This paper examines the proliferation of soft spaces of governance, focusing on planning. We move beyond more functional explanations to explore the politics of soft spaces, more specifically how soft space forms of governance operate as integral to processes of neoliberalisation, highlighting how such state forms facilitate neoliberalisation through their flexibility and variability. Recent state restructuring of the planning sector and emerging trends for soft spaces in England under the Coalition government proposals are discussed.
AlbrechtsL, 2006, “Bridge the gap: From spatial planning to strategic projects”European Planning Studies141487–1500
2.
AllmendingerP, 2011New Labour and Planning. From New Right to New Left (Routledge, London)
3.
AllmendingerPHaughtonG, 2009, “Soft spaces, fuzzy boundaries and metagovernance: The new spatial planning in the Thames Gateway”Environment and Planning A41617–633
4.
AllmendingerPThomasH (Eds), 1998Urban Planning and the British New Right (Routledge, London)
5.
BrennerN, 2004New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
Communities and Local Government, 2011Draft National Planning Policy Framework July, Department for Communities and Local Government, London
9.
Conservative Party, 2010Open Source PlanningConservative Party, London
10.
CounsellDHaughtonG, 2006, “Sustainable development in regional planning: The search for new tools and renewed legitimacy”Geoforum37921–931
11.
DavoudiSStrangeI, 2009, “Space and place in twentieth century planning: An analytical framework and an historical overview”, in Conceptions of Space and Place in Strategic Spatial Planning Eds DavoudiSStrangeIRoutledge, London) pp 7–42
12.
DührS, 2011, “Baltic Sea, Danube and macro-regional strategies: A model for transnational cooperation in the EU?”, working paper, May; http://www.ru.nl/scapes/koppeling/gpm/duhr/.
13.
FaludiA K F, 2010, “Beyond Lisbon: Soft European spatial planning”Disp182(3) 14–24
14.
GallentNHamiduddinI, 2012, “Housing and growth under the new regime”, in Changing Gear—Is Localism the New Regionalism? Eds WardMHardySThe Smith Institute, London) pp 107–116
15.
HarrisonJ, 2010, “Networks of connectivity, territorial fragmentation, uneven development: The new politics of city-regionalism”Political Geography2917–27
16.
HaughtonG, 1999, “Trojan horse or white elephant? The contested biography of the life and times of the Leeds Development Corporation”Town Planning Review70173–190
17.
HaughtonG, 2012, “Planning and growth”, in Changing Gear—is Localism the New Regionalism? Eds WardMHardySThe Smith Institute, London) pp 95–105
18.
HaughtonGCounsellD, 2004Regions, Spatial Strategies and Sustainable Development (Routledge, London)
19.
HaughtonGAllmendingerPCounsellDVigarG, 2010The New Spatial Planning: Territorial Management with Soft Spaces and Fuzzy Boundaries (Routledge, London)
20.
HeleyJJonesM, 2012, “Devolution and Wales—fiddling with spatial governance whilst the economy burns”, in Changing Gear—is Localism the New Regionalism? Eds WardMHardySThe Smith Institute, London) pp 55–65
21.
HildrethPBaileyD, 2012, “What are the economics behind the move to LEPs?” in Changing Gear—is Localism the New Regionalism? Eds WardMHardySThe Smith Institute, London) pp 25–33
22.
HM Government, 2010aLocal Growth. Realising Every Place's Potential Cm 7961, (The Stationery Office, London)
23.
HM Government, 2010bDecentralisation and Localism Bill (The Stationery Office, London)
24.
InchA, 2010, “Culture change as identity regulation: The micro-politics of producing spatial planners in England”Planning Theory and Practice11359–374
25.
LemkeT, 2002, “Foucault, governmentality and critique”Rethinking Marxism14(3) 49–64
26.
LemkeT, 2007, “An indigestible meal? Foucault, governmentality and state theory”Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory8(2) 43–64
27.
LoveringJ, 2007, “The relationship between urban regeneration and neoliberalism: Two presumptuous theories and a research agenda”International Planning Studies12343–366
28.
LuukkonenJMoilanenH, 2012, “Territoriality in the strategies and practices of the Territorial Cohesion Policy of the European Union: Territorial challenges in implementing ‘soft planning’”European Planning Studies20481–500
29.
MarchartO, 2007Post-Foundational Political Thought. Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh)
30.
Martínez-AlierJPascualUVivienF-DZaccaiE, 2010, “Sustainable degrowth: Mapping the context, criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm”Ecological Economics691741–1747
31.
MetzgerJSchmittP, 2012, “When soft spaces harden: The EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region”Environment and Planning A44263–280
32.
MouffeC, 2005On the Political (Routledge, London)
33.
ODPM, 2003Sustainable Communities in the South EastOffice of the Deputy Prime Minister (The Stationery Office, London)
34.
OosterlynckSSwyngedouwE, 2010, “Noise reduction: The postpolitical quandary of night flights at Brussels airport”Environment and Planning A421577–1594
35.
PaasiA, 2010, “Commentary. Regions are social constructs, but who or what ‘constructs’ them? Agency in question”Environment and Planning A422296–2301
36.
PainterJ, 2008, “Cartographic anxiety and the search for regionality”Environment and Planning A40342–361
37.
PeckJ, 2010Constructions of Neoliberal Reason (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
38.
PeckJTheodoreN, 2007, “Variegated capitalism”Progress in Human Geography31731–772
39.
PeckJTickellA, 1992, “Local modes of social regulation? Regulation theory, Thatcherism and uneven development”Geoforum23347–363
40.
PeckJTickellA, 1995, “The social regulation of uneven development: ‘regulatory deficit’, England's South East and the collapse of Thatcherism”Environment and Planning A2715–40
RacoM, 2005, “Sustainable development, rolled-out neoliberalism and sustainable communities”Antipode37324–347
43.
RancièreJ, 1995On the Shores of Politics (Verso, London)
44.
RancièreJ, 1999Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
45.
RancièreJ, 2001, “Ten theses on politics”Theory and Event5(3)
46.
RancièreJ, 2006Hatred of Democracy (Verso, London)
47.
RoseNMillerP, 1992, “Political power beyond the state: Problematic of government”British Journal of Sociology43173–205
48.
SearleGBunkerR, 2010, “New century Australian spatial planning: Recentralization under Labor”Planning Practice and Research25517–529
49.
SteadD, 2011, “Policy and planning brief. European macro-regional strategies: Indications of spatial rescaling?”Planning Theory and Practice12163–167
50.
SwyngedouwE, 2007, “Impossible ‘sustainability’ and the postpolitical condition”, in The Sustainable Development Paradox Eds GibbsDKruegerRGuilford Press, New York) pp 13–40
ThornleyA, 1993Urban Planning Under Thatcherism. The Challenge of the Market2nd edition (Routledge, London)
53.
VigarGHealeyPHullADavoudiS, 2000Planning, Governance and Spatial Strategy in Britain: An Institutionalist Analysis (Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
54.
WaterhoutB, 2010, “Soft spaces and governance: The transformation of planning”, in Global Challenges and Local Responses Eds BalducciATaipaleKAesop, Helsinki) pp 1–19
