proceeding ......................................................................................................219
2. Academic approaches to public action and territory :
‘intersecting legitimation’ ........................................................................... 220
2.1
When knowledge of territory legitimates the territorialisation of public action .220
2.2
The territorialisation of public action and the legitimation of territorialised
expertise......................................................................................................................................222
2.3
Structuring of territorial networks and expertise...........................................................222
2.4
On their native heath: local identity as a competence ................................................223
3. Territoriality and the transformation of ideas into public policies .............. 224
3.1
Territory as an ‘interpretative filter’ (Pecqueur, 1996) ...............................................224
3.2
Local configurations and territorialised political exchanges.......................................225
3.3
Using the territorial route to add a political dimension to the link between
knowledge and public policies.............................................................................................228
4. Knowledge as ‘value added’ for a territory ................................................. 229
4.1
A territory is not a neutral environment for economic activity.................................230
4.2
Territories’ competitiveness and attractiveness .............................................................230
4.3
Knowledge as a factor in the competitiveness of territories......................................231
5. CONCLUSION.............................................................................................. 234
3. Some elements of a methodology.................................Erreur ! Signet non défini.
3.1
Gathering content ............................................................................... Erreur ! Signet non défini.
3.2
Data analysis......................................................................................... Erreur ! Signet non défini.
3.3
Empirical application .......................................................................... Erreur ! Signet non défini.
What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
What is the relevance of a territorialised approach
to the link between knowledge and public action?
Caroline Maury
The purpose of the KnowandPol programme is to increase our understanding of the link
and interactions between knowledge and public policy by investigating sectoral policies in
various European countries. In the light of this objective, is there also a need to examine
the territorialisation of this phenomenon? If the answer is yes, which is the view
advanced in this paper in the light of the studies surveyed, what might be the heuristic
value of such an approach? What new information might such an investigation produce?
These are the questions to which we will attempt to provide some answers.
The term territorial, which will recur several times, as will the term local, is taken to
denote the sub-national level, whether it be a region, a Land, a community, a commune,
a departement or a district, depending on the different national situations.
This survey focuses primarily on the French approaches to the territorialisation of public
action, firstly because this is the literature that the present author finds easiest to access
and secondly – and this is not anecdotal – because French political scientists, eager to
investigate the trend towards the decentralisation of a hitherto highly centralised state,
have initiated a debate on these changes and their consequences in a state that has
found itself squeezed between the top-down pressures generated by the European
project and the bottom-up pressures of decentralisation. Of course, French political
scientists have entered into dialogue with other researchers, particularly those working
on multilevel governance. However – and this brings us right to the heart of the purpose
of the KnowandPol programme - this dialogue between academics concerned with public
action and the changes that have taken place in that public action is full of consequences.
Having examined the relevance of a territorialised approach to the link between
knowledge and public policies (1), we will turn to this dialogue between the academic
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What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
study of public action and the territorialisation of public action (2). We will then assess
the extent to which territories and the specific interactions that take place within them
impact on the link between knowledge and public policies (3) and, finally, we will
examine the ‘value added’ that knowledge is likely to offer territories in a fiercely
competitive environment (4).
1. Is a territorialised approach to the link between
knowledge and public policies relevant?
1.1 Why adopt a territorialised approach
to the research questions?
Public action at territorial level has attracted considerable attention in France, where the
symbolic significance of the national and administrative aspects of territory (1960s-80s)
has gradually given way to a situation in which territory (understood as the local level) is
becoming the main locus at which problems are defined. The framework developed in
the, 1960s and 70s that P. Muller describes as the ‘French model’ had three principal
characteristics: the crucial role played
by the state in social mediation procedures,
corporatist mechanisms that supported the crucial role played by the state and a link
between state and territory in which the state apparatus had a privileged position in the
implementation of public policies (P. Muller, 1992). In such a system, the relevance of a
territorialised approach to the link between knowledge and public action was much less
evident than in the situation that prevails today in most European countries.
A territory-based approach is doubly relevant, since it is able to take account both of
changes of scale and of changes in the ways of ‘doing’ pubic action. In other words, our
aim here will be to examine in what ways the transition from ‘administration of the
territory’ to the ‘local government’ principle has affected the link between knowledge and
public action at local level.
1.2 ‘The territories strike back’ (Muller, 1992)
Under the combined pressure of phenomena such as the European project and
decentralisation (Hooghe and Marks, 2001), there has been a shift away from a situation
in which it is the responsibility of central government to integrate and bring coherence to
the sectoral policies drawn up at national level towards a framework in which, whatever
their regulatory competences may be, territorial bodies will take hold or ‘claim ownership’
of a problem from the moment at which it emerges on to the local political agenda.
Depending on the interactions that are specific to it, each territorial entity will adopt, in a
relatively autonomous way, a set of particular problems (Muller, 1992, p. 294). This
localised definition of problems (and of political solutions) has led to an increasingly frank
217
What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
questioning
of
the
technical,
financial
and
economic
Maury
expertise
of
government
departments (Grémion and Muller, 1990). Sectoral approaches to public policies focused
on the national level are no longer sufficient to explain the localised and pluralistic
construction of public action.
The general interest, and the definition thereof, are no longer the sole prerogative of the
central state; rather, there is real competition from local entities as the locus for the
production and structuring of a ‘territorialised’ notion of the general interest. As P.
Lascoumes and J-P. le Bourhis note, this makes it necessary to develop an analytical
framework that takes account of the dynamic of local situations in which the common
good is one of the issues at stake (Lascoumes and Le Bourhis, 1998). ‘Any reference to
the general interest or the common good is, first and foremost, a construct that cannot
be readily dissociated from the context in which it is uttered’1. According to these
authors, one of the keys to conceptualising the link between knowledge and public action
from a territorial perspective is to be found in the notion of procedural policies
(Lascoumes, 1996). They argue that this type of public action proceeds through the
establishment, at territorial level, of instruments of knowledge production, deliberation
and decision-making that are not clearly targeted (Lascoumes and Le Bourhis, 1998, p.
