This is the paper presented in the European Weeks of Regions and Cities 2017 in the European Commission in Brussels on 10th October 2017. The paper is an updated version (given the Catalonian Referendum in Spain) of a journal article published weeks before on 19th September 2017.

1. Why Should ‘(Smart) Devolution’ Matter in/for the EU?
Shared Leadership and the Right to Decide in Democracy
Dr Igor Calzada, MBA, FeRSA
Lecturer & Research Fellow, Future of Cities & Urban Transformations, University of Oxford
Lecturer, Institute for Future Cities, University of Strathclyde
Associate Fellow, Brussels Centre for Urban Studies, Vrije Universiteit
@icalzada
www.igorcalzada.com
igor.calzada@compas.ox.ac.uk
#EURegionsWeek
Regional and Urban Leadership in an Era of Globalisation and De-Globalisation
Brussels, 10th October 2017

2. #1October
#CatalonianReferendum

3. ‘When a Democracy sends riot police to beat old ladies over the head
with batons and stop them vo>ng, something has gone badly wrong’.
The Economist

7. hEps://www.nature.com/ar>cles/palcomms201794
#OpenAccess
#EURegionsWeek

10. 1Oct
Violence

11. 18 of the 28 na>on-states in the
European Union did not exist 150
years ago. Remember also that
Spain (with Portugal) is the only
na>on-state in Europe without a
single territorial change during
the last 200 years

14. Shared Leadership, Right to Decide and Dialogue in Democracy
OR
Blessed Legality, Cons>tu>onal Principles and Territorial Integrity
?

15. Shared Leadership, Right to Decide and Dialogue in Democracy
OR
Blessed Legality, Cons>tu>onal Principles and Territorial Integrity
?

18. • The terms na#onalism is a slippery concept: this is why
poli>cians find it so easy to manipulate.
• As its best, it unites the country around common values to
accomplish things that people could never manage alone.
• Here we should dis>nguish: ethnic and civic na>onalisms.
• For the par>cular case of Spain, it is noteworthy that
Catalonia and also the Basque Country, in the a`ermath of
the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, were forced to be
integrated in a single na>onal ‘personality’ through language
in an ‘odious homogeneisa>on (Khanna, 2016b: 64),
inevitably resulted in a backlash from the Catalan and Basque
na>onal and linguis>c communi>es.

