405Book review section – Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 68 (2019) (4) 405–415.DOI: 10.15201/hungeobull.68.4.6          Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 68 2019 (4)

Lang, T. and Görmar, F. (eds.): Regional and Local Development in Times of Polarisation: Re-Thinking 
Spatial Policies in Europe. Singapore, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 382 p.

B O O K  R E V I E W  S E C T I O N

The neoliberal turn in the late 1980s and its effects 
on the regional development and cohesion policy of 
the European Union are widely discussed issues in 
academic forums. Though the European Union still 
addresses spatial equity through redistribution by 
“strengthening of its economic, social and territorial 
cohesion” and “reducing disparities between the levels 
of development of the various regions and the back-
wardness of the least favoured regions” (European 
Union 2012, p. 127), embracing neoliberal ideology 
has led to new approaches in European and national 
policy making. Post-2000 events such as the 2008 
economic crisis and the implementation of the Lisbon 
Strategy, the Europe 2020 Strategy and its Territorial 
Agenda have strengthened the promotion of neoliberal 
principles including regional competitiveness, innova-
tion and economic growth. Under these circumstances, 
a total sum of 13 new Central and Eastern European 
(CEE) member states joined in 2004, 2007 and 2013, 

and their incorporation posed new challenges to EU 
cohesion policy due to institutional and infrastructural 
weaknesses and low levels of economic development 
in certain areas. The development of the European 
Community has been spatially uneven since its very 
foundation in 1957, but the above policy changes 
have led to increasing regional polarisation in the last 
three decades. It is now proven that community- and 
national-level policies affect regions very differently, 
even if these policies are designed to ensure equal 
treatment across space. In addition, the outcomes 
and success of these policies largely depend on the 
quality of governments at various territorial levels 
(European Commission 2017). Therefore, it is crucial 
to understand how uneven development and regional 
polarisation in Europe work out at different scales 
and at different places, and how policy making and 
governance shape these processes. 

Such issues with regard to European cohesion 
and regional policy are in the scope of the current 
edited volume. It was published as part of the “New 
Geographies of Europe” series, which draws on con-
temporary research exploring the production and 
reshaping of space from a comparative and interdis-
ciplinary perspective. The editors of the book are both 
outstanding researchers in the field of regional de-
velopment and policy. Thilo Lang is head of depart-
ment at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, 
Leipzig, and lecturer at the Global and European 
Studies Institute of the University of Leipzig, while 
Franziska Görmar is project manager and research 
fellow at the same institute. Including them, alto-
gether 32 authors contributed to the 15 chapters of 
the book, among whom several disciplines and scien-
tific domains are represented, i.e. geography, regional 
economics, spatial planning and policy, sociology and 
political science, international studies, urban studies, 
social anthropology as well as political science. It is 
also notable that within the group of authors, there 
is a balance between experienced scholars and early-
career researchers and PhD-students. 

This book discusses socio-spatial polarisation and 
uneven development from a critical point of view, us-
ing spatial justice (Harvey, D. 1973; Soja, E. 2010) as a 
core concept, paying special attention to CEE regions. 
Its main objectives can be summarised in three points. 
First, to problematise the concept of European region-
al and cohesion policy, and to reveal the underlying 
mechanisms of policy making at various scales and 



406 Book review section – Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 68 (2019) (4) 405–415. 405–415.

in different geographical and institutional contexts. 
Second, to discover in which ways socio-spatial po-
larisation is reproduced in global financial capitalism, 
with special attention to how power relations and 
institutional frameworks contribute to this process. 
Third, to scrutinise how policy should respond to 
polarisation processes, and to search for alternatives 
to the neoliberal mainstream. 

The book has a sum of 391 pages, from which – not 
considering bibliographic data, acknowledgement, 
contents, notes on contributors, lists of figures and 
tables – the chapters cover 382 pages. Besides the intro-
ductory chapter, the book consists of four major parts. 
The first part engages with European power structures 
and investigates their role in the reproduction of socio-
spatial polarisation. Within this part, Chapter 2 is a 
conversation between Ray Hudson and John Pickles 
based on their seminal works. The two scholars em-
phasise that uneven development is inherent to capi-
talist economies, and it goes hand in hand with power 
asymmetries and democratic deficit, which manifest 
themselves in policies favouring urban growth cen-
tres. Therefore, they call for an explicitly political eco-
nomic geography because geographers need not only 
to understand uneven and combined development and 
polarisation processes, but to promote and support 
more progressive forms of capitalism and more just 
alternatives to economic development. 

