When old and new regionalism collide: Deinstitutionalization of regions and resistance identity in municipality amalgamations

Journal of Rural Studies 30 (2013) 31e40

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When old and new regionalism collide: Deinstitutionalization of regions and resistance identity in municipality amalgamations Kaj Zimmerbauer*, Anssi Paasi 1 Department of Geography, P.O. Box 3000, Fi-90014 University of Oulu, Finland

a b s t r a c t Keywords: Regional identity Resistance Deinstitutionalization

Regions as well as their identities and borders are social and discursive constructs that are produced and removed in contested, historically contingent and context-bound processes of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization. This article studies the deinstitutionalization of regions in the context of municipality amalgamations and the consequent rise of resistance identities that have followed ruraleurban mergers in Finland, a tendency that seems to be accelerating around the world. By identifying various dimensions of regional identity characterizing such resistance, the paper shows how regions are mobilized as distinctively territorial spaces when confronted with forced deinstitutionalization carried out by regional authorities. The resistance emerging among ordinary citizens can be explained by fears related to the loss of public services and autonomy but also by a strong emotional identification with the region. This paper suggests that regional identity, regional activism and resistance should not be downplayed or mislabelled as regressive features, but should be understood as important ingredients in contemporary regional transformation. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The ‘region’ has become a highly important category in academic research and in planning practice around the world (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 2006; Paasi, 2009). New interest in regions resonates with the transformations of the global geoeconomic landscape, where neo-liberal ideas of competitiveness in particular have given rise to regional(ist) responses. The socalled new regionalism has emphasized sub-national spaces as products of politico-administrative action (Jonas and Pincetl, 2006) and the inability of nation-states to manage their economies through redistributive policies (MacLeod and Jones, 2007). Underlining the ideology of competitiveness, new regionalism considers sub-national (at times also supranational, see Deas and Lord, 2006) regions as focal units of economic growth. These tendencies have also given rise to city regionalism where cities and their (rural) hinterlands are seen as motors of economic growth. Respectively, the former geopolitical struggle between territorial states is increasingly turning into a geo-economic competition where states actively restructure and rescale their space in order to be more competitive (Moisio and Paasi, in press). * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ358 400 479471. E-mail addresses: kaj.zimmerbauer@oulu.fi (K. Zimmerbauer), anssi.paasi@ oulu.fi (A. Paasi). 1 Tel.: þ358 8 5531703. 0743-0167/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2012.11.004

Regions, regional identities and regional borders are widely understood as social and discursive constructs that are produced and dismantled in the processes of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization (Paasi, 1991; MacLeod, 1998; Painter, 2008; Frisvoll and Rye, 2009). The institutionalization of a region is a process in which the territorial (fixed or fuzzy borders), symbolic (name and more material symbols) and institutional ‘shapes’ of a region emerge, thereby forging the region as an established, typically administrative unit in the wider regional system and societal consciousness (Paasi, 1991). The shapes are abstractions that help make sense of and elucidate the historically contingent, context-bound power relations embedded in complex institutional practices (governance, politics, economy, and media, for example) that ‘mediate’ region formation. As historical entities, regions may also come to an end, or ‘deinstitutionalize’ (Paasi, 1991, 243). Deinstitutionalization means the dissolving of a region when it is either merged with another region or when a (larger) region splits into smaller units. Hence the region ceases to have an official status in the regional system but may still have an important role in regional consciousness. Such transformations are ultimately embedded in wider economic, political and cultural processes and struggles. Existing borders are normally transformed in deinstitutionalization, but certain symbolic and institutional elements of the region may exist long after formal abolishment of the region (Paasi, 1991).

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Regional identity has lately become an important matter in planning, regional marketing and cultural discourse (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 2006; Paasi, 2012). It is also seen as a resource pertinent to the economic success of regions (Cooke and Morgan, 1994). Yet regional identity is much more than a mere instrumental ad hoc asset of place branding; it is also an emotional phenomenon related to regional consciousness, thus entailing a sense of belonging as well as distinctions between social groups. Accordingly, identity is a complicated, politically loaded category that bring together ideas of the both open and bounded character of regions (Paasi, 2003). While the current relational approaches see regional identities as relationally constituted (Allen and Cochrane, 2007), there is tension between the relational concept of the region as a non-bounded unit and regional identity, since the latter implies a certain boundedness as well as an ‘us’ and ‘them’ (politics of) distinctions (cf. Jenkins, 2004). Thus, whereas relational thinking is most laudable in the world of increasing interactions and networks, regional (and state) borders may simultaneously be highly meaningful for identification. Moreover, relational thinkers sometimes regard regional identities as politically regressive (cf. Paasi, 2012), but subjugated minorities and social movements may also use territorial-regionalist strategies to promote progressive agendas in their struggles (cf. Agnew, 2001). Such strategies can be based on ‘strategic essentialism’, i.e. identities are mobilized to achieve certain strategic goals (Jones and Paasi, in press). In spite of the mushrooming interest in regions and regional identities, one highly important example of ‘region-building’ processes has been curiously neglected: the amalgamations of regions. Yet merger processes often forcefully display the tensions and power relations in the processes of deinstitutionalization and (re)institutionalization of regions, and may also shake existing regional identities and ‘everyday orders’. As regional identity discourse is typically inward looking and draws on distinctions, borders and emotional attachments, resistance associated with the deinstitutionalization of a region is an ideal subject for scrutinizing the complicated meanings of spatial identities. When old regions become deinstitutionalized and new ones institutionalized, the purported regional identities are particularly interesting, since they may either foster or hinder the implementation of region-building (Deas and Giordano, 2003; Zimmerbauer et al., 2012). Therefore, region-building and regional restructuring processes should not be understood as merely economic or administrative processes linked to nation-states, their devolution policies or the global neo-liberal economy (e.g. Brenner, 2004) but also as processes in which the contested ideas of boundaries, territories and regional identities are mobilized and exploited. This view provides a novel critical perspective on planning literature and new regionalist studies that typically accentuate non-economic factors (like culture, trust, habits or symbolic capital) as automatically positive elements but often neglect the political dimensions hidden in the production and reproduction of regional spaces and even take such regional spaces as given (cf. Hadjimichalis, 2006). This article aims to address this gap in research and will both conceptually and empirically study the deinstitutionalization of regions and how regional identities are mobilized in such cases. We will study as an empirical example the ruraleurban amalgamation process of two Finnish municipalities, Nurmo and Seinäjoki. We will concentrate on how the resistance to the deinstitutionalization of Nurmo became expressed through an internet interface provided by the ProNurmo activist movement. Such analysis is highly topical, since an unprecedentedly heated debate on the future of municipalities and the pros and cons of amalgamation has emerged in Finland during the spring 2012, after the current government decided to strive for a reform by which the current 330 municipalities would be reduced to about 70. Since a strong opposition