20. glasgow
bilbao
barcelona

21. Compara#ve
“(Smart) Devolu#on”
Policy Analysis
Barcelona Bilbao Glasgow
Catalonia Basque Country Scotland
URBAN/METROPOLITAN POLITICS
1. Municipali#es 31 35 5
2. Surface (km2) 636 500 368
3. Density (Inhabit/km2) 5,060 1,820 3,171
4. Popula#on 3,218,223 910,480 1,166,928
5. GDP per capita ($) 36,157 38,708 37,753
6. Governance paradigm An>-Corporate-Uncertain Corporate-In-Transi>on Urban-Governance-Transforma>ve
7. Current “Smart City” Urban/
Metropolitan Governance Transi#ons
From the private-sector-driven Smart City
(iBarcelona) to Barcelona Ini>a>ves in
Technological Sovereignty
From the corporate/post-Guggenheim
effect to Industry 4.0 district in
Zorrozaurre
From Glasgow Smart City
to Scojsh Smart City-Region
SCALING FROM URBAN/METROPOLITAN POLITICS TO CITY/REGIONAL POLITICS
1. Overlapping “(Smart) Devolu#on” • 1998: Municipal Charter
• 2010: Law of the Metropolitan Area of
Barcelona (MAB)
• However, in 2010, Statute was
banned by the Cons>tu>onal Court of
Spain.
• 1979: Established full fiscal devolu>on
since the 1979 Statute of Autonomy
and the concierto económico
(economic agreement with the
na>on-state)
1998: Scotland Act by New Labour
government and first Scojsh Parliament
in 1999.
2. Degrees of Devolu#on, per se In progress High In progress
3. Degrees of Civic Engagement Very high
(A`er 1 million person demonstra>on)
SeEled down
(A`er post-violence era)
Higher
(A`er 2014 referendum)
SCALING FROM CITY-REGIONAL POLITICS TO STATE-NATIONAL POLITICS
1. Paradiploma#c branding triggering
metropolitanisa#on process
Olympic Games (1992)
Football Club Barcelona
Guggenheim Bilbao Museum (1997)
Self-government / Basque Country brand
Commonwealth Games
Independence referendum
2. City-network composi#on Barcelona, Tarragona,
Girona, Lleida and Països Catalans
Bilbao, San Sebas>an,
Vitoria, Pamplona and BAB
Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee,
Edinburgh, Inverness, Perth and S>rling
3. “(Smart) Devolu#on” Strategic Driver Driven by the Civic Society Fixed by Ins>tu>ons Facilitated by Government
9. “(Smart) Devolu#on” de facto Ongoing unilateral independence
declara>on
and
a binding referendum
in 2018?
Fiscal Autonomy via Economic
Agreement and “right to decide” binding
consulta>on or referendum to establish
the New Poli7cal Status
in 2018-2019?
Devo-max,
Brexit and
second independence referendum
in 2018-2019?
10. “Right to Decide” Poten#al/Real
Implementa#on
No binding consulta>on on 9 November
2014 and the Plebiscitary Elec>ons on 27
September 2015 (Maro and Cetrà, 2016)
The Spanish Government rejected the
2006 Ibarretxe “Right to Decide” Plan
(Turp and Sanjaume-Calvet, 2016)
Independence referendum on 18
September 2014
(Kea>ng and Harvey, 2014)

29. The Metropolitan and City-Regional Poli#cs that are Re-Scaling Na#on-States
• In the 1990s, many hyper-globalist scholars forecast the imminent demise of na>onal state
power (Ohmae, 1995).
• However, a growing body of literature on state-rescaling has provided a strong
counterargument, namely, that na>on-states are being qualita>vely transformed—not
eroded (Brenner, 2004).
• From a longer historical perspec>ve, Kea>ng (2014b) argues for the re-scaling of na>on-
states as the poli>cisa>on of regional space through claims for devolu>on from their city-
regions (Jonas and Moisio, 2016).
• In some cases, this coincides with strong historical iden>>es and metropolitan hubs:
Glasgow, Barcelona, and Bilbao.

30. Table 1. Geo-Economic Metropolitan Argument.
According to Álvarez Pereira et al. (2017: 1), a common paEern is likely to be followed by
those devolu>onist movements in Western Europe insofar as (city-) “regions being rela>vely
richer than the country to which it belongs is associated with higher electoral support to
regionalist par>es only to the extent that the region is culturally differen>ated”.
Calzada, I. & Hennig, B. D. (2015), In Focus: Regions between Recentralisa>on and
Independence. Poli>cal Insight 6(1): 20-21. DOI: 10.1111/2041-9066.12083.

31. Geo `Economics’
Geo `Poli#cs’
Geo `Democra#cs’
Figure 1. Three Metropolitan Arguments for Devolu>on
Three Metropolitan Arguments for Devolu#on:
Geo-Economics, Geo-Poli#cs and Geo-Democra#cs

38. The preferences for future models of territorial devolu#on in Spain
(Source: CIS 2012/2956, extracted from the Centre on Cons>tu>onal Change).
hEp://centreoncons>tu>onalchange.ac.uk/blog/catalonia-and-spain-
conflic>ng-majori>es

