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CENTRAL EUROPEAN SERVICE FOR CROSS-BORDER INITIATIVES CROSS-BORDER REVIEW YEARBOOK 2018 1406 Budapest, Pf. 7. www.cesci-net.eu [email protected] Cross-Border Review CESCI Yearbook 2018 Editor-in-Chief: Dr. hab. James W. Scott Professor of Regional and Border Studies University of Eastern Finland Editor-in-Chief Dr. hab. James Scott, Professor of Regional and Border Studies University of Eastern Finland, Karelian Institute Editorial board Martin Barthel, University of Eastern Finland, Karelian Institute Prof. Henk van Houtum, Department of Geography, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands Dr. hab. Jarosław Jańczak, Lehrstuhl Europa-Studien, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Germany Dr. Jussi Laine, University of Eastern Finland, Karelian Institute Prof. Iwona Sagan, Department of Economic Geography, University of Gdańsk, Poland Dr. Christophe Sohn, Luxembourg Institute for Socio-Economic Research, Luxembourg Authors Andreas Faludi, Professor Emeritus Delft University of Technology ([email protected]) Milan Jeřábek, Charles University Prague ( [email protected]) Hynek Böhm, Charles University Prague ([email protected]) Jaroslav Dokoupil, Charles University Prague (Jaroslav@rqgenesis. com) Andrea Halmos, Policy Officer, DG CNECT, European Commission ([email protected]) Christophe Sohn, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research ([email protected]) James W. SCOTT, University of Eastern Finland, Karelian Institute ( [email protected]) Marco Bontje, University of Amsterdam ([email protected]) Jussi P. LAINE, University of Eastern Finland, Karelian Institute ([email protected]) Daniel Rauhut, University of Eastern Finland, Karelian Institute ([email protected]) Cross-Border Review Yearbook 2018 Contents James W Scott: Introduction: Situatedness at the Boundary: Cross-Border Cooperation between Theory, Practice and Political Reality ......................... 3 Articles ........................................................................................7 Andreas Faludi: Cross-Border Cooperation - Subverting Sovereignty? .....7 Milan Jeřábek, Jaroslav Dokoupil, Hynek Böhm: The Euroregion Šumava – Bayerischer Wald/Unterer Inn – Mühlviertel as a Laboratory of Cross- Border Relations Changes Caused by Political Decisions ............................. 23 Andrea Halmos: Cross-border digital public services ................................. 55 Christophe Sohn, James W Scott: The symbolic role of an invisible border in the Genevan borderscape ................................................................. 67 Marco Bontje: Competing, Collaborating or Integrating? Changing Cross-border Relationships of Hong Kong and Shenzhen .......................... 93 Jussi P. Laine, Daniel Rauhut: When Reality Does Not Meet Expectations: Refugee Experiences from Finland and Sweden ............................................ 117 Review Section .......................................................................139 Garrard John and Ekaterina Mikhailova (eds) (2018): Twin Cities: Urban Communities, Borders and Relationships over Time. Routledge, Abingdon. pp. 334. (Fabio Santos) .......................................................................................139 Alexander Duleba and col. (2017): Hranice a cezhraničná spolupráca: Úvod do výskumu hraníc. Výskumné centrum Slovenskej spoločnosti pre zahraničnú politiku, Prešovská Univerzita, pp. 151. (Teodor Gyelnik) ..... 142 A review of Jarosław Jańczak – Integration de-scaled. Symbolic Manifestations of Cross-border and European Integration in Border Twin Town. Journal of Borderland Studies, 33 (3): 393-413. (Teodor Gyelnik) 148 Conference Reports ...............................................................155 1 Cross-Border Review Yearbook 2018 Introduction: Situatedness at the Boundary: Cross- Border Cooperation between Theory, Practice and Political Reality James W Scott University of Eastern Finland Welcome to the 2018 edition of the Cross Border Review. This edition is broadly focused on approaches to studying cross-border interaction as a political pro- cess. As two major conferences in 2018 demonstrated - for a report see the final section of this volume - the politics of borders has become a major academic and policy concern due to the interlinked nature of territories, identities, social cohesion and well-being. In more mundane terms, the promise of cross-border cooperation (CBC) is that of providing new political spaces beyond state territo- riality that flexibly address social affairs, economic development, minority rights, cross-border employment and trade, the environment, and other issues. Proces- ses of cooperation, in particular at the regional and local level, have encouraged us to think and