Building 'Euro-regions' - Locational politics and the political geography of neoliberalism in post-unification Germany

Against the background of recent debates on state spatial restructuring in the European Union (EU), this article elaborates a critical geographical interpretation of the contemporary debate on locational competitiveness (Standortdebatte) in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). On the one hand, the current debate on Standort Deutschland (Germany as an investment location) represents the growing instability of the 'Rhine model' of capitalism under conditions of accelerating globalization and European integration. In this aspect, the contemporary locational debate has served to justify various forms of deregulation and institutional erosion at each level within the German political system. On the other hand, the contemporary locational debate has also entailed the delineation of new subnational geographical targets for major socio-economic policies. The protection and enhancement of nationally specific competitive advantages within an integrated European economy is increasingly seen to hinge upon the construction of 'Euro-regions' associated with territorially specific conditions of production, socio-economic assets and institutional forms at subnational scales. The politics of deregulation in post-unification Germany have therefore been closely intertwined with a broader reterritorialization and re-scaling of state power in which new subnational institutional spaces are being mobilized as the geographical spearheads for renewed economic growth. These arguments are illustrated with reference to two major realms of debate on locational competitiveness in the postunification era, each of which has entailed distinctive scalar articulation of neoliberal political agendas: the regionalization of national spatial planning policies (Raumordnungspolitik); and the debate on 'competition federalism' (Wettbewerbs-foderalismus) and fiscal equalization (Finanzausgleich) among the German Lander. However, against essentializing interpretations of subnational regions as privileged geographical loci for neocorporatist social compromises or for post-Fordist spatial fixes, contemporary regionalization processes in the FRG are conceptualized here as an institutional medium through which the German state is engaging in strategies of crisis-management.