European spatial planning as governmentality: an inquiry into rationalities, techniques, and manifestations

• Published in: Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy
• Main Authors: Moisio, Sami, Luukkonen, Juho
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2015
• Subjects: Northern Finland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/c13158; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1068/c13158

As a governing process in which ‘European political space’ is dissected and regulated, the EU’s nascent spatial planning opens up a number of empirical and conceptual challenges for research. Even if the ‘governmentalization of Europe’ and the associated mechanisms, tactics, instruments, vocabularies, and technologies through which the power and rule of the EU are effected have been examined, the concept of governmentality offers a useful perspective to explicate European spatial planning. We analyze European spatial planning through the lens of governmentality and offer an ethnographic take on the issue of European spatial planning by problematizing the manifestations of the EU in spatial planning practices in northern Finland.