39). This localised and pluralistic construction of public action is characterised by the
making of very general statements, the meaning of which has still to be constructed
through collective deliberation. This leads in turn to the establishment of territorialised
mechanisms designed to generate the interactions required to produce across-the-board
agreements. These mechanisms function as spaces for structuring and producing a
‘territorialised’ general interest. From this point of view, it can be concluded that public
decision-making and the knowledge and expertise deployed in support of it are no longer
monolithic; rather, public action is now characterised by the construction of territorialised
norms and knowledge that take local specificities into account. This aspect has been
investigated in studies of the implementation of European programmes (Smith, 1995 and
Pasquier, 2004). Decisions and programmes are not implemented in the same way
everywhere. They are not imposed on a ‘neutral’ territory but implemented in a specific
place; this specificity changes the general outlines of the decision or programme in order
to adapt them to the local structure of interactions (Maury, 2004). In this context, it
seems relevant to investigate the territorialised relationship that is established ‘between
the world of ideas and that of political guidance’ (Douillet and Faure, 2005, p. 15).
Attempts to conceptualise this relationship have often focused on thematic or sectoral
1
Lascoumes and Le Bourhis, 1998, p. 43. This article seeks to describe the conditions under which the meaning
of public action is produced in context. To this end, it investigates two situations, the first being the case of a
manufacturing company responsible for pollution and the second that of the planning of a controversial regional
development project. In each case, the definition of the ‘general interest’ is linked to the territorialised structure
of the interactions.
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Maury
inputs (Radaelli, 1995 or Jobert and Muller, 1987), but little attention has been paid to its
territorialised aspect. Apart from the fact that it enables us to think on a different ‘scale’,
such an approach also makes it possible to investigate changes in the ways of ‘doing’
public action. Studies on governance shed light on the relationship between ideas and
public action in a specific territorial context.
1.3 Local governance: knowledge and public action
in an uncertain environment
Public action today results from interactions between various partners, from negotiations
and from new formulations of the issues at stake. In such an environment, there is
considerable uncertainty as to the outcome of that action and the knowledge deployed in
support of it is ‘uncertain and limited’ (Pinson, 2003).
We are a long way here from the model of the ‘intellectually guided society’ (Lindblom,
1977): since public action is the result of specific interactions, the issues at stake in
public choices and the validity of those choices and of the knowledge on which they are
based are thrown off centre. Their validity is no longer judged on the basis of established
knowledge but rather in terms of their ability to produce consensus. Thus this situation,
which some authors have described as ‘ungovernability’ (Leca and Papini, 1985, CURAPP,
1996), is characterised by a crisis of legitimacy affecting the major forms of discourse
associated with political institutions, established knowledge and the expert knowledge
that derives its power from its linkage with a substantive general interest (Pinson, 2003).
This situation can be clearly observed at local level; in the case of urban or regional
development or the environment, for example, the rationality of experts is being
challenged by insistence on the legitimacy of knowledge derived from a close relationship
with the environment (A. Jobert, 1998). Does this mean, however, that out of the gap
between expert and scholarly knowledge, on the one hand, and ‘indigenous’ knowledge
specific to a territory, on the other, there will necessarily emerge a power struggle in
which competing visions of the world and of knowledge battle it out?
1.4 And yet it moves! Procedural policies in which a meaning
is constructed for the action as it is proceeding
And yet plans for public action are drawn up: the actors examine the interactions among
themselves in their search for ways of reformulating problems and challenges, they forge
new knowledge and look for cognitive reassurance in order, as it were, to give
themselves the possibility of constructing an intersubjective truth, that is one that can be
reappropriated by all the actors (Pinson, 2003). In a situation characterised by multiple
uncertainties, local groups and institutions will construct knowledge as they interact,
knowledge that will lead to decision-making (Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe, 2001).
Without claiming that the central state no longer has any real role in putting in place a
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What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
form of public action that is increasingly being negotiated at local level, it should be
noted, nevertheless, that economic strategies, development projects and the knowledge
that informs them can now only be produced locally, on the basis of faltering, limited
expertise and partial knowledge of the contexts in which the action takes place (Béhar
and Estèbe, 1999). As is evident here, this kind of reasoning, advocating a territorialised
perspective on the link between knowledge and public action, is far removed from certain
decision-making models (cf. the linear rational model, for example, or the sequential
analysis of public action).
2. Academic approaches to public action and territory :
‘intersecting legitimation’
In order to examine the link between modes of governance and academic analyses
thereof (O. Ihl, 2006) from a territorialised perspective, territory will be considered here
both as an analytical category and as a governing principle of public action (Douillet,
2006). Our aim, therefore, will be to examine the place of territory and of the local level
both in modes of governance and social science analyses in order better to understand
the way in which changes in one respond to developments in the other.2
We will make a distinction analytically between the impact of knowledge on the
territorialisation of public action and the impact of territorialisation on the production of
knowledge. However, we will not place undue emphasis on the reciprocal influences
between academic analysis and public action.3 (S. Ollitrault, 1996).
2.1 When knowledge of territory legitimates
the territorialisation of public action
Analysing a tendency in the social sciences can also help to strengthen that tendency.