In Chapter 3, Costis Hadjimichalis investigates 
how imaginations of peripherality shape develop-
ment theories and policies, and how theories and 
policies contribute to deepening unevenness and 
peripherality. The author points to some conceptu-
al and methodological limitations of the dominant 
understanding and measurement tools of uneven-
ness, discussing the impacts of neoliberalism on 
EU regional policies, especially their reorientation 
towards regional competitiveness, innovation and 
growth. According to Hadjimichalis, this is a source 
of discrepancy with regard to cohesion funds: they 
seek neoliberal macro-economic policies that impose 
austerity, while pursuing solidarity and economic 
and social cohesion. He criticises European elites be-
cause they have de facto accepted the idea of “multi-
speed Europe” (p. 73) and uneven development. 
Unfortunately, Hadjimichalis continues, against the 
hardly accountable EU political elites, mainly extrem-
ist right-wing and populist political forces have stood 
up with more success. Therefore, in his conclusion, he 
calls for an alternative to current elitist policy making 
and the neoliberal mainstream in the EU. 

In Chapter 4, Merje Kuus makes three points. 
First, she points out that European spatial planning 
has become transnational, inasmuch as it is mainly 
shaped by cross-border networks and interpersonal 
relationships. Second, though European policy mak-
ing is transnational, national belonging still matters: 
diplomats’ attitudes are rooted in their national po-

litical cultures, and while there are uniform proto-
cols and communication in the EU, national habits 
are hard to discard. For doing ‘Brussels diplomacy’, 
special skills are required, and richer countries have 
considerable advantage in this respect: with better 
universities they can train better professionals and 
diplomats. That is why Kuus argues that transna-
tional policy making contributes to the reproduc-
tion of unevenness amongst member states. Third, 
engaging with research methodology, she suggests 
that European policy making cannot be successfully 
analysed along rigid EU/member states and member 
state/member state boundaries, but transnationality 
should be firmly considered in research strategies. 

Chapters in the second part discuss European and 
regional policies and their impact on territorial cohe-
sion within and between EU member states. Chapter 
5 (Rhys Jones, Sami Moisio, Mikko Weckroth, 
Michael Woods, Juho Luukkonen, Frank Meyer and 
Judith Miggelbrink) contains a critical analysis of 
the idea of territorial cohesion, and a discussion of 
conceptual and policy benefits of the idea of spa-
tial justice. The authors argue that cohesion policy 
is an elusive and complex concept, giving space to 
various interpretations or even to manipulations for 
the purpose of national and regional development 
priorities. Therefore, placing the concept of spatial 
justice into the centre of development policies would 
facilitate wider regional social coalitions, focusing 
on the capabilities of the given area, and not only 
considering regions as mere recipients of external 
financial and institutional support. In Chapter 6, 
Bradley Loewen and Sebastian Schulz investigate 
how EU cohesion policies work in four countries: 
Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia. Their analysis 
corroborates the existence of discrepancies between 
cohesion and innovation policies in the case of CEE 
regions. The main reason behind this phenomenon 
is the high level of polarisation, since more devel-
oped regions have more potential to benefit from 
innovation policies due to their more sophisticated 
institutional frameworks. The main conclusion of this 
chapter is that the relationship between the European 
Innovation Policy and the Cohesion Policy should 
be made transparent for which the authors provide 
two alternatives. The first one is separating the two 
policies, so the Innovation Policy could become the 
EU’s economic policy and the Cohesion Policy could 
refocus on infrastructure and social investment in un-
derdeveloped regions, while the second alternative 
considers Innovation Policy as the economic strategy 
of the Cohesion Policy, with equal standing alongside 
social and environmental strategies. 

In Chapter 7, Stefan Telle, Martin Špaček and 
Daniela Crăciun analyse the objectives of European 
development strategies at different territorial lev-
els. First, they compare the Lisbon Strategy and 
the Europe 2020 Strategy, and second, they exam-



407Book review section – Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 68 (2019) (4) 405–415.

