Territorial Cohesion Discourses: Hegemonic Strategic Concepts in European Spatial Planning

The paper ¹ 1. The elaboration of this paper was supported by the European Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no 217157 (Social Polis). Further information on www.socialpolis.eu. reflects on the EU objective of territorial cohesion, exploring its role as a catalytic concept around which several (spatial and non-spatial) discourses and policy practices have been generated in European Spatial Planning. The assumption is that these discourses act as cultural constructions which define the strategic selectivity of EU institutions and strategically orientate the selective calculation of stakeholders' behaviour and their policy-making activities. The paper further explores the contents of spatial planning discourses related to the territorial cohesion objective analysing the EU official literature and highlighting general trends and main focuses. It provides an interpretative framework based on four categories: “principles”, “territorial dimensions”, “strategic policy options”, and “governance aspects”.