When the tendency in question is the territorialisation of public action, there is very often
confusion between the normative and analytical registers. While the social sciences seek
to analyse changes in public action, they also contribute to those changes. Thus the
social sciences concerned with territory (A-C. Douillet, 2006 p.140) can be mobilised as
instruments of governance. For example, as they record changes in public action, the
analyses produced by territorial economists may themselves become part of the
apparatus of government. Thus a notion such as ‘local productive systems’, which
2
In this regard, A-C Douillet’s chapter is indicative of the heuristic value of this approach. We warmly
recommend that it be read in its entirety as part of the Know and Pol project. More broadly, the whole of the
book edited by O. Ihl deals with issues that lie at the heart of the programme’s concerns (Douillet, 2006).
3
Cf. the other parts of the report and in particular the question of the ‘swirling’ model.
220
What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
emerged out of academic investigations of modes of development, has become an object
of public policy, particularly, in France, as a result of the links that have been established
between DATAR, the French regional development agency (now DIACT), and universities.
When it comes to the evaluation of public policies, J. Fontaine has shown that such
evaluation can contribute to the construction of a local public space (J. Fontaine, 1996).
In his comparison of two regional contexts (Brittany and Rhône Alpes), he notes that
giving a territorial perspective to the evaluation procedure determines the type of
evaluation that is carried out but above all strengthens the construction of a local public
space that differs significantly depending on whether the region is conceptualised as part
of the state (Brittany) or separately from it (Rhône Alpes). Thus he points out that the
data gathering method differed in the two cases. In Rhône-Alpes, where the region was
looking rather for regional self-legitimation when it came to evaluation, sociological
approaches (particularly interview-based ones) were used. In Brittany, on the other
hand, where the main objective was for the regional departments, together with their
counterparts in central government, to have a clearer picture of a programme’s effect,
the statistical approach was favoured. Similarly, M-A Guérin shows, with regard to
knowledge of the cultural heritage of the Isère département, that such knowledge helps
to define a territory that is distinct from the national territory by giving to local cultural
reference points the independent existence that they are denied in a non-pluralistic
history of the département (Guerin, 2005). R. Payre’s article can be seen as a contrary
example of the influence of knowledge on the territorialisation of public action (Payre,
2005). In investigating the failure to institutionalise academic enquiry into local
government, R. Payre shows that this discipline, which emphasised the irreducibility of
local specificities, could not be institutionalised at a time when a highly centralised form
of public action went hand in hand with state control of knowledge. Academic inquiry into
local government and the knowledge it generated would have encouraged a relocated
analysis of municipal governance and would therefore have been doomed to failure in a
hypercentralised decision-making system , since it called into question the unicity of the
national territory in this regard.
In some analyses of the Europeanisation of public policies, the same type of argument is
advanced. Thus the knowledge mobilised at European level is regarded as an important
driving force in the process of territorialisation (A. Jönson and P. Muller, 2006). The
process of Europeanisation, it is argued, proceeds through the diffusion of ideas and the
assimilation of knowledge on public action (Kholer-Koch, 2002, p. 4).
Thus the ‘social sciences of territory’ contribute to the legitimation of territory as a space
in which public problems can be defined and dealt with. From a reciprocal point of view,
this implies that territory should be considered as an element in the legitimation of
certain specific forms of knowledge.
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What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
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2.2 The territorialisation of public action
and the legitimation of territorialised expertise
As we have seen, the territorialisation of public action can have effects on the academic
instruments put in place by public action (J. Fontaine, 1996). We will be focusing here
primarily on new knowledge and expertise arising out of the territorialisation of public
action. Local experts, moving to and from between the academic and political worlds, will
turn their knowledge and/or affiliation to a particular territory into a professional
resource. As A. Faure notes, the meaning of territory in expert discourses is ambiguous
(Faure, 2005): since it is both an object of their expertise and the principle deployed to
legitimate that expertise, territory can be regarded as a resource for this particular
category of actors. According to J. Fontaine, experts of this type are appointed both for
their academic competence and for their institutional position in the territory (Fontaine,
1996, p. 62), with the territory serving to amplify the ‘presumption of competence’
attributed to them (cf. point 3 below).
As well as constituting the principle deployed to legitimate a form of expertise, territory
can also be perceived as a locus for encounters leading to learning and the development
of specific, territorialised knowledge and expertise. In his examination of the policies
developed to combat illiteracy in rural areas, M. Roselli (M. Roselli, 1998) shows how
essential knowledge of territorial specificities is; in particular, he criticises the inadequacy
of the terms in which the problem was conceived at central level. Similarly, it is by
asserting their detailed knowledge of territorial specificities that local authorities have
gradually developed education policies based on different ideas and principles from those
espoused by the Ministry of Education at national level (Glasman, 2005).
2.3 Structuring of territorial networks and expertise
Focusing on the contractual policies negotiated at territorial level, J-P. Gaudin indicates
that such policies are the consequence of the structuring of territorialised networks,
activated by various ‘project developers’, some of them local elected representatives but
most of them experts. Thus the negotiations are conceived as a continuous, conflictive
process of constructing norms and producing meaning that covers political mobilisations
and representations that come within the scope of a territory (Gaudin, 1998 p. 94-95).
Territorialised networks facilitate exchanges of expertise between individuals and
organisations. Gaudin emphasises the learning that results from involvement in these
networks, for example the acquisition of a common language to talk about the
territorialised public action that brings these actors together. From the same perspective,
F.
Laplanche
Servigne
(Laplanche-Servigne,
1998,
p.
