Description

In this synthetic, interdisciplinary work, Neil Brenner develops a new interpretation of the transformation of statehood under contemporary globalizing capitalism. Whereas most analysts of the emergent, post-Westphalian world order have focused on supranational and national institutional realignments, New State Spaces shows that strategic subnational spaces, such as cities and city-regions, represent essential arenas in which states are being transformed. Brenner traces the transformation of urban governance in western Europe during the last four decades and, on this basis, argues that inherited geographies of state power are being fundamentally rescaled. Through a combination of theory construction, historical analysis and cross-national case studies of urban policy change, New State Spaces provides an innovative analysis of the new formations of state power that are currently emerging.

This is a mature and sophisticated analysis by a major young scholar

Reviews

"This book represents a major contribution to the literature. It very nicely brings together and expands upon the now large volume of writing dealing with rescaling processes and state theory, and in doing so it both provides new forms of theoretical knowledge and adds to the current debate on urban governance."--Annals of the Association of American Geographers

"This book demonstrates Neil Brenner as a leading scholar of political geography; it thus represents a synopsis of his work through the past decade and helps the reader to get a hold on a difficult and sometimes flimsy debate. The book and its arguments around the rescaling of governmental spaces can only be strongly recommended. Neil Brenner has written a book that is difficult to ignore for all with an interest not only in current debate on government restructuring, but also for all who follow the ongoing discussion on the construction of a new Europe - a Europe of New state spaces."--Geografiska Annaler 88B

"Brenner brilliantly traces how urban governance has become one of the strategic sites for fundamental transformations of national statehood. The book takes us to analytic zones we did not know existed. Great and original."--Saskia Sassen, author of Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization

"Brenner has done a masterful job theorizing the territorial restlessness of power and the way it has abetted and shaped capitalist urbanization. New State Spaces makes clear why Neil Brenner deserves the praise and recognition that he has so far received."--Urban Affairs Review

"Neil Brenner brings together the cutting edges of the new economic and political geographies to produce a creatively transdisciplinary geopolitical economy of the territorial state and the re-scaling of the contemporary world. This is critically spatialized social science at its best: astutely comprehensive in its theoretical scope, pointedly insightful in its assessment of European planning practices, and richly empirical in its argument and analysis. The scales of accomplishment are enormous."--Edward W. Soja, Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research

"For a long time, analysts of capitalism laid out their critiques and explanations as if space did not matter; capitalism involved action at a distance. Radical geographers, city planners, and students of popular politics then began complaining about the neglect of space, and setting concrete studies of urban change in the context of abstractly framed geographic theories. Neil Brenner takes the whole discussion a stage farther, bringing together a knowledgeable critique and synthesis of previous thinking about 'state spaces,' important new ideas about regional policy under today's capitalism, and deeply documented comparisons of European regions. Students of political processes have much to learn from Neil Brenner."--Charles Tilly, Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, Columbia University

"Brenner, jeune sociologue à la carrière fulgurante, nous propose une mise en perspective et un état des lieux qui était devenu absolument indispensable de la recherche en sciences sociales portant sur les liens entre la transformation des États européens et la place qu'occupent les villes dans un ordre politique et économique en recomposition. Pour ceux qui s'intéressent à ce vaste chantier scientifique que la gouvernance urbaine sert à désigner, ce livre représente un élément indispensable qui sera certainement amené à figurer parmi les grands classiques de la littérature académique."--Bernard Jouve, University of Montreal

Product Details

372 pages; 11 maps, 44 figures, 24 boxes; ISBN13: 978-0-19-927006-4ISBN10: 0-19-927006-6

About the Author(s)