The army, the city and the State : military retrenchment, urban policies and the transformations of territorial integration in France and Italy ; L'armée, les villes, l'État. Restructurations militaires et politiques urbaines : les transformations de l'intégration territoriale en France et en Italie

Abstract

Issues regarding local policies and territorial differentiation have risen as a result of three contemporary phenomena: sectorial structural adjustments and their corresponding territorial impacts; the rescaling of political authority; and the emergence of a variety of local governance models. This dissertation analyses the evolution of six cities, historically modelled by national defence policy, in light of recent defence policy reforms and the rise in local government competencies. The scope of the analysis covers six cities, three in France and three in Italy. The dissertation demonstrates the need to analyse locally-specific forms of national and local public intervention; and their reciprocal interactions; in order to understand urban and social evolutions. It develops a framework inspired by historical sociology of the State that conceptualizes the links between public policy and territorial structuring and integration. On one hand, territorial retrenchment of national defence policy varies across cities, as a result of negotiations between central defence and financial administrations, and increasing local government lobbying of the central State. On the other hand, it illustrates the varying degrees to which local governments are capable of organising and managing public intervention; and can transform spaces that are historically structured by the State. This capacity hinges upon the nature of urban political agendas; the existing means of institutionalised collective action; as well as upon the ways in which the State operates in cities. The dissertation helps redefine central/local relations in the context of decentralization and budgetary constraints. ; Les restructurations sectorielles et leurs différents effets localisés, le réétalonnage des échelles de l'autorité politique, les modes de gouvernement propres à chaque ville soulèvent une question sur les recompositions de l'action publique et la différenciation territoriale. Cette recherche prend pour objet le changement des villes historiquement ...