278)
points
to
another
characteristic of experts’ activity: in a context in which the question of the acceptability
of a decision has become a fundamental aspect of and a challenge to expertise, the
ability to anticipate public reaction and to obtain the public’s assent is an essential
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What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
element of the expertise required in decision-making (cf. point 1 above). Experts act
here as agents in a process of mediation (Muller and Surel, 1995) for which knowledge of
territorial specificities is essential. Thus experts contribute to the construction of new
forms of local governance by defining the rules of the game at the same time as they are
discovering the game itself, in a context of uncertainty as to the modalities and purposes
of the public action (Lorrain, 1998, p. 343). In this context, the role of territorialised
expertise is fundamental, since the experts’ role here is both to provide the knowledge
that is missing and to organise public events and to initiate the social construction of
territorialised public action. In his investigation of the management of structural funds at
local level, A. Smith makes an important distinction between external experts
(consultants, academics and associations acting on behalf of the public authorities,
although this is not their permanent job) and internal experts (members of central
government departments or local authorities). In his view, internal experts play a
fundamental role (A. Smith, 1998). He cites the example of the development of European
expertise within regional authorities (e.g. opening of regional offices in Brussels) and
emphasises the intense competition among internal experts in central government and
regional authorities for control of programmes and the management of European
structural funds. Drawing on their involvement in transnational and inter-regional
networks, regional authorities seek to capitalise on their territorialised expertise (cf. for
example the ARFE cross-border report4). Thus it is by drawing on territorialised expertise
and knowledge that internal experts within regional bodies are able to compete with
central government experts. This is particularly evident when it comes to local
development.
2.4 On their native heath: local identity as a competence
In his study of a local development plan, W. Genieys raises the question of the relations
between local actors and their territory (Genieys, 1998, Genieys, 1997), making it a
condition for the success of this project that this spatial component should be taken into
account (cf. also Balme et al., 1994). In the case of the Pays Cathare region that is the
object of Genieys’s study, a network of local experts put together a local development
plan by drawing on a local referent with connotations of regional identity that was to
challenge and eventually outstrip the sectoral approach that other, mainly national
experts had used as the basis for an alternative plan. By presenting themselves as
experts rooted in the local area and making explicit reference to the link between
knowledge and territory (territory as a source of specific knowledge), a network of
experts managed to establish the ‘imaginary territory of the Pays Cathare’ as a legitimate
framework for local development. In this way, the conjunction of territorialised
4
Association des Régions Frontalières Européennes/Association of European Border Regions, which draws on
the expertise of border regions in the management of INTERREG (PIC) projects.
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What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
knowledge (archaeology of Cathar sites, history of Catharism etc.) and experts in local
development gave birth to a territorialised expert network which, in the name of
an
‘imaginary’ territory, was to bring to the fore a local development plan that went beyond
the traditional territorial boundaries of public action. This case splendidly illustrates the
cognitive dimension of local public policies, with territory becoming part of the new
expertise of local experts.
This territorialisation of meaning has to go hand in hand with consideration of the
changes that territorialisation brings to the cognitive dimension of public action, of the
way in which territory might act as a ‘filter’ between knowledge and expertise, on the one
hand, and public action, on the other. After all, it is precisely because a territory is not a
neutral space that its social, cultural, economic and historical characteristics influence the
relationship between knowledge and public policies.
3. Territoriality and the transformation
of ideas into public policies
As will be clear from the preceding sections, territory is not simply a locus for interactions
between knowledge and public policies. It has a real impact not only on the very
possibility of such exchanges taking place but also on their content. Nevertheless, this
aspect is very often ignored in cognitive approaches to public action that focus more on
sectoral and/or global approaches (cf. reference system, accounts of public policies).
Whereas certain approaches, such as the Advocacy Coalition Framework, operate fairly
readily at the territorialised level (cf. Sabatier and Schlager, 2000), territory and its
effect on the interactions that take place within it tend to be something of a black box.
We propose, therefore, to examine studies that seek to investigate the effect of territory
on the conversion of ideas into public action.
3.1 Territory as an ‘interpretative filter’ (Pecqueur, 1996)
Following in the tradition of the Chicago School (Snow, Trom and Cefaï, 2000), some
approaches attach importance to the ‘spirit of places’. In obeisance to this American
school of sociological inquiry, such approaches seek to raise the question of socialisation
phenomena without forgetting that they are embedded in particular localities. We are
fairly close here to the approach developed by G. Simmel, for whom the conditions under
which phenomena are localised are important for an understanding of those phenomena
(spirit of transactions).
Public action is not immune to the effect of locality on its
content. According to P. Muller, those involved in public action are mediators between a
number of different worlds of meaning. Examining the constraints that globalisation
places on these worlds, Muller notes that such constraints exist only to the extent that
they are retranslated and hence constructed by the actors in the various forums in which
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What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
they operate (Muller, 2000 p., 201). Following P. Lascoumes (Lascoumes, 1997), he uses
the term ‘transcoding’ to denote the gathering together and transfer of data into a
different code and argues that a different meaning, produced by specific interactions (cf.
Callon, 1986; Lascoumes, 1996 et Lascoumes, 2001), is assigned to the constraints of
globalisation. In the case of territorial public action, the term territorialised transcoding
could be coined to denote the effect of the interactions specific to a territory on the
transfer of certain ideas about and ‘recipes’ for public action at local level. Thus O.
Mériaux emphasises the ability of local actors to ‘burst through’ the frameworks laid
down by the central state and to ‘reinvent the normative content and cognitive substrate
of policies’ (Meriaux, 2005, p. 28). Policies designed to encourage social dialogue and the
local education policies studied by D. Glasman are a good example of this. Thus the
involvement of territorial authorities in these policies is synonymous with a radical
reformulation of the policies’ cognitive frameworks. As B. Pecqueur put it, the territory is
acting here as an ‘interpretative filter’ that reshapes the contours of public action. E.
Négrier makes a similar observation when he suggests examining the ‘local-European’
reference system specific to each territorial context (Négrier, 1995). It is through the
reciprocal translation and adaptation of the contents of local projects and European
programmes that the actors manage to obtain convergence between the local level and
its constraints and the guidelines laid down at the supranational level. E. Négrier stresses
the importance of translating European norms within territorial networks and the role
played by ‘professionals’ in the task of mediation and translation. In order better to
analyse the impact of these networks, it is necessary to relocate the process of
translating European referents at the local level by relating it to the uniqueness of local
spaces, history and political systems. In other words, it is necessary to focus on the
specificity of the place in which this translation takes place, since it is one of the factors
that help to explain the forms the translation takes. The cognitive elements are here
linked to the social, cultural, historical and political characteristics specific to a territory.
