City-regional studies under political geography perspective and its implications to China

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1004-9479.2020.02.2019433

Abstract

Abstract:

The rise of city-regionalism poses a regional turn for a variety of political, administrative and regulatory issues. Though global city-region and state rescaling have been powerful meta-theory for interpreting such governance transformation, they have been blamed for overstating the role of capital and underestimating the significance of nation-state and politics. Critical attention is thus turning towards achieving a better understanding of how the rise of city-regionalism is contingently caught up in the interplay between political construct, geopolitical rationalities and scalar tensions. Given the Chinese backdrop of promoting urban agglomeration and new-type urbanization, the city-regional studies under the perspective of political geography offers implications to interpreting city-regional development with Chinese characteristics. It is hence argued in the paper that future research agenda should pay serious attention to discourse construct, geopolitical processes and politics of collective provision in the study of Chinese city-regionalism. The new research pathway under the theoretical framework of political geography is to stimulate more critical debate on Chinese city-regional policy and territorial development.

Key words: city-region, political geography, nation-state, governance

摘要：

自21世纪初以来，有关全球城市区域的研究在西方快速崛起，掀起了一股治理与政策的“区域转向”浪潮。新经济地理学与政治经济学派最先开创了城市区域的理论研究，但其理论解释偏重城市区域的经济发展与资本再地域化过程，忽视了政治与政策对城市区域的重要影响。近年来，政治地理学从城市区域的建构属性、战略属性和矛盾属性3个方面切入，旨在揭示现实中城市区域的实际形成过程与机制。本文认为西方政治地理视角有助于揭示城市区域形成过程中的权力关系及其政治工具性。特别是通过解析城市区域政策的话语建构过程、分析城市区域发展所折射出的国家地缘战略选择以及剖析城市区域发展过程中的公共资源分配等议题，可帮助研究者跳出就政策谈政策的讨论陷阱，更能从整体格局上审视不同利益主体在城市区域发展过程中的诉求与冲突，进而为解读和反思我国城市区域形成过程与治理机制提供新的研究思路。

关键词: 城市区域, 政治地理, 国家, 治理

Yi LI, Qin KANG, Xianchun ZHANG. City-regional studies under political geography perspective and its implications to China[J]. World Regional Studies, 2020, 29(2): 275-283.

李禕, 康琴, 张衔春. 政治地理视角下的西方城市区域研究进展及其启示[J]. 世界地理研究, 2020, 29(2): 275-283.

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