Regionalism (politics)
Referred regionalism
- The pursuit of creation of institutions in a geographic region that are authorized to make autonomous decisions, or by expansion of the powers of existing institutions,
- The identification of people with a region or the exaggeration of this attitude and
- Region-specific expressions in a language of literature and art.
The term regionalism differs from that of regionalization; through these to human relations and trade relations within a geographic region are amplified.
Political and economic regionalism
Regions within states and on the edge of several states
As regionalism refers to the tendency of people away to smaller regions through regionalization of decision-making powers from the national level or from the level of a province to shift, which must be formally created until partially for this purpose. A form of regionalization may be that smaller units (eg counties ) are combined and get new tasks. The regionalization of the opposite process is called unitarisation.
Regions represent areas of medium size: they are smaller than the states to which they belong, but larger than cities or towns. As "states" are in this context not only nation states but ( in states ) also states, which may also be associated regions of the nation-state, however. Regionalization within federal states provides, for example the introduction of a regional teacher training dar.
Regions can be grown over time and be recognized and enhanced by regionalization ( this happened for example in the course of recovery as a federal state of Saxony, on the occasion of the reunification of Germany in 1990 ); but they can also be arbitrarily newly formed (Examples: the division of France into departments in the wake of the French Revolution or the division of the German Democratic Republic in 14 districts in 1952 ).
Regionalism can also assume complicated shapes: So the state of Baden -Wuerttemberg was founded in 1952 ( a new region within Germany) to strengthen historically grown smaller regions in the southwest of Germany.
Regions of the EU, where the demand for regionalization initially met with resistance on the part of each nation-state, were in the 1980s: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland; Brittany, Occitania and Alsace; the Basque Country and Catalonia; and finally South Tyrol. Meanwhile, the regions mentioned, however, autonomy rights have been granted to a large extent. The concept of a Europe of the regions is based on the idea that it should give the European Union levels of law in all states that are similar to that of a German Land.
There are also regions that transcend national boundaries. In a number of regions Europe a cooperation between adjacent regions is practiced, who define themselves as a unified cross-border areas or defined as such by the EU. The idea of overcoming historical boundaries for the production of a cooperation between neighbors is also regionalization initiatives based on how the cities quartet Damme Diepholz - wages - Vechta. By this Städt quartet also the centuries-old denomination limit to be overcome within Lower Saxony, which was until 1946 at the same time a state border ( between Oldenburg and Hanover and Prussia).
Guy Héraud, supporters of an " ethno- national European federalism ", predicted in 1968 that there be only a single sovereignty in the future instead of " German, French, Italian etc. sovereignty [ ...] [ will ], which in turn under the requirement of the federal polity highly diluted [ is ]: the European sovereignty. " Borders within Europe would therefore be redrawn along ethnic lines by regions as "Tirol" to create ( should belong to the then South Tyrol). Such regions would develop into regional states, which would report directly to the EU and only dependent on the outskirts of decisions of the current nation-states would be to which they belong today.
Bruno Luverà criticized this radical form of regionalism that "the risk of creating an insular island of regional egoism is like the danger that the Euregio means to overcome the Statute of Autonomy [ Südtitols ], ie the constitutional pact to control the ethnic conflict. "
A form of regionalism is the idea of regional economic cycles. Due to the reputation of the providers in their region as well as the opportunity to personally check whether these providers make products sustainable and market confidence in the quality of the offered products to be awakened. Even traffic flows are minimized and the environment are relieved.
Global regions
In international relations areas are up to the size of continents as " regions". Here, too, leaves the definition of the term " region" to apply as a " region of average size ": World regions are smaller than the world, but larger than individual states. In this sense, the term " regionalism " to the tendency of nation-states to unite in international collaborations that identify themselves via the membership of a particular region of the world.
Prominent examples for resulting regional organizations are the EU, ASEAN, NAFTA, Mercosur, etc. Especially in the 1990s, regionalism has become so widespread that it as an important link between the national level on the one hand and inter-regional or global level on the other hand serves.
Regionalism in social psychology
In social psychology called " regionalism " identification with a positively evaluated regional -group (Example: "We Saxons "). Emil Küng interpreted the positive assessment of the regional as a " return to the advantages of small and visible at one glance ." So many people have an aversion against move to an area where another dialect is spoken.
The flipside of the emphasis of regional identity often is the devaluation of those who do not belong to the regional in-group, ie in xenophobia. Regionalist xenophobia refers not only to members of another ethnic group, but also to people who were born as a citizen of the same real-world state in another region of that state and grew up (example: the negative attitude of many people in occupied Germany after 1945 towards refugees and displaced persons from East Prussia, Pomerania or Silesia). Regionalism can relate to people even today, posing as members of the same ethnic group as the xenophobic feel Adjusted and suffered from abroad (eg on German repatriates ).
Explained by such regionalists dealing with more autonomy for their region, ie, with regionalization in the strict sense of the word, not content, is denied that the State in which is situated the region, is a nation-state, and one's own region is the " nation ". This attitude, which often opens in separatist movements, is also designated as a regional nationalism.
Xenophobic variants of regionalism or regional nationalism put under German law a violation of the prohibition of discrimination against people because of their " homeland and origin " ( wording of Article 3, paragraph 3 GG) dar.
Regionalism in linguistics
Linguists call " regionalism " terms that are common only in certain regions of a language area (example: Hardly a North German knows what " cauliflower " means = Austro- South German term for " cauliflower ").
Regionalism in literature
In the U.S. literature regionalism refers to a literary perspective, which became popular in America in the Civil War. Local ( local- color - see also: local color ) authors described almost every region of the United States. Descriptions of customs and dialects increased the realism of these works. He served the realism.
Regionalism in art
In the American art, the term regionalism is used to describe a realistic style, who loathed the city and there evolving technology and focused on scenes of rural life. Regionalist style experience the height of their popularity from 1930 to 1935 and the artists Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton had its best-known representatives. During the Great Depression of the 1930s Regionalist art was highly valued because of its assured America with these images themselves.
In Europe, then developed in the mid- modernism, starting around the 1960ern/70ern, the Critical regionalism, the central concerns of modernity - is in a context of quotations, but free of historicist aspects - clarity of expression, adequacy of resources but sees itself as an organic continuation of the usual local form of treasure, and thus distinguishes itself from the strict modernist currents that abide by a comprehensive general validity of their expression.