3.2 Local configurations and territorialised political exchanges
According to P. Muller (Muller, 1992, p. 294-95), each territorial entity, acting relatively
autonomously, structures its problems in a specific way. This specificity depends on the
nature of and interactions between the local elites and the ability of the local authorities
to articulate the various problems facing their territory in a specific way. Thus this author
makes an explicit connection between the cognitive elements used to draw up public
policies and local issues. But how can this connection be conceptualised? Muller does not
offer any explanatory ‘key’. For J. Fontaine, the evaluation of public policies takes place
within ‘local configurations’ (Fontaine, 1996, p. 53). The same notion is mentioned in a
multi-author article advocating an approach to local power and authority that goes
beyond ‘a-territorial perspectives’. Such an analysis, couched in terms of ‘configurations
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What is the relevance of the territorialised approach… ?
Maury
in order to restore the polysemy of territory’ (Genieys, Smith, Baraize, Faure and
Négrier, 2000, p. 109), would, these authors argue, make it possible to include
sociological factors specific to each territory, while at the same time going beyond mere
analysis of local singularities in order to be able to make comparisons.
N. Elias developed the notion of configuration as a means of explaining social systems
(Elias, 1985). A configuration is defined as a set of relationships between interdependent
individuals that produces an overarching bond, like a constantly changing pattern that
includes not only individuals’ intellects but also their entire person, their actions and their
mutual relationships. According to Elias, it is a particular form of society, which links its
internal
social
structures
with
these
actors’
modes
of
social
behaviour
and
5
representations (‘psychic economy’ ).
What we can take from this for the analysis of ‘territorial dynamics’ is, firstly, the notion
that the actors who construct territory are interdependent. It is even, in a way, the
specificity of the dependency relations among actors (specificity particular to each
territory concerned) that shapes a territorialised system of public action.
Thus territorialised systems of public action are dependent on the specificity of the
territorial configuration that is the vehicle for them; this specificity is itself dependent on
the nature of the interactions and interdependencies among the actors.
Without going into detail, using the term ‘territorial configuration’ means that one is
linking the way in which public action in a territory is structured with the structure of the
interactions that constitute that same territory. But are these interactions political, social,
economic, cultural or intellectual in nature? All of these simultaneously, one would be
tempted to suggest. Then how do we find a way of making these various dimensions
‘hold together’ in our analysis?
E. Négrier’s work on territorialised political exchanges may provide an answer to this
question (Négrier, 1998). Négrier proposes that this notion should be used not only in
order to take account of several levels of public action (which approaches based on the
notion of multi-level governance already do) but also to focus on the actors to see how
such exchanges are constructed locally (cf. also L. Parri). Thus this approach is
concerned less with situations than with processes, with ‘politically oriented interactions
5
Elias’s psychic economy comprises not only cognitive elements but also symbolic elements suggesting the
actors’ ‘affective’ cohesion. As far as the Know and Pol project is concerned, the cognitive elements of the
psychic economy are interesting because they are derived from knowledge that is produced in the course of
interactions and is dependent on the power relations (interdependencies) between actors. Thus the etiquette at
the court of Versailles can be seen as a form of knowledge produced in the course of and for the purposes of
action (cf. Pinson, 2003 in the preceding points).
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between
protagonists
in
territorial
public
action’.
Maury
Without
listing
here
all
the
consequences this notion has for the way in which public action is analysed (cf. Tool-box
below), we will simply say that this notion makes it possible to incorporate knowledge
and ideas into analysis of the territorialised exchanges that govern the construction of
public action.
To conclude these remarks on the need for a territorialised interpretative framework for
analysing the link between knowledge and public action, a warning is needed against the
temptation to adopt an exclusively territorial approach6. It is true, as we have shown,
that local specificities have an effect on the production of knowledge in the course of and
for the purposes of public action (Pinson, 2003); nevertheless, certain important factors
should not be forgotten. Firstly, in multilevel governance systems (Hooghe and Marks,
2001), the various territorial levels are closely linked to each other. Despite the existence
of territorialised transcoding phenomena, public action and the knowledge that underpins
it are also subject to vertical influences. Thus to take the example of so-called ‘solidarity’
policies in France, the relationships between the centre and periphery are still structuring
factors and, despite some local ‘interventions’, the referents for these policies are still for
the most part mapped out at national level (Meriaux, 2005). Similarly, studies of the
Europeanisation of public policies clearly show that the convergence phenomena arise out
of the linking of various levels of public action and the efforts by international institutions
and
transnational
experts
to
objectify
and
legitimate
the
approaches
adopted
(Hassenteufel et al., 2000).
Secondly, from a horizontal perspective, sectoral influences also have a structuring effect
on the links between knowledge and public action at the territorial level. Even though
these influences are ‘filtered’ in the course of territorial interactions, they do have an
impact on the implementation of public action at territorial level. This is demonstrated by
Sandra Philippe, in a thesis devoted to mental health and the application of a standard
drawn up by the Directorate-General for Health but re-appropriated locally (Philippe,
2002 and, Philippe, 2004). The thesis examines the dialectical relationship between the
place from which the standard was issued (central government) and the location where it
was received (the local psychiatric service). The author shows that the local actors
involved in this relationship were forced to adopt this sectoral standard but that, in
adopting it, they were able to find opportunities to instrumentalise it as a resource for
action undertaken in a specific local context.