against the mergers emerged throughout the state, our case study provides a particularly timely analysis of an amalgamation that has been completed in spite of resistance and against the will of citizens. We seek to answer to the question, how were regional identity discourses mobilized contextually as part of wider ‘resistance identities’ (cf. Castells, 1997). Regional identity discourse may be an important element of resistance for those who struggle against spatial restructuring and deinstitutionalization but also for those who support regional changes. Such discourse usually transforms the past, the current situation and even future expectations related to the region as elements of resistance that are associated with various social practices, values and ideals, such as self-governance/ autonomy, rurality, independent service production, or concentration/decentralization, for example. Struggles over identities thus bring together multiple interests, and different factions may use diverging rhetorical and discursive devices and tactics in articulating their interests. In this paper we will focus especially on emotional attachments to an administrative region but will also evaluate more widely the dimensions of identity as anti-merger stimulus. This approach has been somewhat neglected in geographical research; contemporary research agendas tend to link the questions of regional identity and activism with the devolution and centralization processes of nation-states (Jones, 2004; Takahashi, 2009) rather than with the micro-scale integration processes of regions. Thus, an additional aim of ours is to contribute to the emerging geographies of resistance (Pile and Keith, 1997; Jones, 2004) by enriching its scalar agenda. The prime empirical materials of this study consist of commentaries submitted to the ProNurmo website, hosted by the ProNurmo activist movement during 2006e2007. It had a ‘free speech’ bulletin board-type sub-page where anyone could voice their opinions and feelings about the municipality merger. This data is thus naturally occurring and enabled unobtrusive collecting measures (cf. Webb et al., 1966), although in order to eliminate the possibility of legal actions the submissions were checked by the webmaster before being made public. The webmaster, one of the ProNurmo activists, confirmed to the authors that all submissions ended up on the bulletin board (telephone interview, 12 June 2012). Altogether 358 texts published between 20.11.2006 and 28.5.2007 have been classified and analysed for this article. Municipal councils accepted the amalgamation in May 2007, which means that this body of data consists of commentaries and statements submitted during the hottest period of the merger debate. The discussion is first contextualized through the report that reviewed alternatives in increasing the co-operation between the respective municipalities (Meklin and Paatelainen, 2006). This was a strategic document directed primarily at the decision makers and it outlined possible scenarios, evaluated the structures of co-operation and concluded by recommending the amalgamation. Moreover, to contextualize our case study in the current national situation and to show the continued importance of merger issue in Finland, a newspaper follow-up analysis (period 1.1.e15.6.2012) was made on Kaleva, one of Finland’s major newspapers. This material contains altogether more than 150 editorials, articles and opinions, and renders possible a review of how the forms of resistance found in the Nurmo case feature in the current merger debate. This paper is structured as follows. In the next section the conceptual basis is presented. We exploit the analytical distinction between old and new regionalism and the related ideas of regional spaces and spaces of regionalism (Jones and MacLeod, 2004). Then we discuss resistance and project identities (Castells, 1997) and various forms of agency. In the next section the rise of municipality mergers, or ‘merger mania’ (Sancton, 2000), into a global phenomenon and the societal background of this phenomenon are

K. Zimmerbauer, A. Paasi / Journal of Rural Studies 30 (2013) 31e40

characterized, as is the evolution of the Finnish municipal system. A case study on the Nurmo-Seinäjoki municipality merger follows. The key features of the ProNurmo activist movement are then introduced and an analysis of research materials presented. Finally some conclusions follow. 2. Regionalism, agency and resistance The key analytical distinction used in this paper is between old and new regionalism. Old regionalism typically understands regions as entities that have become institutionalized over time and respectively have a certain ‘historical depth’ (Paasi, 2009). Such units may be meaningful entities for citizens and regional identity discourse, and therefore for regional activism as well. New regionalism accentuates interconnectedness and readiness to face global competition on the sub-national level. Accordingly, regions in the new regionalism are often seen as ad hoc-type, created for certain purposes (Paasi, 2009). New regionalism resonates with multi-level governance, political processes and social movements (Jonas and Pincetl, 2006), but tends to stress economic regions that are more or less directly involved with the global economy (MacLeod, 2001). Both old and new regionalism bear a resemblance to the concepts of ‘spaces of regionalism’ and ‘regional spaces’ (Jones and MacLeod, 2004). Regional spaces emphasize the production and constitution of regional economic spaces, innovation systems and institutional thickness, whereas the spaces of regionalism stress ‘locally rooted regionalism’, regional and national claims to citizenship and political mobilization and participation. Furthermore, whereas regional spaces possess the ability to confront ‘today’s globalizing quicksilver economy’ (p.435) and as such prosper from reconfiguration of the geographical complexion of a globalized world-economy, spaces of regionalism resonate e similarly to old regionalism e with cultural expression and reactionary political defence, often directed against a centralizing state or supranational institutions. In addition, both old regionalism and the spaces of regionalism are linked to the idea of regions as relatively stable, distinctive (historical) units, whereas new regionalism, in parallel with regional spaces, displays the need to boost competitiveness in inter-regional competition or simply the need to change regional structures of governance (Paasi, 2009). Old regionalism resonates with the spaces of regionalism also through defensive regionalism, as both often emerge as a reaction against the nation-state and its supposed homogenizing and centralizing actions. As to the actors involved in region-building (and amalgamation) processes, we find useful the analytical division between activists and advocates (Paasi, 2010, Paasi and Zimmerbauer, 2011). The former are individuals or collective agents who visibly and often persuasively struggle for specific regional aims which they either present as ‘regional’ or which are generated in a specific regional context. Activists are usually politically active, although they do not always operate through established political structures or parties. The ProNurmo movement that emerged in opposition to amalgamation and regional deinstitutionalization is a fitting example of such grassroots activism. Advocates, for their part, operate in established institutional positions in a region. Advocacy is thus based on certain subject positions (e.g. civil servants, planners, journalists). While both activists and advocates may (and quite often do) work for the same targets, their objectives may sometimes be in conflict. In some instances, a person can be an activist and an advocate at the same time (e.g. journalists). The construction of identity always occurs in a context of power relations between actors. Therefore another useful agency-related analytical distinction is made between project and resistance identities (Castells, 1997). Castells defines resistance identity as