ine all the cross-border development programmes 
launched in Czechia and Germany in the 2007–2013 
and 2014–2020 financial periods. According to their 
results, at the macro level there is a shift between the 
Lisbon Strategy and Europe 2020 in their objectives 
from employment and social issues towards growth 
and innovation, considering productivity and effi-
ciency the bases of better cohesion. Regarding cross-
border programmes, the authors observe divergence 
between old and new member states: while the for-
mer promote neoliberal, competitiveness-centred 
policies, the latter rather intend to achieve growth 
and cohesion through employment and labour mar-
ket participation. Therefore, the authors’ recom-
mendation is that differences in national interests 
and development paths need to be considered in 
European policy making. Furthermore, regulations 
on cross-border cooperation should be more flexible 
and better promote institutional capacity building. 
In Chaper 8, József Benedek, Ştefana Varvari and 
Cristian Marius Litan focus on Romania’s Growth 
Pole Strategy for the 2007–2013 period. On the one 
hand, adopting quantitative methods, they analyse 
the impacts of growth poles on regional inequalities. 
On the other, they conduct a qualitative analysis to 
discover how the idea of growth poles is echoed by 
the objectives of Romanian development strategies. 
Their results point to the failure of the Growth Pole 
Strategy, inasmuch as it has not reduced regional 
inequalities in Romania. The authors’ conclusion is 
that the Growth Pole Strategy is a “good example 
of the Europeanisation process” (p. 188) but general 
guidelines and principles of European spatial plan-
ning documents should have been adopted in a more 
critical way, taking national peculiarities into account. 

In Chapter 9, Zsuzsanna Pósfai and Csaba Jelinek 
discuss the effects of Hungarian housing policies on 
socio-spatial polarisation for the post-2000 period. 
Here, the reader is introduced to the dual character of 
post-socialist Hungarian housing policy: each policy 
introduced after 1990 either supported relatively well-
off middle classes, officially providing equal access 
for everyone (‘liberal’ elements of Hungarian housing 
policy), or served to cater to the housing needs of the 
least affluent people (‘socialist’ elements). Although 
the currently dominant liberal housing policies are 
considered geography-blind by many, the authors 
demonstrate that these policies have considerable 
spatial effects and they reproduce pre-existing so-
cio-spatial inequalities. Their main argument is that 
Hungarian liberal housing policies serve to channel 
financial resources towards better-off middleclass 
households, while marginalising low-income house-
holds. Therefore, public policies contribute to the 
social and spatial polarisation of Hungarian soci-
ety. Increasing financialisation and the new housing 
schemes (together with the current economic upturn) 
have led to the rocketing of property prices, particu-

larly in urban centres, while housing markets in many 
rural and underdeveloped areas have been left with-
out considerable external resources. 

The third part of the book focuses on micro-scale 
strategies adopted by regional and local actors – 
e.g. individuals, enterprises, communities—to cope 
with the effects of polarisation. Chapter 10 (Aura 
Moldovan) discusses the demographic and eco-
nomic challenges faced by Romanian rural commu-
nities (Sălaj/Szilágy County), with special attention 
to selective out-migration. In particular, Moldovan 
scrutinises why people choose migration as a strat-
egy to cope with the negative consequences of pe-
ripherality, and how out-migration influences local 
political leaders and their development strategies. 
From this chapter, it turns out that the group of out-
migrants is not homogeneous and many of them are 
still attached to their place of origin after making a 
living elsewhere. The most important lesson from this 
chapter may be that selective out-migration increases 
the dependency of the affected communities on EU 
support and thus local leaders are often pushed to 
adopt special application strategies to accumulate fi-
nancial resources. In Chapter 11, Sorin Cebotari and 
Melinda Mihály present two development projects 
implemented in peripheral communities in Hungary 
and Romania. It is showed that officially both projects 
are community initiatives but due to the extreme low 
level of civic activity in these areas, they are practi-
cally initiated and managed by the local mayors. The 
authors’ conclusion is that broader public participa-
tion in local projects would be a key step towards the 
empowerment of such communities and could be an 
antidote to peripheralisation. Therefore, the concept 
of community and the role of local communities in 
development need to be revisited, and new policy-
making mechanisms should be developed, involving 
regional and local actors. 