6
This warning could also apply to the question of the knowledge processed in other parts of the link ; it seems
to us equally beneficial to beware of a blanket approach to knowledge.
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More generally, as far as health policies in the French context are concerned, the
‘competition’ to define what constitutes the general interest at local level (cf. p. 218) is
also a way of evading the efficiency imperative imposed at the central level. Criticism of
the efficiency indicators and measures imposed by the state, voiced ‘in the name of the
local’ and justified by ‘knowledge of the local reality’, is also a way of denouncing a
general standard because it runs counter to the structure of interests in a territory.
Thus while being wary of an exclusively territorial focus, these approaches help to enrich
study of the link between knowledge and public action. In particular, they emphasise an
aspect of this link that is sometimes forgotten or at least underestimated, namely the
political dimension.
3.3 Using the territorial route to add a political dimension
to the link between knowledge and public policies
Cognitive analyses of public action sometimes fail to take account of the political
dimension (cf., for example, accounts of public policies, reference framework and ACF).
This dimension is taken into account in recent studies of territorialised public action. The
evolution of French approaches to territorial public action can be schematised as follows.
In the, 1970s, studies focused on local administrative systems. Following in the tradition
of the CSO (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations), attention was concentrated on local
‘worthies’ and their relations with decentralised state bodies and representatives (cf.
Grémion, 1976) and in particular with prefects (Worms, 1966). Thus the local tended to
be analysed through the prism of central state initiatives, and mainly as a factor in
resisting reforms introduced by the centre. From the, 1990s onwards, the focus of
attention switched to the reform potential of what was henceforth to be considered as
‘local government’. The new roles of local elected representatives that resulted from
decentralisation were to be objects of investigation; these included ‘entrepreneurial
mayors’ (Lorrain, 1993) and elected representatives who link the various networks in
local society (Garraud, 1994). Political anthropology was also to contribute to this
reinvigoration of analyses of the local by revealing, through studies of local territories
(Abélès, 1989), how politics and the other dimensions of the social are intertwined. Thus
these approaches emphasised the need to take account of the political dimension of
public action at the territorial level. As S. Biarez notes, local systems are not simply
administrative and functional spaces but also spaces in which power is exercised (Biarez,
2000). It is necessary, therefore, ‘to put the political’ into analyses of the public action
emanating from those spaces. This notion is broadly adopted by A. Faure, particularly
when he is concerned with the shift of ideas towards ‘territorialised control’ and deals
with the ‘return of politics to the implementation of local programmes’ (Faure, 2005).
There are indeed many examples that show that the nature of the strategies adopted by
territorial authorities influences the characterisation of problems (agenda setting) and
learning processes. Whether it is in the area of ‘intercommunality’ (cooperation between
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communes) (Faure, 2005), local development (Douillet, 2005, Genieys and Garcia,
2005), cultural heritage (Guerin, 2005), management of structural funds (Smith, 1995)
or local identity and cross-border cooperation (C. Maury, 2006), territories invent
narratives that overturn received opinions about the aims and functions of public
services. Thus definitions of the ‘local general interest’ depend in part on political
strategies (cf., in a completely different context, J. Rourell’s work on the uses of housing
statistics by local elected representatives in the GDR, Rourell, 2005). A-C. Douillet
(Douillet, 2005) shows, in the case of local development, that the rhetoric around the
relevance of territory, based on knowledge and expertise, does not preclude the
emergence of questions about the political control of a territory (cf. also J. Fontaine,
1996). For his part, A. Faure identifies simultaneous changes affecting political practices
and approaches to public policies in urban areas. Thus political practices are inseparable
from control of public action, as is revealed by analyses of the territorialisation of public
action. As far as the present project is concerned, this encourages us to focus more on
the political dimension of the link between knowledge and public policies.
Having considered territory as a locus for the transformation of ideas into public policies
and the impact of territorial configurations on this transformation, we will conclude by
investigating the value that knowledge and expertise add to territories.
4. Knowledge as ‘value added’ for a territory
Looking back at the evolution of studies of the local, we can observe, following the
example of A. Mabileau (A. Mabileau, 1993), that the local has become a locus of change
and a favoured vector of innovation, whereas for a long time it was a symbol of social
conservatism. Economists and sociologists are also approaching the question of the local
with renewed vigour by changing their perception of territory as a medium for the human
activities that they are concerned to investigate. Thus, in order to raise the question of
the spatial dimension of economic activity, some approaches are going beyond the
concept of space as a factor that simply differentiates among producers in order to
develop a broader concept of spaces as real productive resources. M-G. Garcia’s work on
the mechanisms for extracting value from territory through the AOC system in two wineproducing regions is one example (M-F. Garcia, 2004). Garcia’s work is fairly close,
incidentally, to that of S. Boisseaux on local products (S. Boisseaux, 2005). In this
respect, these sociological and economic approaches overlap with that adopted by certain
political scientists (cf. part 3), in that they regard territory, stimulatingly, as an
‘interpretative filter’ (Pecqueur, 1996). A territory is not a neutral space with regard to
economic activity, and one territory cannot necessarily be substituted for another as the
site for a particular industry or activity. Consequently, territories may differ considerably
in their ability to attract industries. We will examine, firstly, what the effect of a territory
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might be on the economic activities taking place within its boundaries and then go on to
consider the question of territories’ competitiveness. Finally, we will see how economists
have investigated the impact of knowledge on a territory’s competitiveness.
4.1 A territory is not a neutral environment for economic activity
According to B. Pecqueur, a territory functions as a ‘coordinating structure’ within which
the actors express their intentions towards each other (Pecqueur, 1996). Thus it is not a
neutral environment but rather an ‘organisational configuration that accommodates both
firms and institutions’. Over and above the shared use of the term configuration, this
approach emphasises the importance of a space and its characteristics in determining the
quality and content of the interactions that take place within it, as already noted in
section 3 above. According to Pecqueur, regular encounters among the actors in a
territory give rise to learning phenomena and the development of a common language,
both of which help to resolve problems of uncertainty in production and exchange.
