Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – the Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’
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A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Franz, Peter; Hornych, Christoph Working Paper Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – The Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’ IWH Discussion Papers, No. 6/2009 Provided in Cooperation with: Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association Suggested Citation: Franz, Peter; Hornych, Christoph (2009) : Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – The Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’, IWH Discussion Papers, No. 6/2009, Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH), Halle (Saale), http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:2-8722 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/29962 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu Institut für Halle Institute for Economic Research Wirtschaftsforschung Halle Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – The Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’ Peter Franz and Christoph Hornych März 2009 Nr. 6 IWH-Diskussionspapiere IWH-Discussion Papers Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – The Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’ Peter Franz and Christoph Hornych März 2009 Nr. 6 IWH __________________________________________________________________ Autoren: Dr. Peter Franz Department Urban Economics Email: [email protected] Phone: +49 345 77 53-755 Christoph Hornych Department Urban Economics Email: [email protected] Phone: +49 345 77 53-743 The responsibility for discussion papers lies solely with the individual authors. The views ex- pressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the IWH. The papers represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion with the author. Citation of the discussion pa- pers should account for their provisional character; a revised version may be available directly from the author. Comments and suggestions on the methods and results presented are welcome. IWH-Discussion Papers are indexed in RePEc-Econpapers and in ECONIS. Herausgeber: INSTITUT FÜR WIRTSCHAFTSFORSCHUNG HALLE – IWH Prof. Dr. Ulrich Blum (Präsident), Dr. Hubert Gabrisch (Forschungsdirektor) Das IWH ist Mitglied der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft Hausanschrift: Kleine Märkerstraße 8, 06108 Halle (Saale) Postanschrift: Postfach 11 03 61, 06017 Halle (Saale) Telefon: (0345) 77 53-60 Telefax: (0345) 77 53-8 20 Internetadresse: http://www.iwh-halle.de 2 IWH-Diskussionspapiere 6/2009 __________________________________________________________________ IWH Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – The Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’ Abstract The rising attention of politicians as well as scientists in the EU to the large urban ag- glomerations as centres of economic growth is accompanied by political efforts to iden- tify and to demarcate such agglomerations under the label ‘metropolitan regions’. This study develops a theoretical framework broaching the issue of cooperation between mu- nicipalities from the perspective of regional economics as well as political science. The framework is applied to the empirical case of the polycentric metropolitan region ‘Sax- ony Triangle’ in East Germany. The results show that various intervening factors pre- vent intense cooperation between the actors in the region. Policy implications and con- clusions for future research are discussed. Key Words: Polycentric Urban Regions, Metropolitan Regions, Saxony Triangle, Coop- eration, Agglomeration, Correspondence Analysis JEL: R12, R53, R58 IWH-Diskussionspapiere 6/2009 3 IWH __________________________________________________________________ Politische Institutionalisierung und ökonomische Spezialisierung in polyzentrischen Metropolregionen – Das Beispiel des ostdeutschen „Sachsendreiecks“ Zusammenfassung Die zunehmende Aufmerksamkeit, die große städtische Agglomerationen als Zentren wirtschaftlichen Wachstums von Seiten der Politik und der Wissenschaft erfahren, wird von den Bemühungen begleitet, derartige Agglomerationen als „Metropolregionen“ zu identifizieren und abzugrenzen. Die Studie entwickelt einen theoretischen Rahmen, der die Kooperationen zwischen den Stadtverwaltungen sowohl aus regionalökonomischer als auch aus politikwissenschaftlicher Sicht betrachtet. Dieser Rahmen wird empirisch auf das „Sachsendreieck“ in Ostdeutschland angewendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ver- schiedene Faktoren, die eine intensive Kooperation zwischen den Akteuren der Region erschweren. Politische Implikationen und Folgerungen für künftige Forschung werden diskutiert. Schlagworte: Polyzentrische Stadtregion, Metropolregionen, Sachsen-Dreieck, Zu- sammenarbeit, Ballungsraum, Korrespondenz-Analyse JEL: R12, R53, R58 4 IWH-Diskussionspapiere 6/2009 __________________________________________________________________ IWH Political Institutionalisation and Economic Specialisation in Polycentric Metropolitan Regions – The Case of the East-German ‘Saxony Triangle’ 1 Introduction The rising attention of politicians as well as scientists in the EU for the large urban ag- glomerations functioning as national and international economic hubs and growth cen- tres (Kraetke 2007) is accompanied by political efforts to optimize their spatial organi- sation and to improve their standing in the worldwide locational competition. This trend leads to efforts to identify and to demarcate such agglomerations under the label ‘metro- politan regions’ (‘Metropolregionen’). Unlike the US American SMSAs these metropol- itan regions are no statistical units, but are based on voluntary unions of several terri- torial jurisdictions, including large cities, smaller cities and counties adjacent to them. The actors in such newly defined metropolitan regions usually have the option to re- spond proactively by means of ‘bottom up’ initiatives, or, in case of lacking ‘bottom up’ activities, to react to ‘top down’ stimuli set by national or regional governments. In this context the very decision at the national level to lay down a certain number of metropol- itan regions may work as an initiating ‘top down’ stimulus. Starting from an actor-oriented perspective, these political efforts directed to establish metropolitan regions confront the actors in these territorial jurisdictions with new and added challenges. These challenges refer to their capability and propensity for coopera- tion crossing borders of municipalities as well as of administrative departments. So mu- nicipalities find themselves in a situation similar to private firms considering to start network relations with other firms. 1 From this point of view the capability to cooperate represents a basic and scarce resource in the course of constituting a metropolitan re- gion. The reflections to follow will focus on the question what conditions ease or com- plicate cooperation between municipalities with reference to building metropolitan re- gions. This question will be exemplified at the metropolitan region ‘Saxony Triangle’ strived for in the southern part of East Germany comprising the Saxonian cities Dres- den, Leipzig, Chemnitz, and Halle in Saxony-Anhalt. The polycentric structure of the researched ‘Saxony Triangle’ on the one hand fuels the assumption that in this case the resource of capability to cooperate will play a more crit- ical role in the process of region-building as in monocentric regions. On the other hand 1 „The metropoles have to define themselves as nuclei of regional networks that can reach their goals only in cooperation with the partners in their surroundings” ( Sinz 2005, p. III; authors’ translation). IWH-Diskussionspapiere 6/2009 5 IWH __________________________________________________________________ this polycentric structure involves a potential of economic specialisation processes tak- ing part over time with the possible result of a kind of division of labour between the ci- ties of the metropolitan region. The empirical study will work on both the political and the economic side of cooperation. The sections of this paper are structured as follows: In Section 2 a conceptual and theo- retical framework is developed, and some factors conducive and obstructive to coopera- tion are discussed. In Section 3 the process of region-building in the ‘Saxony Triangle’