Understanding and Going Beyond the Regional Policy Paradox: Conceptual Contributions to Studying Socio-Spatial Polarisation in Europe

The goal of this penultimate chapter is to shed light on the conceptual value of the book. Growing social polarisation and economic inequalities unfolding in new forms across various places have brought about academic and policy debates on the meanings of ‘development’, the ways its dimensions (economic, social, cultural, political) are interrelated, and on how macro-structural changes are entangled with local and regional processes as well as institutional and social contexts. This chapter adds to this discussion by providing a better understanding of five interrelated topics: (1) the regional policy paradox in the European Union, (2) historical legacies leading to administrative centralisation trends in Eastern Europe, (3) globalisation and regional industrial restructuring causing further polarisation, (4) the mechanisms that bring about inequalities, and (5) the production of inequalities through social practices and discourses. Based on these key topics, the chapter argues for more agency-centred research in peripheral contexts, which focuses on how actors, organisations and institutions shape the development of currently peripheralised places.