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opposition to project and legitimizing identities. Project identities are typical of actors engaged in new kinds of social and developmental networks of governance and are thus associated with advocacy rather than activism. Project identities are common in future-oriented measures and in the structures and institutions that they are expected to construct (e.g. new ‘competitive cityregions’). Legitimizing identities, for their part, are introduced by the dominant institutions of a society, with the aim to extend and rationalize their domination vis à vis social actors. Resistance identity is, on the contrary, often an opposite force to the power practiced by regional authorities and central administration. It strives to challenge the hegemonic power and opposes top-down policymaking and control. Castells (1997, p. 8) suggests that it is typically generated by actors that are in positions/conditions devalued and/or stigmatized by the logic of domination. It is hence a reaction against a certain established form of power that is believed to marginalize local actors and, in the case of municipality mergers, perceived as a threat to local democracy. Resistance identity often appears in activism as ‘civil society regionalism’ in opposition to top-down regionalization. It has gained ground in the struggles between political society and civil society, e.g. in the devolution processes in the UK (Jones, 2004). The different identities are partly connected with the distinctions presented above. Project identity, for example, is linked with the boosting of competitiveness by restructuring regions through advocacy, whereas resistance identity aims at opposing and preventing these processes by emphasizing the meanings of old regions and by underlining the spaces of regionalism and activism. Resistance and project identities both only come into being temporarily, often in relation to certain events and episodes, which makes them dynamic in time and space. Regional identity is understood in this article as an analytical concept rather than an ‘empirical fact’. It can thus refer to the purported identity of the region and/or the regional consciousness of a region’s inhabitants, i.e. their cognitive-emotional identification with a region. Regional consciousness is typically based on experiences related to the personal biographies of individuals, but it often also draws on collective narratives created by media or education that often recycle the features that are associated with the identity of a region. This renders possible that regional identities can be understood in more or less the same ways by individuals (Paasi, 2012). Furthermore, such collective identity is basically a discursive form of distinction and categorization between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Jenkins, 2004). Regional identity is therefore partly constituted by the social-cultural and symbolic boundaries that diverging social institutions exploit discursively to distinguish one region from another during and after institutionalization, and partly by the personal meanings people attach to regions. 3. Municipality amalgamations as a way to institutionalize and deinstitutionalize regions The amalgamations of local administrative units have a long history that extends from the USA to Europe, from Canada to Asia. In England, for instance, the number of municipalities was reduced from 1349 to 521 in 1960e1975. In West Germany the amount was cut from 24,512 to 8514 during 1959e1978, in New Zealand from 249 to 74 in 1989 and in Ontario, Canada, from 815 to 445 during 1960e2004. Recently a number of large-scale municipal mergers have been carried out in Japan as well. The Heisei Consolidation decreased the number of Japanese municipalities from 3229 to 1821 between 1999 and 2006 (Sancton, 2000, 2003; Hall and Stern, 2009; Yokomichi, 2011). Many amalgamations have been implemented with the aim of rationalizing the administration of city regions consisting of several

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K. Zimmerbauer, A. Paasi / Journal of Rural Studies 30 (2013) 31e40

Table 1 The number of municipalities and their mean population in Nordic countries in 2000 and 2010 (Steineke, 2010). The end of 2000

Finland Denmark Iceland Norway Sweden

The beginning of 2010

Number of municipalities

Mean population

Number of municipalities

Mean population

436 275 124 435 289

12,000 19,500 2300 10,000 31,000

342 98 77 430 290

15,650 56,500 4100 11,300 32,200

boroughs. The most common premise behind the drive for municipal mergers is cost-saving through economies of scale and the simplification of existing government bureaucracies and services (Rausch, 2005). More recently, amalgamations have often been local responses to the re-scaling of nation-states and the devolution of power, with the aim of creating stronger units of local governance. Their purported aim may also at times be management of urbanerural relations and land-use planning or raising ‘regional competitiveness’. Thus, amalgamations are not merely technical, administrative acts that reduce the number of institutionalized regional units; they also reflect international dominant ideas and state policies. Mergers can be manifestations of wider ideologies, such as neo-liberalism, or simply expressions of the deliberate manipulation of political spaces through gerrymandering, i.e. adjusting the borders of electoral districts. During the first decade of this millennium, the trend of merging municipalities became particularly strong in the Nordic states (Table 1). In Sweden a radical change took place even earlier and the number of municipalities was cut radically from 2500 to 279 between 1950 and 1980. The overall aim has been to increase the average population of municipalities, and amalgamations have been regarded as a proper means to achieve such a goal. In the Nordic countries, two arguments have been used to justify municipality amalgamations. The first is the need to create larger regional units that can provide in a more economical way the numerous statutory services issued by the state (e.g. Larsen, 2002). Many services (such as health care and social services) have become very expensive to maintain due to demographic changes and the loss of tax incomes especially in rural areas that are losing population and have many retirees. The second, a more universal claim, is that fusions are needed to boost the competitiveness of (administrative) regions (Zimmerbauer, 2006). In this context, amalgamations are seen as a response to globalization and the globalized economy, and larger cities and city regions with rural hinterlands are regarded as essential nodes and competitors in worldwide, interlinked flows (cf. Scott, 2001). The priority in mergers since the 1990s has been to promote economic development, and nowadays relatively little is heard about ‘how amalgamations could equalize services and taxes and facilitate regional planning and infrastructure development’ (Sancton, 2000 p.12). In any case, the response to the challenges of service-production and inter-regional competition has typically been either establishing federations of municipalities (if full integration is ruled out) or full mergers of municipalities. In the Nordic countries, and particularly in Finland, the latter path has become increasingly popular. 3.1. The past, present and future of municipality amalgamations in Finland “Municipality reform seems like a sensible enterprise when it is looked at from afar. A large proportion of municipalities are inviable when the population turns older and the