speak of borders as something inherently positive – as sites of re-bordering where, among others, processes of dialogue, common problem- solving, mutual trust-building and a new sense of place and region can emerge. At the same time, also CBC problematizes globalization as both encounter and confrontation, the negotiation of which is seldom straightforward. CBC therefo- re also influences thinking about borders by highlighting the complex and often conflictual nature of social interaction across boundaries. In this volume, we offer a number of articles that again deal with very different perspectives on cross-border interaction and cooperation (CBC), both within Europe and in the intriguing case of Hong Kong-Shenzhen. In the first article, Andreas Faludi opens discussion on a highly thoughtful note regarding the significance of state borders within the no longer de-bordering European Union. Faludi’s concern is with the persistent role of territoriality in conditioning cross-border cooperation contexts. As he argues, one of the main battlegrounds in this context are the EU’s Structural and Investment Funds, Scott, James W. (ed.) (2018): Cross-Border Review, European Institute of Cross-Border Studies - Central European Service for Cross-border Initiatives (CESCI), Budapest, pp. 3-6. / ISSN 2064-6704 3 Introduction: Situatedness at the Boundary James W Scott arenas where the – unsuccessful – struggle over European spatial planning has taken place. Maybe because there is less funding available, cross-border, trans- national and inter-regional Territorial Cooperation seems a minor concern. But the borderlands involved still, and in their own specific ways, counteract the ter- ritoriality of states. This might help explain why the Commission, supported by the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions keeps on promoting cooperation across borders. Milan Jeřábek, Jaroslav Dokoupil and Hynek Böhm follow with empirical evidence for the local resilience of CBC from the almost 30 years’ experience of Czech border regions. In their article, they argue that Euroregions with Austria and Bavaria are examples of co-operation between an “old” Europe and the “new” Europe which emerged in the 1990’s. These Euroregion are moreover examples of Central European spaces where major shifts in cross border relations have occurred, conditioned by memories of historical conflict and desires for greater mutual understanding. Another example of pragmatic cooperation within Euro- pe is provided by the emergence of cross-border digital public services and the construction of a Single Digital Gateway. In her contribution, Andrea Halmos presents a series of European projects that could be of great potential interest to inhabitants of and commuters in border regions who regularly need to access public services in more than one EU member state. Her article highlights the shared principles that allowed these solutions to emerge and how these could bring concrete benefits to Europe’s border regions and the EU at large. Above the beyond the pragmatic nature of cooperation strategies, borders as well as CBC are rich in socio-political and cultural symbolism. To the extent that bor- ders stimulate emotions and empathy, the ability to mobilize their meaning-ma- king capacity is at the heart of symbolic border politics, both for proponents of open borders and cross-border cooperation and reactionary forces that empha- size national interests and ontological insecurity. In a contribution that focuses on Greater Geneva, Christophe Sohn and James Scott explore the symbolic role and meaning of national borders in a cross-border regional context. The main argu- ment is that the transformation of borders is more than just a ‘political’ act but is part of a complex process of symbolization. For cross-border cooperation initiati- ves, the issues at stake go beyond the mere reduction of barrier effects and deal with the change of the symbolic effectiveness of borders. In order to broaden our understanding of borders’ meaning-making capacity, this study looks at what happens when the border is apparently not the object of a particular material staging aimed at its symbolic recoding. 4 Cross-Border Review Yearbook 2018 The example of Greater Geneva constitutes an emblematic case of cross-border cooperation that seeks to develop a cross-border urban agglomeration marked by the ‘erasure’ of the French-Swiss border. Rather than an absence of sym- bolization, we hypothesize the symbolization of the border through its ‘absent presence’. Through its ‘invisibilization’, the border is recoded as a ‘planned ob- solescence’ in the Genevan borderscape. However, dissonance between this re- coding by cross-border cooperation elites and popular imaginations weakens the cooperation project. On the one hand,