In Chapter 12, Martin Graffenberger scruti-
nises the innovation strategies of two low-technol-
ogy enterprises located in peripheral Estonian and 
German regions. The main question addressed by 
Graffenberger is how intra-firm capacities and net-
work relationships can counterbalance the unfavour-
able effects of peripherality. Based on these two cases, 
the author argues that for enterprises operating in pe-
ripheral regions, a two-folded strategy might be fruit-
ful: on the one hand, building multiple and diverse 
internal capacities (e.g. diversifying production port-
folio; technological absorption), on the other hand, 
establishing multi-scale external cooperation (with 
local, regional, national and international partners). 
In Chapter 13, Bianka Plüschke-Altof and Martiene 
Grootens investigates the role of local actors’ agency, 
using the concepts of leadership and place-making 
as analytical lenses. Though the authors agree that 
image building may function as a possible solution to 
challenges of regional polarisation, they also empha-



408 Book review section – Book review section – Hungarian Geographical Bulletin Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 68 (2019) (4) 405–415. 405–415.

sise the limitations of such strategies: the idealisation 
and responsibilisation of local leadership can turn 
into the blaming and scapegoating of those who are 
less willing or able to participate. In addition, agency-
based approaches may draw the attention from the 
structural conditions of peripheralisation. Finally, the 
authors emphasise the responsibility of researchers 
in the discursive re-making of peripheries, and they 
recommend a more dynamic and processual under-
standing of place and periphery. 

In the last part of the book, the main results of the 
preceding chapters are summarised and recommen-
dations for policy makers and researchers are pro-
vided. First, Garri Raagmaa, Erika Nagy, Franziska 
Görmar and Thilo Lang discuss the main contribu-
tions of the book in six points: (1) the regional policy 
paradox in the EU (i.e. growing regional polarisation 
despite financial support for less-developed regions); 
(2) the recent administrative (re-)centralisation trends 
in Eastern Europe; (3) globalisation and regional in-
dustrial restructuring causing further polarisation, 
in which CEE developed to a semi-periphery, spe-
cialised in labour-intensive activities; (4) the mecha-
nisms that produce inequalities; (5) the production of 
inequalities through social practices and discourses; 
and (6) methodological considerations and issues 
related to researchers’ positionality. In the last chap-
ter, Sorin Cebotari, Tomas Hanell and Thilo Lang 
formulates policy recommendations for EU, national 
and regional/local actors. These point to (1) the need 
to place spatial justice into the centre of EU cohesion 
policy; (2) the involvement of regional and local ac-
tors in policy making; (3) the role of national-level 
governments to participate in establishing support 
infrastructure at lower territorial levels; (4) the sig-
nificance of fostering human capital at the local level 
(e.g. by allocating resources for training in EU-funded 
projects); (5) the ways of how policy making and pro-
gramming should be promoted at the local level. 

To conclude the review, the volume “Regional 
and Local Development in Times of Polarisation. 
Re-Thinking Spatial Policies in Europe” undoubt-
edly holds a great scientific value. Uneven devel-
opment and regional polarisation are multi-scalar 
and complex processes and the editors of the book 
successfully tried to grasp this complexity. Their ef-
forts are mirrored by the diversity of the studies in 
terms of the scale of analysis (from the European to 
the local/micro), the applied methods (e.g. content 
analysis, qualitative interviews, computer-assisted 
text analysis – CATA, statistical methods) and the 
actors involved in the research (e.g. EU policy mak-
ers, entrepreneurs, local political leaders). They not 
only discuss the symptoms and impacts of regional 
polarisation but also engage with the reasons and 
the power relations and political structures behind, 
making a step forward to understand contemporary 
capitalism and transform it to a more progressive one. 

Nowadays, it is especially important to think about 
such issues, seeing the signs of the possible next eco-
nomic recession (e.g. Brexit, slowdown of the German 
economy, the USA-China trade war), and considering 
the preliminary policies of the EU for the 2021–2027 
period (among which innovation and competitive-
ness will probably remain key elements). Therefore, 
I wholeheartedly recommend this book, not only for 
scholars in the fields of regional development and 
policy, spatial planning and geography, but for all 
those who want to better understand the spatial dy-
namics of contemporary Europe. 

Acknowledgements: This book review has been made 
with the support of the Hungarian National Research, 
Development and Innovation Office (NKFI) grant 
number K124938.

Szabolcs Fabula1 

R E F E R E N C E S

European Commission 2017. Competitiveness in 
low-income and low-growth regions: The lagging 
regions report. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/
regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/
lagging_regions%20report_en.pdf (last accessed: 
05.09.2019).

European Union 2012. Consolidated version of the Treaty 
on the Functioning of the European Union. Available 
at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/tfeu_2012/oj 
(last accessed: 05.09.2019)

Harvey, D. 1973. Social Justice and the City. Oxford, 
Blackwell.

Soja, E. 2010. Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis, 
University of Minnesota Press.

1 Department of Economic and Social Geography,  
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University 
of Szeged. E-mail: fabula.szabolcs@geo.u-szeged.hu.