responsibilities for care grow. Seen at close quarters many things look different. At its best the municipality is not at all a shapeless unit of administration but a crucial element of the identity of citizens. A lot of common experiences, local history and the foundation stones of the nation, built up with one’s own hands, crystalizes in municipalities” (Mukka, 2012: 3) The Finnish three-level regional system (state-provincesmunicipalities) is a mix of overlapping old, historical regions that have become institutionalized over the course of time, and new regions created since the 1990s. Finnish municipalities represent old regions that have become institutionalized over long time frames (Paasi, 2009). Most municipalities were established in 1865 when the central authority gave them a municipal statute which separated them from the church. Their long history helps to explain why municipalities are perpetually the most important units for regional identification. This identification can also be explained by the crucial role that municipalities have in the everyday lives of citizens. They provide a wide range of statutory tasks such as 1) social welfare (health care, day care for children, elderly care and services for the disabled), 2) comprehensive and upper secondary education, adult education and libraries, 3) land use management, water and energy supply, road maintenance and waste management, and 4) development of the commercial and industrial spheres. Municipalities can choose how the services are arranged, and for instance joint municipal boards and co-operation between municipalities and private companies or non-governmental organizations has expanded (Kuusi, 2011). The governance of municipalities is characterized by parallel political and professional management. The supreme local decision-making body, the municipal council, is elected every four years by the residents. The council has considerable decision-making power in local affairs, and is authorized to make financial decisions that are based on the right to levy taxes. Yet the state has a financial system to smooth the imbalances of municipal economies. The municipal bodies are partly independent of the state and can arrange the municipal administration quite freely. Each municipality has a municipal council, board, a manager, a committee for auditing municipal administration and finance, and an election committee, which is responsible for organizing elections (Kuusi, 2011). While ensuring that local government is based on local self-government by the people, the structure has also meant that political decision-making power remains structured around the institutionalized parties rather than through social movements or non-governmental organizations. Despite their strong local role, the number of municipalities has decreased dramatically in Finland, especially during the last few years. Before World War II there were over 600 municipalities; in 2004 their number was 444, five years later numbering only 348. January 2009 witnessed a wave of no less than 32 voluntary mergers involving altogether 99 municipalities, which reduced their total number by 67. At least three amalgamations (involving 11 municipalities) are scheduled to take place in 2013. Usually the mergers have occurred between two municipalities, but the situation has changed recently. The most extensive merger in southwest Finland involved 10 municipalities (Kuntaliitto, 2011). Only one of the 42 mergers implemented in 2009e2011 has occurred between two urban municipalities, and even that amalgamation also included four rural municipalities. Most mergers have occurred between two or several rural municipalities (23) or between one urban and one or several rural municipalities (18). About two-thirds of current municipalities are classified as rural (Kuusi, 2011), which puts rurality and ruraleurban interplay in the forefront in the majority of mergers.

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As noted above, the beginning of 2012 witnessed the publication of a radical plan by the current government which would reduce the number of municipalities to only about 70 and would make them correspond better to the functional labour-market and servicerelated regions (Moisio and Paasi, in press). According to a survey made immediately after the plans were published (January 2012), 61% of citizens were against the planned reform and only 26% supported it (Suomen Kuvalehti, 2012). During spring 2012 a massive debate about the amalgamations continued, due much to the ‘introductory tour’ made by the Minister of Public Administration and Local Government who presented the plan in major cities. The original plan, which was thought by critics to reflect wider neoliberal tendencies and to lead to an increasing centralization of the state, was widely opposed in public hearings and in media publicity, and even led to local demonstrations during the minister’s tour (Fig. 1). Only 37% of the municipalities stated that they would accept the plans exactly as outlined by the government (Ministry of Finance, 2012). The Centre Party, the most important rural party (currently in opposition), has resisted the reform most and voiced concerns about the risk of a narrowing democracy, disappearance of rural services and the general centralization of society. Doubtless one additional reason is that they have dominated the political field at the municipal scale and would lose some of their relative power in local councils. The party has now over 3500 seats in councils nationwide, which is almost as much as the Coalition Party and the Social Democrats (both with about 2000 seats) together (HS, 2012). The Coalition Party has embraced to accept forced mergers whereas the Social Democrats have accentuated the need to make the mergers but on a voluntary basis. 4. The institutionalization and deinstitutionalization of the case study regions The background of the institutionalization of the case study regions Nurmo and Seinäjoki (Fig. 2) extends far beyond the establishment of the national municipality system, for the first written information mentioning them appears in tax records compiled in the mid-1500s. During that time, both areas were respective parts of the medieval parishes of Ilmajoki and Lapua and had only a few taxpaying farms. During the next two centuries, the population and welfare of these villages increased and they decided to together build their own chapel in Nurmo in 1725. Nurmo served as an independent but common parish for both villages for nearly 150 years, but in 1863 Seinäjoki was established as a separate parish (Zimmerbauer et al., 2012). Finally, the municipalities of

Fig. 1. Demonstration against municipal amalgamation in Joensuu, eastern Finland, 14 February 2012. Photo: Arttu Kokkonen, published with permission from Lehtikuva.

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Fig. 2. Location of Nurmo, Seinäjoki and Ylistaro.