Localised
knowledge,
the fruit
of these
encounters, constitutes
a
resource for
entrepreneurs, as P-P. Zalio shows in a study of entrepreneurs in Marseille (P-P. Zalio,
2004). Citing an interview with a manager, he shows that the interviewee had
compensated for his lack of mobility within his firm (in theory an obstacle to his career
development) by exploiting his detailed knowledge of the territory, which was
indispensable to his firm (Zalio, 2004, p.14). Thus there are competences linked to
localisation that actors can convert into resources. Knowledge about a territory becomes
a real competence when actors master the ‘codes’ specific to the particular interactions
taking place in the territory. P.P. Zalio makes an important distinction in this article. He
defines territorial rootedness as the dependency of economic actors on a territory’s listed
and more or less non-transferable characteristics, relating for example to a product’s
description. Thus the production of a wine according to AOC regulations is dependent on
territorial affiliation. Territorial presence, on the other hand, denotes a locational strategy
based on the existence of ‘revocable opportunities that cannot be dissociated from a
site’s competitiveness’. It is from this perspective that we will investigate territories’
competitiveness.
4.2 Territories’ competitiveness and attractiveness
The location of economic activities is not a matter of chance and can be understood by
examining the actors’ strategies in the light of their concept of the spaces in which they
operate. Thus business location depends on varied perceptions of the opportunities
offered by different territories (P-P. Zalio, 2004). Realising the importance of territory in
firms’ competitiveness, regional and local authorities have sought to reorganise their
spaces in order to increase their territories’ attractiveness (Morvan and Marchand, 1994).
Thus their intervention in the economic sphere is focused more on firms’ environment
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than on firms themselves. Regions are working to increase their territories’ attractiveness
by developing education and training, communications infrastructures, universities and
cultural policies, in other words by taking cross-cutting measures designed to improve
the ‘environment in which firms operate’ (Morvan and Marchand, 1994). In this context,
knowledge – broadly defined – is an ‘asset’ for a territory that institutions will seek if not
to develop than at least to exploit in order to increase a territories’ attractiveness to the
firms likely to establish a presence there. Thus some regions will, for example, get
involved in public action in the area of research and development (C. Crespy, 2006)
4.3 Knowledge as a factor in the competitiveness of territories
Some authors have sought to investigate the effect of knowledge on a territory and its
economic repercussions and to this end have studied the economic impact of universities.
Mention might be made, by way of example, of the so-called ‘triple helix’ model
(Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz, 2000) which is deployed, at a very macroscopic level, to
examine the dynamic interdependencies between universities, business and government.
In this approach, the university is the cornerstone of the triple helix (Shinn, 2002), since
it is the locus for the development of the intermediate institutions that link social and
economic interests, the place at which discourses and ideas converge, join together and
give birth to new forms of discourse and action. This process of ‘interactive codification
bases the economy on knowledge’, according to L. Leydesdorff and H. Etzkowitz
(Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz, 2000); however, in this approach, the phenomenon is
considered solely at the level of the nation state. Other authors, mainly in the Englishspeaking countries, have worked on the question at more restricted levels (meso or
micro).
Not wishing to examine all these studies one by one, we will base our observations here
on an article that reviews the current approaches (Drucker and Goldstein, 2007). As we
will see, the impact of knowledge on local economic development is highly dependent on
the existence of actors able to establish networks linking the sites of knowledge
production with each other and with firms.
Several approaches have been developed in order to describe the impact of higher
education on regional economies. Universities are considered both in terms of their
research activities and as ‘reservoirs’ of expertise that are available within the territory
and on which firms are able to draw. The value of Drucker and Goldstein’s article is that
it outlines various methods of capturing and quantifying this impact. As far as the Know
and Pol programme is concerned, the main interest lies in the choice of indicators as well
as in the authors’ discussion of them.
For research universities, issues of knowledge production and dissemination are
considered central to modeling and understanding the impacts on surrounding regional
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economies. In addition, the waxing popularity and applicability of new growth theory and
the new geography framework have focused attention on the processes of knowledge
creation and diffusion.
This article reviews the four major approaches taken in the literature to examining and
assessing the impacts of universities on regional economic development : impact studies
of individual universities, surveys, production-function estimations and cross-sectional or
quasi-experimental designs. Each of these methods presents its own unique advantages
and drawbacks, and each, with the possible exception of survey methods continue to be
put to use commonly to investigate the impacts of universities and other knowledgeproducting entities.
The article proposes a typology of the functions of universities:
-
creation of knowledge
-
human-capital creation
-
transfer of existing know-how
-
technological innovation
-
capital investment
-
regional leadership
-
production of knowledge infrastructure
-
influence on regional milieu
Categories 6 and 8 are particularly interesting, since they explicitly present the link
between knowledge and action in the territory as a competence of universities:
‘Regional leadership signifies the capacity of a university and its employees to serve
the region through direct participation on local committees and boards, the provision of
technical resources and support, and the exercise of moral authority, and in some cases,
political clout to help establish consensus and resolve conflicts’.
‘University influence on regional milieu encompasses the range of distinctive
contributions that universities deliver to their surrounding areas, be they intellectual,
social, cultural, or recreational, by attracting a concentration of highly educated and
creative professionals and establishing a particular locational dynamic.’
The article proceeds with a critical and illuminating survey of the various approaches to
the question. One of the items to be made use of is probably the survey of indicators
used in these approaches, many of which are quantitative, cf. for example, the micro-
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economic approaches that seek to capture the impact of knowledge on production
functions (knowledge-production functions, formulation of the impact of learning – gains
in knowledge - on the production function).
