Introduction: Europe, Regions, and European Regionalism

Richard Wyn Jones, Roger Awan-Scully

Research output: Chapter in book/report/conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Europe’s regions. To the extent that this phrase conjures up any images at all among the wider public — those men and women whom the English fondly imagine as traveling on the apocryphal Clapham Omnibus — then it is surely a series of images from those parts of Europe whose obvious, confident sense of their own identity and importance sets them apart from mere ‘localities’, even while they lack the trappings of sovereign statehood. This is the Europe of Catalonia and Scotland, two regions whose capital cities exude an almost palpable sense of status that far surpasses that cramped and slighting designation of ‘provincial’ sometimes bestowed upon them by their respective metropolitan centers. This is a Europe of deep roots and ancient tradition: the Europe, above all perhaps, of bürgerlische Gesellschaft, of bourgeois society. This is a solid, occasionally stolid, Europe which can pride itself in real and lasting civic achievement. Enterprise is another key bourgeois virtue and to invoke regional Europe is also to invoke the dynamic Europe implied by the use of the prefix ‘motor’ to describe a grouping of four of the most successful regions — Baden-Württemberg, Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy, as well as Catalonia.1 This is a Europe that takes pride in its past achievements and looks to the future with confidence.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEurope, Regions and European Regionalism
EditorsRoger Awan-Scully, Richard Wyn Jones
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Chapter1
Pages1-15
Number of pages15
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9780230293151
ISBN (Print)9780230231788, 9781349312191
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2010

Publication series

NamePalgrave Studies in European Union Politics
ISSN (Print)2662-5873
ISSN (Electronic)2662-5881

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