Nurmo and Seinäjoki became officially institutionalized in 1868, three years after the advent of the national municipal statute and creation of the municipal administration (Talvitie, 1974; Zimmerbauer et al., 2012). By the early 1990s, after more than 100 years of continuous growth, the Seinäjoki was still one of Finland’s smallest regional capitals, with only 25,000 inhabitants. Its civic leaders increasingly started to accentuate the economies of scale and the need to ‘go up a league’ in city rankings (cf. Julier, 2011). They considered a merger with neighbouring communities as the most convenient path to rapid growth. The key target was Nurmo, which was not only the closest (and part of the same functional region) but also a relatively wealthy and rapidly growing municipality with a suitable demographic structure. The two municipalities had developed in symbiosis, as Nurmo’s rapid transformation from a rural region dominated by agriculture and forestry into a locality dominated by the service sector occurred primarily due to its proximity to the town. Seinäjoki provided jobs for Nurmo’s commuters, but Nurmo municipality actively played a role as well, shaping its local landuse policy to attract new tax payers. It bought large areas of private land, made far-reaching land-use plans, built up municipal infrastructure, and then sold the readymade sites to developers (Granö, 1973: 413). The share of rural jobs (agriculture and forestry) diminished rapidly from 63% in 1960 to 16% in 1980. In 2008, before the merger, only 4.1% of inhabitants worked in primary production. The first serious effort to effect a merger was made 1992, but failed due to strong resistance on Nurmo’s side. A more serious discussion about a possible merger between Nurmo and Seinäjoki started in 2005, after Peräseinäjoki municipality (less than 4000 inhabitants) joined Seinäjoki and removed some of the prevailing fears about amalgamations. The leaders of Seinäjoki took the initiative again and suggested that the benefits and disadvantages of new municipality mergers in the region should be examined. After a long discussion, Nurmo, which at the time had about 12,000 inhabitants, decided to participate in the examination process together with Ylistaro. Even before the final report was published in 2006 e which unambiguously supported the merger e strong resistance in Nurmo was becoming evident. The first critical comments were published in the regional newspaper Ilkka, and by the end of 2006 the activist movement ProNurmo2 was fully

2 The ProNurmo movement had about 15 activists who organized the antimerger action by publishing its own newspaper, hosting a website and organizing meetings for discussions. The activists had diverse backgrounds and few of them had ever been engaged in local politics before.

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established with the goal of promoting and maintaining the independence of Nurmo. ProNurmo was founded when one of the leading local activists presented the idea in the newspaper and received immediate support from the forthcoming activists. Later, Ilkka was strongly criticized by the activist group and their supporters for being overly pro-merger. According to the messages posted on the ProNurmo website bulletin board, some Nurmo inhabitants cancelled their subscriptions to the newspaper over the issue. Not all inhabitants from Nurmo were against the merger, however, and municipality councillors and officials in particular presented pro-merger arguments in public forums. Opinions were thus partly dependent on the municipality of residence and partly on the profession and position of the commentators. There was no strong opposition to the merger on the side of the city of Seinäjoki. After an intensive and even passionate discussion with highly dramatic decision-making,3 Nurmo, together with the smaller and more rural municipality of Ylistaro, eventually merged with Seinäjoki on the first of January 2009. Ylistaro’s dire situation of economic challenges and unfavourable demographic structure was similar to that of Peräseinäjoki and thus there was no significant resistance to amalgamation.4 5. Contested region: an analysis of pro-merger and resistance identities 5.1. Contested region The 358 writings submitted to ProNurmo’s online bulletin board were composed by altogether 168 different pseudonyms. The residents of Nurmo were seemingly suffused with the debate, which is implied by the critical outputs directed against the merger that dominated the comments. Together with the contents of their messages, some pseudonyms reveal that some discussants were Seinäjoki residents. Together with a few Nurmo residents, most of Seinäjoki commentators supported the amalgamation. However, altogether about 75% of all messages were against the merger. Before scrutinizing the rise of resistance identity in more detail, it is useful to contextualize the dimensions of resistance revealed in the data. Quantitative classification of the messages displays that criticism/resistance identity was most often centred on the future of local services/economy and autonomy/local democracy. In addition, many writings were ‘actor critiques’, i.e. they criticized the advocates of amalgamation and the pro-merger-oriented personnel in the regional newspapers (Fig. 3). In general, the discussants opposing the merger expressed fear that the efforts to create a more ‘competitive’ unit would centralize municipal decisionmaking, cause a decline in democracy, an increase in bureaucracy as well as cuts of services in the rural areas of Nurmo. Regional identity was rarely a separate category or ‘topic’ that could be easily distinguished from other themes. Identity was manifested, in combination with previous themes in the form of ‘us and them’ divisions, as threatened independence, local citizenship or as a crucial scale of decision-making and service-production, for example. In other words, regional identity was embedded in the fears and future hopes related to the merger, rather than a separate sphere.

3 The municipality council of Nurmo decided for the merger by a vote of 18e17, at odds with a referendum in which 63.1% of inhabitants voted against the merger. The council meeting was fierce, lasting several hours. Outside the city hall after the decision, there was also an actual threat of violence which almost resulted in a lawsuit (Zimmerbauer et al., 2012). 4 There was no referendum in Ylistaro (5600 inhabitants) and the local municipality council decided for the merger by a vote of 22e5.

Fig. 3. The classification of the key topics in the bulletin board, showing the amount of merger-opposing messages in which a topic was presented. Each message was classified to one or several categories depending on the topics they stressed. Content of 41 messages could not be classified to any category.

Before the merger was formally voted on by the municipal council, the commentaries on the discussion board were largely responses to the official report which recommended amalgamation (Meklin and Paatelainen, 2006). Thus, the writings concentrated on administration, local democracy and the efficiency of serviceproduction. Public services and the perceived ‘optimum size’ of a municipality were high on the agenda of both the supporters and opponents. Whereas the supporters emphasized the importance of economies of scale, the opponents put stress on the accessibility and proximity of services.5 Another critical topic in early debates was the character of the debate itself, that is, which party was thought to have the most legitimate, rational arguments and which was regarded or even stigmatized as a group of fanatics, idealists or sentimentalists. The opponents, who were often criticized by the pro-merger group as thinking too emotionally and living ‘under the fascinations of the past’, stated that especially the advocates of the merger in the city of Seinäjoki had not been able to present any concrete, convincing arguments on behalf of the merger, but instead used fuzzy rhetoric and questionable methods, including lying and intimidation. Setting emotional issues against rationality in this way is a fitting example of the collision between old and new regionalism and how the ideas related to spaces of regionalism and bottom-up civil society regionalism can be downplayed by accentuating functional regionalization and regional spaces (cf. Jones, 2004). People voted more with their emotions than with their reason. People simply want to disagree in principle.Is this issue so overly sensitive and so fundamental that nothing constructive can come about with people from Nurmo? Dear Nurmo people, please develop your municipality alone exactly as you wish. (Pseudonym6: “A person from Seinäjoki”) It is funny to note that the calumniated ProNurmo movement has proven themselves to be the more bright party in this municipality merger farce. It was committed already at the

5 Similar pro and con arguments dominated the nationwide debate in newspapers during spring 2012. More critical arguments have found empirical support in research which shows that rural citizens often feel that their position has weakened in mergers that have increased bureaucracy and weakened the interaction between citizens and administration. On the other hand, mergers have activated citizen’s participation. If leading politicians ‘rationalize’ the merger debate and omit identity-related arguments, recent research shows that spatial identity has been an important background for such citizen’s activities (Rinne-Koski et al., 2012). 6 All pseudonyms are presented as the visitors themselves used them. They typically refer to person’s initials, name or their attitudes. All quotations are translated by the authors.

