The geography of peripherality: a state of place or a state of mind? The voice of territories

In a moment when social cohesion and development opportunities are more than ever put at stake and challenged, it becomes of paramount importance to understand the determinants of development and implications of citizens’ reaction to a perceived increase of inequalities and socio-economic polarisation between – and within – territories to prevent a geography of inequalities from degenerating to a “geography of discontent”. Besides, reducing territorial inequalities is not only a question of political and moral duty, but also bears economic implications. Academic research and international observers, such as the OECD in its annual Regional Outlooks, report that income inequalities and slow growth may jeopardise opportunities and hinder the general stability and the long-term development of a territory within and outside its boundaries. The relationship between efficiency and equity assumes thus a central role for policies intending to reduce social unbalances and foster economic and political convergence processes of territorial cohesion. The aim of this research is to propose a theoretical model re-interpreting the concept of peripherality through a multi-dimensional window and exploring its different components. To this end, the line of reasoning builds on the assumption that approaching the investigation on territorial development simply from a socio-economic point of view does not suffice. This is particularly relevant in the case of non-core territories where literature has shown the failure of ordinary approaches that have fallen short of expectations and with a relatively low durable impact due to the missing link with territorial needs and capabilities. Using Italy as an empirical case, the thesis hence aims to draw a comprehensive appreciation of the many factors involved in peripherality and the way in which it forms, examining medium to long-term tendencies and the effects of sudden shocks, while adopting different territorial lenses to providing some food for thoughts on how to counterbalance peripherality and contrast peripheralisation. In this respect, in order to shed some light on the “black box” of territorial development whereby some regions do grow above or below average in certain time periods, the hypothesis to be tested is whether peripherality is a state, de facto, or rather a process of “peripheralisation” accounting for the (either real or perceived) distance from policy-making centres and the feeling of an uneven strength of democratic voice experienced by local communities about their own future. With the intention of contributing to an advance in knowledge on the causes and effects of geographical and political remoteness, the concept of peripherality will be used to examine social fractures and territorial cleavages from an economic geography perspective. In the three parts that make up the thesis, relations among places will be addressed not simply in terms of geographical (Euclidean) distance from “centres” but also of “social” and “perceptual” one, moving from two basic assumptions: 1) peripherality is not only a state but also a process relying on two components: physical and perceived social and economic distance; 2) the capability of a peripheral territory to fulfil its potential depends on its ability to propose solutions to remedy the shortage of infrastructure, economic investment, or political representation necessary that hinders its development. To this end, the results of each step will also be interpreted to highlight which strategies territories and communities have put in place to step up their voices along vertical (towards the top) or horizontal (among similar) trajectories to reaffirm their uniqueness, role and importance in the context of a harmonious and cohesive territorial development. Against this backdrop, Chapter I moves from the assumption that marginal territories are not doomed to slow-burning/lock-in processes but rather, against all odds, some of them are able to step out of the spiral and embark on a development path. To prove it, the paper explores the possible determinants of the vibrancy (i.e., experiencing a stable demographic growth pattern) of Italian inner areas municipalities within the theoretical framework of adaptive capacity. Within this framework adaptability entails the capacity of a system to react to unexpected disturbances and learn from it to improve its conditions relying on its resources and assets. Despite having adopted a holistic approach and investigated a wide range of possible socio-economic dimensions free of any pre-assigned weighting and confirmed the positive effects of demographic and labour-skills related factors on population dynamics, the outcomes of the work have also shown that a large part remains unexplained. Chapter II addresses the role of factors and endowments to account for the real and subjective perception of peripherality building on the idea that the relationship among territories is also a consequence of the perception of being at the margin of political and economic attention, as the rewards of economic development appear to have reached some places more than others. Extending Hirschman’s classic exit-voice model, the paper frames the effects of economic disturbances occurred in the past 40 years on voters’ reactions. In particular the paper investigates the characteristics of territories voicing a request for ‘more participation’ to political choices regarding one’s future, or for ‘more protection’ of identity values and economic self-determination vis-à-vis those who, drastically on the other side of the spectrum, exhibited their resentment by exiting the political arena and abandoning any type of participation. Interestingly, despite the common narrative describing places having experienced a long-term socio-economic decline as a potential breeding ground for protest voting against the incumbent governments, some places have not shifted to a resentful claim of their grievance in the ballot boxes calling for further investigations on what the possible determinants of those “contented” places might be. In the final search of what are the enabling factors countering peripheralisation, Chapter III questions whether this “unexplained” might be accounted for institutional factors and for the capacity of a territory to establish a constructive relationship with decision-making centres to express its voice and needs. Therefore, against an objective spatial peripherality what may matter more is an “exclusion from networks”: being on the (spatial) edge of a territory does not necessarily lead to marginalisation as far as the local actors manage to build, through territorial governance arrangements, an institutionally-thick mesh able to empower them with the right knowledge and instruments in the quest of resources to develop a solution to a collective problem of development.