39. Arguments Scales & Drivers Main References
Geo-economics Urban-Metropolitan:
“Prosperous Competitiveness”
(CentreForCities, 2016; Clark,
2016; Goodwin et al., 2012;
Harrison et al., 2017; Jones et
al., 2005; Katz and Bradley,
2013; Khanna, 2016a;
OECD/KIPF, 2016; Ortiz,
2014)
Geo-politics City-Regional:
“(Smart) Devolution”
(Keating and McEwen, 2005;
Khanna, 2016b; Moreno,
2001; Moreno, 2002)
Geo-democratics National-State:
From the “Right to the City”
to the “Right to Decide”
(Barceló et al., 2015; Cagiao y
Conde and Ferraiuolo, 2016;
Calzada, 2014; Crameri, 2016;
Purcell, 2013)
Three Metropolitan Arguments for Devolu#on:
Geo-Economics, Geo-Poli#cs and Geo-Democra#cs
Table 2. Three Metropolitan Arguments for Devolu>on

40. Conceptual Frames of
(City-)Regional Politics
(adapted from (Keating,
2017))
Non-Metropolitanised/
Ethnic Nationalism
Metropolitanised/
Civic Nationalism
Region as a refraction of
social and economic
interests
Internally focused Externally focused
Integrative agenda Protectionist Internationalist
Identity construction Populist Collaborative
Welfare provision Exclusive/Conservative Inclusive/Progressive
Government focus Geo-economics Geo-democratics
Competitiveness Bounded (“Them” vs “Us”) Entrepreneurial/Experimental
Table 3. Applying the conceptual framework suggested by Kea>ng (2017)
Non-Metropolitanised (Ethnic) vs Metropolitanised (Civic) Na#onalisms

41. • This resul>ng “fused” “civic na#onalism” with the city as its centre may suggest that
strategic na>onalist ambi>ons through the ‘right to decide’ (the urban version of the right
to self-determina#on) in small, stateless city-regional na>ons could be considered an
updated and expanded version of a metropolitan-based “right to the city”, in Lefebvre
words (Purcell, 2014).
• Is the “right to decide” a poten>al “democra>c” extension of the “right to the city”?
• The Right to Decide as a new version of a metropolitan-based “Right to the city” beyond
na#on-states
• A demos-driven, self-determina>on 2.0 version, empowered by a wide range of poli>cal
ideologies around a “civic na>onalist’ movement, ac>va>ng a boEom-up and progressivitst
city-regional poli>cal response

42. Barcelona
Glasgow
Bilbao
Barcelona
The Right to Decide
as a new version of a metropolitan-based
“Right to the City” beyond na#on-states

43. • So, why SHOULD ‘(smart) devolu#on’ maEer in and for the EU?
• Because urban/metropolitan, city/regional and na>onal/state poli>cs
are constantly being scaled up/down and overlapped having direct
consequences for na>on-states.
• Thus, in essence, ‘(smart) devolu#on’ would be the democra>c
process and outcome in which centre and periphery update, dialogue
(by avoiding confronta>on) and agree upon (through shared
leadership) their ongoing poli>cal status through democra>c
experimental mechanisms as the ‘right to decide’ in democracy.

44. Final Remark:
Is the Urban Age
Refounding “Devolved” Poli#cs
in the UK
and Spain
and ul#mately in the EU?

45. Final Ques#ons for a respecdul, construc#ve, democra#c and open
debate in the EU/Europe:
1. Cons#tu#ons exist to serve ci>zens, not the other way around. Is this the case in
Spain now?
2. How can the right to decide, as an experimental democra>c exercise, be ‘smartly’
ar>culated through a shared leadership by coordina>ng the exis>ng overlap
between urban, city-regional and na>onal-state governance schemes?
3. How to avoid the use of poli#cal violence to solve poli>cal and democra>c issues
even between the internal/external affairs blur separa>on?
4. To sum up, how could we implement (smart) devolu#on schemes based on
dialogue in the EU by making sure the freedom of regional dis>nct minori>es to
express peacefully and democra>cally their discontent or emancipatory
ambi>ons?

46. Dr Igor Calzada, MBA, FeRSA
Urban Transforma#ons & Future of Ci#es
University of Oxford
@icalzada
www.igorcalzada.com
igor.calzada@compas.ox.ac.uk
Skype: icalzada
Thanks for your ahen#on