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outset to acknowledge the results of the referendum, however small a marginal there would be between the results. They have spoken against the merger only by using facts, lying would have had the same consequences as in the case of supporters. Contrary to this, the pro-merger side still continues the use of dirty tricks that was seen before the plebiscite. The fanatics are clearly others than the members of the ProNurmo. (“KK”) At the same time as competitiveness arguments were forcefully questioned by opponents, diverging standpoints were put forward. While the opponents were mocked for their ‘enchantment with the past’, the supporters’ ‘future dreams’ that entailed more economically produced services through economies of scale were seen as justifications that could be proven to be false. Although the distinction was not presented as being between old and new regionalism or resistance and project identity, the arguments displayed a sharp dichotomy between ‘a good past’ and an ‘uncertain and vague future’. The quotation below shows not only how old regionalism is regarded as being rooted in the past but also how it is defensive by nature. Furthermore, emotions become mixed and coated with more rational arguments. The supporters of the merger have accused us by using the opposing argument that we live enchanted with the old times. I have followed the writings of pro-merger people, who are living under the spell of the future, that is, they think that a larger unit will do better in terms of economy than, for instance, a municipality of Nurmo’s size.Such ideas have nothing to do with the reality.A larger municipality cannot survive any better than a small one, because much more time is needed in governance and other activities in larger units. That is, the administration becomes bureaucratic and therefore more expensive per unit. (“A sceptic”) To label resistance merely as a backward-looking defensive action would be a mistake. The opponents emphasized that Nurmo was doing well and would do so in the foreseeable future as well, and therefore no merger was needed. The talk about competitiveness, a characteristic feature of regional spaces and future-oriented project identities, was therefore decried as vague and mere speculation by the opponents (this observation has also been made about the academic debates on competitiveness, see Bristow, 2010). Given the different time horizons and objectives, the clash could also be said to have occurred between a ‘pragmatic’ and ‘speculative’ regionalism. Please observe that the goal of this merger is not in any shortsighted benefits but longer in the future. It is true that an individual citizen in Nurmo will have to pay at first more than now, but if the merger generates the benefits that the report indicates, the people in Nurmo will benefit from the merger in the long run... Perhaps after four or eight years we may have a government in this state that follows totally opposite politics than the current or the previous ones that are at pains to cut the number of municipalities and increase their size. A politician is thinking tomorrow, a statesman the next generation. My opinion is that the supporters of the merger are statesmen who look further into the future. (“Merger supporter”) I cannot understand, even with my best will, and by considering things broadly, what is going on in the heads of pro-mergers: to cede a wealthy and strong Nurmo municipality with all of its properties and be dictated by greedy Seinäjoki people. I have observed in recent writings a claim that the advantages of the merger will be seen only after years or decades. This requires really considerable power of vision. It might be better that such persons acquire a crystal ball. It could give, when looking at it, a ‘reliable picture’. (“Thinker”)

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During a deinstitutionalization process, regional borders often became highly contested and territorial and relational standpoints clearly visible. Borders are best understood as multi-layered constructs, not merely lines that demarcate communities and hinder co-operation. They consist of cultural, political, economic, legal and social layers, but identity and physical layers may also be important (Schack, 2000; Zimmerbauer, 2012). For instance the identity layer may persist in people’s minds even after other layers have been removed. For some bulletin-board writers borders were just ‘lines on the map’, whereas other comments suggested that borders actually serve as important actants (see Law and Hassard, 1999; Zimmerbauer, 2012) and constituents of local networks and communities, social capital and well-being. What does it matter what the name of the municipality where you are living is? Municipal borders are just lines on paper. The question is only about safeguarding the services. The EU was once opposed by using the same arguments, and membership has not been a catastrophe. It seems that most people have a sort of natural need to oppose all changes.The name of the municipality will change, but what practical meaning will even this ultimately have? (“Timbe from Alavus”) The insignificance of municipal borders has been frequently accentuated to the citizens of Nurmo. They are only a line on the map, it has been said. I disagree with this on good grounds. If this would be the case, why do people choose a site inside the borders of Nurmo as their residential area? Also, the borders of municipalities, provinces and states are similar lines on a map. Why are the borders of Nurmo municipality, of all these, artificial? I think that the borders of provinces are above all artificial. Look at the wider picture, not merely the Nurmo case. (“KK”) These comments about borders and regional names e both important elements in the institutionalization of regions (Paasi, 1991) e display how territory and identity can be shaped in different ways by various actors and advocates like the media. Respectively, instead of asking whether borders are porous or not, we should recognize them as multi-contextual and multi-layered social constructs that are constantly being remade. Thus, although municipality borders do not have much social, cultural or economical relevance, they may be important for governance, formal decision-making and identification. This resonates with Jenkins’ (2004: 22) observations: identifications are to be found and negotiated at borders, but identities are also constructed in transactions at and across the border. The deinstitutionalization process thus both emphasizes and challenges borders, symbols, territoriality and certain ‘fixity’. Although these may be partly commensurable with relational, fluid and network-oriented ideas of spatial organization, they are not exhaustively so. People simply think differently, and regions and borders have diverging meanings for them, depending on their personal experiences and biographies (Paasi, 1991). This harks back to the conceptual dichotomies presented above and the tensions between them. It is obvious that old and new regionalism should be seen as partly overlapping phenomena that cross different temporal and spatial scales. Thus, the question is simultaneously about how different scales become manifested and which scales are emphasized by the advocates supporting the merger and which by those activists objecting it. These are ultimately choices related to the politics of space. By operating across scales and emphasizing the need to respond to the demands of the globalized world-economy by boosting competitiveness, pro-merger advocates underline the ‘existing arrangements which tie particular social activities to certain scales’ (MacKinnon, 2010, 25) and simultaneously promote both ‘scale jumping’ and ‘scale bending’ (Smith, 2000; MacKinnon,