‘The general Gliliches-Jaffe model uses a measure of innovation, such as patents or new
product introductions, as the dependent variable, with industry and university research
and development expenditures as two independent variable in production-function
equations.’
The number of patents registered is a quantitative measure used in several approaches,
but the authors shrewdly point out that it ignores certain forms of knowledge: ‘certainly
not all knowledge is patentable. For instance, codified knowledge is embodied in
copyrights, trade secrets, and scientific papers as well as patents, whereas tacit
knowledge and shared expertise may be as important to localized spillover effects as
codified knowledge but largely unmeasurable’.
More qualitative indicators are also presented and discussed, such as a definition of a
‘university culture’ or the ethnographic techniques used to describe the links and
interactions between universities and business. It should be noted that the more
qualitative indicators are used in the impact studies carried out by universities, which are
not intended to make comparisons but function rather as a form of ‘promotion’ for the
university in its own region.
In a very comprehensive survey of American and Canadian approaches, this article,
which we recommend to you, demonstrates the impact of knowledge on its regional
environment and the theoretical tools that are available to conceptualise this impact.
Another Spanish study of the Valencia region examines the links between the public
research sector and the development of the biotechnology industry in the region (Todt,
Gutierrez-Gracia, Fernandez de Lucio, Castro-Martinez, 2007). The authors note that,
despite the existence of an extensive research infrastructure, operationalisation in the
region’s firms of the knowledge generated remains weak. They point to the absence of
‘local knowledge communities’ by way of explanation for this relative weakness. This
seems to us to be a fundamental point, since the authors are saying that knowledge7 has
an effect on local economic development only if there are networks in the territory that
can mediate between public research and the business community. In the absence of
such networks, the impact of knowledge is weak. The authors stress, furthermore, that
these networks must take the form of epistemic communities.
This echoes R. Pasquier’s work on regions’ political capabilities. Focusing on structural
funds, Pasquier shows that the regions that succeed in obtaining the most funds are
those in which politicians get to grips with the issue and coordinate initiatives in their
7
In the context of the article, that produced by R&D activities.
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territory by setting up networks (Pasquier, 2004). Similarly, P. Muller and F. Gerbaux
conclude that the key to successful economic interventions by regional authorities lies
partly in this ability to establish networks (Muller and Gerbaux, 1992).
Studies in another area of research, on vocational training, have tackled the question of
the link between training, employment and territorial development (cf. CEREQ, 2007), for
example by examining the changes in vocational training policies brought about by
decentralisation (Bel, Méhaut, Meriaux, 2003, for education policies Dutercq, 2005). For
the authors concerned with these issues (Berthet, 2005, Dauty, 2002), a territory-based
approach helps to extend the field of enquiry, in particular by investigating the way in
which different types of actors (mainly firms, training institutions and political decisionmakers) mobilise training policies in their territories, thereby helping to dynamise them
(Gilly and Torre , 2000, Simon-Zarca and Vernieres, 2007). On the theoretical level,
these authors follow the approaches outlined above in emphasising the usefulness of an
analytical framework that takes full account of the complex interactions between
heterogeneous actors in a territory (cf. in particularly the use of the notion of network,
M. Bel, 2007). Thus in these approaches the question of knowledge and learning in the
context of employment is linked to its territorialised dimension.
Like other new forms of public action, the question of knowledge and its conversion into
public action is multifaceted, polycentric and uncertain, since it is the object of
negotiations between partners who are associates as much as rivals. Thus the question
of coordination among the actors is of crucial importance.
5. CONCLUSION
Since territorialisation is the object of studies that have changed the ways in which public
action is conceptualised, a territory-based approach seems to have heuristic value within
the context of the programme. However, we should not be over hasty in concluding that
each territory’s particular specificities are exempt from the comparison principle on which
the Know and Pol programme is based, even though they enrich our view of the object
under investigation. In our view, an approach based on the structure of the interactions
that characterise a particular territory absolutely vindicates a comparative perspective.
To take up the terms used in this paper, the development of an analytical framework for
comparing all the territorial configurations the teams are going to investigate would be of
great value in understanding the construction of public policies and, within that process,
the place of knowledge and its embeddedness within those configurations.
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The notion of territorialised political exchange
It is defined by E. Négrier as follows:
‘A territorialised political exchange is a transaction or series of transactions between several
resources and actors, for whom the central issue at stake is public action within a given territory
and/or between territories’(Négrier, 1998,p.23).
Négrier goes on to list 8 consequences of this definition (Négrier, 1998,p.23-30).
1. Territories are in a dialectical relationship with the institutions that define boundaries, which
are continuously being reshaped by new territorial construction. There are both dissociations
and connections between functional and political territories.
2. The ‘European interest’ is a construction specific to each territory.
3. Inter-territorial and intra-territorial exchanges are interdependent.
4. Territorialised political exchanges raise the question of the politicisation of social relations in a
territory and the role of elected representatives in the development of public action. Thus local
politics influences territorial politics.
5. From the point of view of territorialised political exchanges, account must be taken of the
specificities of local societies: specific configuration of the actors in the exchange and the
diachronic nature of the exchanges (path dependency)
6. Territorialised political exchanges are both a functional constraint and a political matrix. This
characteristic makes it possible to avoid both the perils of determinism, i.e. the notion that
nothing can change because cultural modes are deeply rooted in mentalities, and the
shortcomings of strategism, i.e. the idea that the actors are driven only by the advantages to
be extracted from the exchanges.
7. Territorialised political exchanges make it possible to approach the question of legitimacy, since
they are political only if they relate to the construction of the political order.
8. Territorialised political exchanges encompass various aspects (cultural, economic, social and
political) of the relations between institutions and societies.
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