Polarisation: territorial versus relational perspective on legitimacy

National politics polarises. To better understand this, we must look beyond the national political arena. Especially the polarisation between cities and the countryside, which intensified under neoliberalism, is crucial. Their economic fortunes not only diverge through increased global competition. More fundamentally, these differences are linked to the growing polarisation between the relational and territorial perspectives on legitimacy.

 

More than a buzzword?

Polarisation has become a buzzword. It is, however, used more as a value judgment on the state of politics and especially the role of populist politicians than as an analytical concept. It is linked to the rise in support for populist politicians, although opinions differ on whether this is the cause or consequence of the growing political polarisation. Populism is not an ideological alternative to neoliberalism. It is an aspect of the polarisation caused by the current crisis in neoliberal globalisation.

 

The differential consequences of globalisation within the national territory, especially the divergence between global cities and left behind regions, are linked to the growing support for populist politicians outside the thriving big cities. The Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump showed a growing political divide between cities and regions. More recent elections, like the British parliamentary elections in 2019, and the US presidential elections in 2020, show that this divide deepens.

 

Globalisation of cities and regions

This political backlash to the triumph of the city is linked to the growing polarisation of economic success. Wealth is not trickling down to many regions. This economic polarisation is amplified by the growing divergence in expected future prospects. These differ widely between urban and regional communities. In cities, the positive outlook of the cosmopolitan elites dominates. These look forward and are confident they are well positioned to master and profit from the challenges of further globalisation. In regional communities, there is widespread fear of a further loss in their ability to shape their own future. Many of the still quite wealthy middle classes in these regions feel powerless against outside forces they cannot control. They fear suffering a further decline in the future. They dread suffering the same fate as industrial workers and become part of the precariat, the underclass of low-paid, unskilled labourers doing routine work without job security.

 

Provincialist lagging behind cosmopolitans?

This fear of the future goes beyond economic insecurity. Being left out of the political decisions making process dominated by urban elites is also essential. Especially while different social values legitimise their decisions. This is mostly interpreted as a divergence in cultural values between the more liberal urbanites and the still more traditional provincials. These are mostly framed as being left behind, not only economically but also culturally. Hilary Clinton branded them as a basket of deplorables, while according to Barack Obama, they still cling to guns or religion. This implies that they must catch up to urban ethical standards on universal human rights and social justice to become part of the bright urban future. This kind of evolutionary perspective puts provincialists a few steps below the ladder of social development, which is not a very useful analytical framework. It is more part of the polarisation by the cosmopolitan academic elites against the growing ‘populist’ resistance in the provinces to the dominant cosmopolitan regime. Instead of placing the differences between urbanites and provincials along a single continuum, it is more beneficial to analyse these as two distinct value systems with opposing perspectives on legitimacy. These differences between the relational and territorial perspectives are not new but entrenched in human nature and society.

 

The relational and territorial perspective

Both are rooted in fundamentally different moral systems. These differences between the territorial and relational perspectives on legitimacy are not new but deeply well-established. Jonathan Haidt traces their roots to genetic differences in how people react to unfamiliar situations. Some regard these as threats that must be controlled, while others are more enterprising and welcome them as opportunities to exploit. Jane Jacobs distinguishes similarly between two systems of survival. The one based on the guardian syndrome focusses on territorial protection. The other one based on the commercial syndrome focusses on profiting from relations. These can be linked to very different views on legitimacy. Figure 1 gives a condensed version of these differences based on a typology I developed in more detail in my book The Political Geography of Cities and Regions: Changing Legitimacy and Identity.

 

Figure 1 The territorial and relational perspective on legitimacy

 

The institutional framework

The territorial perspective favours stable territories with distinct and hierarchically coordinated competencies. According to the territorial perspective, these are the basis of a legitimate institutional framework. Not only sovereign national states but also regional and local administrations should have their distinct responsibilities and autonomy. In contrast, the relational perspective regards this kind of territorial parochialism and fixed hierarchical competencies as illegitimate. Their legitimate institutional framework is based on cooperation based on shared interests in multiple flexible networks.

 

The organisation of consent

These networks are consented through constant consultations and an expert debate between specific stakeholders. These help to adapt policies to changing external circumstances. This kind of flexible coordination between stakeholders making wide-ranging decisions in their networks is illegitimate from the territorial perspective. They value established spaces with fixed forms of consenting. The established preferences of the population can thus be expressed. The involvement of the general population through elections is crucial for them.