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2010). For the opponents, the existing region is both an important context and scale of everyday life. Supporters stress that larger regions were needed to guarantee the desired regional development and that the border was prohibiting the ‘stretching’ of Seinäjoki in particular. During the wider merger debate in spring 2012, the editorials of regional newspapers as well as most national politicians often presented municipal borders as ‘artificial’. 5.2. The power of regional identification Recent literature on rural regionalism has accentuated the importance of regional identities (Woods, 2003; Hamin and Marcucci, 2008; Hall and Stern, 2009). In this section we will scrutinize how resistance is related to regional identity. Although regional identity is e especially when conceptualized as citizens’ ‘regional consciousness’ rather than as the identity of the region e often deeply emotional and something that is difficult to articulate explicitly (Paasi, 2003), the bulletin board materials confirm its role as a constituent of resistance. The initial comments related to resistance identity were expressed on the website soon after the page was opened, but these comments took a much stronger tone when the decision to merge was made. At first, identity was associated with local citizenship, safeguarding familiar services, independence and quite simply with one’s right to an ‘own’ municipality, a theme that has been very topical also in the recent nationwide merger debate. Critics often suggested that the promoters of the merger were ‘selling’ the region though it was a property that belonged to someone else. Imagine that your trusted neighbour hears, while you’re on vacation, that the housing costs are rising around the world and when you return from your vacation, your flat had been sold for this reason, ‘just for the sake of you own best interests’. He would then explain that the housing costs would rise in the future and that nobody could forecast where your family could find money to cover these costs. Also the real estate agent had, at the first hearing, advocated selling the property e at such a popular location e while you could still get something for it. This could be regarded as an unbelievable story, but as you can see, there are always people that do not see anything wrong with this. Morals are flexible or non-existing. (“KK”) A sense of belonging and a will to secure the memories of the past were at times seen as a justification for opposing the amalgamation. The excerpt below suggests that people may associate their regional identity with patriotism. ‘Old regionalism’ and especially defensive regionalism can be seen as expressions of ‘local patriotism’. Some commentators also emphasized the perpetual need to perform the identity of the region even after its deinstitutionalization. This might occur by using symbols (e.g. Nurmo pennant) as visible statements to the surrounding world that these people are from Nurmo and that the region still exists despite the lack of official administrative status (Zimmerbauer et al., 2012). The next quotation highlights the mood after the merger was decided by a one-vote margin. For sure, this is a bit like the being-at-a-funeral feeling. This is as if some close relative has died as a consequence of violence. I could never have believed that they are going to sell my home municipality, and so cheaply... Indeed, I do not anymore find it important to vote when I have seen that it is no longer beneficial. Too many of those that have been elected [to the municipal council] have not been independent but have been walking on leashes. I have not for a long time regarded myself as a nationalist, but now after this trick, also this idea comes into my mind. And in an ugly way! (“An adventure hero from Nurmo”)

Immediately after the decision to merge, the anger of losing a major context of identification, ‘an own and independent municipality’, was at its utmost. Many writings were bitter and the loss of independence was raised as an issue, overshadowing the topics such as local democracy or service-production that were emphasized earlier. You killed a well-faring Nurmo. I will never forgive it. Can you even be ashamed of what you have done? You wrenched away a chance from youngsters to build an independent Nurmo that would have been a great hope for both those at upper levels of secondary school and in high school. The merger was created through propaganda, bullying and threatening. You created a grudge and bitterness that will last for years by making your decision. (“A person from central Nurmo”) This resonates with the observation that ‘borders do not come and go, but they persist in people’s minds even if the political agenda changes’ (Schack, 2000, 203). Hence, regardless of the decision-making where administrative borders or regional names are decided and removed, the established regional ‘us and them’ divisions may remain strong (Zimmerbauer, 2006). A deinstitutionalized region, like the bitterness caused by the merger, may exist in the consciousness of its inhabitants for a long time (cf. Paasi, 1991). Respectively, deconstructing some layers of a border, such as political or legal, may strengthen other, often more invisible layers related to social experiences and identity. Accordingly, this suggests that that the resistance in Nurmo can be explained not only by the economic situation but also partly by the different narratives of Seinäjoki as ‘the other’. Some comments suggested that the removal of the municipality would generate frustration and a certain lack of trust. Had the Nurmo region not deinstitutionalized, stated many writers, the inhabitants would have been more independent, attached to the region and thus also more active. Interestingly enough, these comments clearly cut to the core of the contemporary regional development rhetoric which accentuates the importance of trust and social capital as important tools for regional development (Paasi, 2012). This development rhetoric was present also in the official report, which brought out that retaining formal independence would strengthen the identification with municipality, and that in the case of (recommended) amalgamation, conscious and collective identity reconstruction measures should be taken (Meklin and Paatelainen, 2006). I would have been interested in developing this province in cooperation in an independent Nurmo, but my enthusiasm is decreasing now, this has been such an act. Well, probably it has also been calculated in documents, how much cheaper the alternative to the development of the provincial centre is than there are people from northeast Seinäjoki that are bitter, frustrated and have lost their trust, than active, independent people from Nurmo. I can see in my mind’s eye the New Year’s evening when the merger occurs and Seinäjoki shoots for pure joy half of the ‘carrot money’ up into the sky. I am afraid I am not going to buy fireworks then. During that evening a more interesting task would be a quiet march with candles, perhaps from the school centre to the Nurmo church, where candles could be placed on the graves to respect the memory of the builders of independent Nurmo. (“A person from Nurmo”) 6. Conclusions Even at the scale of municipalities, where regional borders are typically porous, the deinstitutionalization of regions may give rise to strong resistance and activism. This demonstrates that old

