Border-regional resilience in EU internal and external border areas in Finland

Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola

European Planning Studies, 2019, vol. 27, issue 8, 1587-1606

Abstract: European border regions have witnessed a long history of remarkable mobility shocks stemming from complex ecological and economic changes and geopolitical events. The experience of near-continuous regional and global crisis has increased interest towards the idea of resilience, that is, the ability of communities and regions to adapt and cope with disturbances and transitions. Inspired by the literature of regional resilience and the evolutionary approach, this paper will examine the difference that borders and geopolitical conditions make from the perspective of regional resilience and especially ‘border-regional resilience’. Particular focus will be on irregular cross-border mobilities and consequent transitions in EU external and internal border towns, here the Finnish towns of Lappeenranta and Tornio. The study points out that the geopolitical environment and the openness of the border partly determine the regional development trajectories and the ways of coping with cross-border mobility-related changes. Although the border location entails some vulnerability, formal and informal cross-border institutions and relations of trust are of crucial importance from the perspective of border-regional resilience. The paper proposes a research agenda for studying border-regional resilience in the context of environmental, economic and social changes and geopolitical events.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2019.1595531 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:27:y:2019:i:8:p:1587-1606

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2019.1595531

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().