 

Justification of policies

The territorial perspective is thus more backward and inward-looking, while the relational perspective looks more forward and outward. This is linked to the different ways in which policies are justified. The sources of knowledge the territorial perspective uses to justify policies are more based on the tried and tested traditions, which are rooted and accepted in a specific community. Policies are justified from the relational perspective through generally applicable knowledge. Based on universal doctrines, such as on global warming and on global competition, the problems from the past can be solved to create a better future. In contrast, protecting established rights against new and external threats justifies policies from the territorial perspective. The communal interests are served by the distribution of welfare within a territory. The relational perspective focuses more on the success of individual stakeholders trickling down to the population.

 

Cities versus countryside

These outlined differences between these two perspectives are a theoretical construction which helps to understand debates on the legitimacy of particular policies. Both perspectives are used to different degrees and with various successes in political debates. Traditionally, cities legitimise their policies more from the relational perspective, while the territorial perspective dominates in the countryside. These differences are now becoming polarised by challenging neoliberal urban-centred policies. This is reflected by the strong support for populist parties outside the big cities. National populist politicians get little support in cities.

 

Spatial separation and the divergence in local identities

These differences between city and countryside had been eroded by modernisation and suburbanisation, but are now growing again. Globalisation discussed above widened the gap in economic prospects. This is further deepened by selective migration. This is visible by a growing gap in educational level between the population in cities and the rest of the country. The choice of place of residence has increasingly become a choice for a specific type of local community and value system. Increasingly, people live in lifestyle enclaves, which are internally homogenising but become more different from others. People choose to belong to places with different identities.

 

Provincial communities

In the provinces, the livelihood strategy of the precariat relies on the local community for the social safety network of nearby family and friends, which can help alleviate daily life problems. The inward focus of their social relations isolates them further from cities. This is not only a trend in rural villages but also in deindustrialised post-traumatic cities. Local and regional identity discourses are used as part of a resistance strategy focussing on community values of equality, solidarity, neighbourliness, reciprocity, and tradition in opposition to individualistic competition in which they lose out. Village children are not so much less successful at school, but the most successful schoolchildren now move to the cities, leaving behind those less successful. They swell the ranks of the sedentary rural population dominated by the immobile non-migrating precariat and the ageing old middle class.

 

Urban communities

Cities attract young migrants with more post-material values about work, diversity, identity, and migration. The urban community of like-minded individuals creates a long-term environment supporting individual life plans. In contrast, community relations in regions help to alleviate problems. In cities, these help to further improve success in global competitions. The gentrification within cities excludes the urban precariat and migrants from the daily life of the new middle classe with their bohemian bourgeois lifestyle.

 

The society of singularities and devaluation

The growing importance of cities is rooted in neoliberal economic policies, but is also part of a much broader societal transformation from industrial to late modernity. The industrial mass society has transformed, according to Andreas Reckwitz, into the society of singularities. Not only products have to be outstanding in price and quality to compete on global markets. Excelling has become the norm which permeates all walks of life.

 

The social logic of competitiveness, based on being singular, is linked to the rise of the new middle classes in cities. They are well-suited to compete in the new economy based on their individual educational achievements. Competition in the society of singularities is based on the winner-takes-all principle. As a result, those who lose out in the competition not only lose out materially. They are marginalised and excluded as inferior and abject. The self-image of the new middle classes is based on some singularly successful role models, whereas their devaluation of the precariat is based on its most offensive extremes. Educational failures, unhealthy behaviour, unstable families, public demonstrations of excessive consumption, and hedonism are in the polarising public debate interpreted as proof of their moral inferiority and the cause of their economic plight. The assumed clinging to a traditional way of life, gender roles, and a general aversion to social change by the precariat is opposed by the new middle classes. It has become part of their cosmopolitan identity discourse.

 

Polarisation and the shift from the relational to the territorial perspective

The current polarisation in national politics in Western states is thus more fundamental than a hardening of the tone in the political debate. It is part of the current crisis in neoliberal globalisation and the contradictions generated by the society of singularities. It marks the beginning of a change in dominance from the relational to the territorial perspective on legitimacy. Figure 2 from my book indicates that this is not a new phenomenon but has happened several times in the past. The current challenge to the established neoliberal cosmopolitan regime manifests itself through polarisation. The divergence in economic prospects is the most visible expression of this polarisation. The growing divide between cities and the countryside goes deeper than economic differences. These divisions are reinforced by more fundamental differences in values linked to different perspectives on legitimacy. The growing spatial separation between urban and rural communities strengthens the mutual devaluation of each other. Analysing the polarisation in the national political arena must therefore give more attention to these spatial and normative dimensions.

Figure 2 Alternating dominance of the relational and territorial perspective

https://routledge.pub/Political-Geography-Cities-Regions