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regions e such as municipalities in the Nordic countries e are crucial units for both local governance and identification, and that their amalgamations can be, in spite of the rationalities used by politicians and authorities, highly emotional and contested processes. Regional identity, borders and symbols become significant, since amalgamations shake the attachments or identities of citizens who have possibly participated in the institutionalization of the regional unit. The removal of one’s ‘own’ municipality can be hard to accept, especially if this region does not seem to be facing any immediate economic threats and the merger is justified only by using vague arguments such as abstract rhetoric of competitiveness. Under these circumstances defensive resistance movements emerge (Taylor, 2011). The role of identity is complex in such cases. Although the advocates who support the merger and restructuration processes in general may promote new larger units as more suitable and ‘competitive’ for regional development, it is also important to ask, how motivated the inhabitants are in participating in regional development procedures if they do not find new regional entities meaningful for their daily lives. This is not to say that the new regions would inevitably remain spurned forever, since regions become institutionalized and deinstitutionalized all the time. However, regional consciousness as emotional identification does not seem to be as fluid and flexible as contemporary ad hoc regions conceived largely through project identities. Therefore such consciousness often ‘lags behind’ in regional restructuring processes. This study shows that although it might be ‘difficult to escape the dominant idea that place-based attachments and identities are residuals’ (Tomaney, 2010, p. 311), regional identity cannot be labelled automatically as a regressive or marginal category. Rather, it should be understood as an important ingredient in contemporary regional restructuring. This fact has been curiously neglected in the on-going merger debate in Finland which presents this issue merely in terms of economic rationality. Identifications with particular communities and local or regional solidarities remain important qualities of social life that do not persist in spite of but due to the pressures of cultural and economic globalization and neo-liberalism (Entrikin, 1999). Thus, it may be sometimes equally important to re-establish and strengthen some layers of borders than to remove them, as they may serve as significant constituents of regional consciousness and identification, and thereby also be beneficial for practices of regional development. Moreover, the local and global are increasingly intertwined today and people are able to react to their changing place relations, and cross local borders, by using new social media, for example. It is also important to note the various forms of agency. In Nurmo, resistance was particularly strong because of the agency of a few passionate regionalists who established an activist network to both host the bulletin board and to perform regional identity in several ways (cf. footnote 1). This suggests that there is no single rural regionalism (Hamin and Marcucci, 2008) but several different regionalisms that may manifest themselves in the institutionalization and deinstitutionalization processes which are conditioned by a contextual ruraleurban interplay (cf. Woods, 2003). Moreover, as to scale-bending (Smith, 2000), resistance in Nurmo was not directed against the state or centralizing state policies, but against the advocates from the larger municipality who were often familiar with scale-jumping strategies and fluently adopted the rhetoric of regional development and planning developed in national and European spatial policy (Paasi, 2012). As for the future, regional activists may still continue to symbolically (re)produce the region to maintain the consciousness of the deinstitutionalized region. The collision between opposing activists and supporters of mergers cannot be regarded only as a divide between old and new

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regionalism but as one between resistance and project identities. The advocates often neglect the idea of old regional identities and promote new, open regional configurations and fluidity that could be better achieved when the borders between functional regions are removed. Thus, the incommensurability of old and new regionalism and different regional identities as the origin of resistance should be acknowledged. Yet, some mutuality also exists between the opposing viewpoints. When seen through the prism of scale, for instance, ‘relational’ and ‘territorial’ may slide towards each other and ‘boundedness’ becomes a contextual and scalar issue rather than merely an abstract technical divide. Similarly, time-dimension is important, since resistance (and territoriality) often becomes manifested and performed temporarily, as showed for instance by the ‘ad hoc regionalism’ (cf. Hamin and Marcucci, 2008). In Nurmo, resistance as a social movement faded away shortly after the amalgamation took place, although identification with Nurmo has clearly remained strong. In spite of the current interest in regional identity in planning literature, identity-related themes seem to be commonly neglected in territorial renewal processes, which are typically rapid and topdown by nature. Yet, constant changes in regional structures often lead to a ‘regional mess’ (Frisvoll and Rye, 2009) where the inhabitants may identify themselves strongly with the region that is planned to be deinstitutionalized and identify poorly with the new region that is meant to replace it (Zimmerbauer et al., 2012). In the worst case, new administrative regions are, while possibly established with certain functional aims in mind, experienced as very ‘distant’. This may leave people confused or even passive as to their initiativeness for regional development. It is thus obvious that from an administrative point of view regional identity should be neither ‘too weak’ nor ‘too strong’; the former does not encourage citizens’ participation, whereas the latter can block or hinder regional transformation and restructuring processes. Acknowledgements The authors thank the Academy of Finland for financial support (121992), and the anonymous referees and editors of Journal of Rural Studies for their valuable comments. References Agnew, J., 2001. Regions in revolt. Progress in Human Geography 25, 103e110. Allen, J., Cochrane, A., 2007. Beyond the territorial fix: regional assemblages, politics and power. Regional Studies 41, 1161e1175. Brenner, N., 2004. New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Bristow, G., 2010. Critical Reflections on Regional Competitiveness e Theory, Policy, Practice. Routledge, London. Castells, M., 1997. The Power of Identity. Blackwell, Oxford. Cooke, P., Morgan, K., 1994. Growth regions under duress: renewal strategies in Baden Wurttenberg and Emilia Romagna. In: Amin, A., Thrift, N. (Eds.), Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Deas, I., Giordano, B., 2003. Regions, city-regions, identity and institution building: contemporary experiences of the scalar turn in Italy and England. Journal of Urban Affairs 25, 225e246. Deas, I., Lord, A., 2006. From new regionalism to an unusual regionalism? The emergence of non-standard regional spaces and lessons for the territorial reorganization of the state. Urban Studies 43, 1847e1877. Entrikin, N., 1999. Political community, identity and cosmopolitan place. International Sociology 14, 269e282. Frisvoll, S., Rye, J.K., 2009. Elite discourses of regional identity in a new regionalism development scheme: the case of the ‘Mountain Region’ in Norway. Norsk Geografisk Tidskrift 63, 175e190. Granö, E., 1973. Nurmo: asutus-ja talouselämä. In: Tarmio, H. (Ed.), Suomenmaa 5. WSOY, Porvoo. Hadjimichalis, C., 2006. Non-economic factors in economic geography and in ‘new regionalism’: a sympathetic critique. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30, 690e704. Hall, P., Stern, P., 2009. Reluctant rural regionalists. Journal of Rural Studies 25, 67e76.

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