The territorial structure of the state: some critical reflections

International audienceReforms in the territorial structure of the state, whether in South Africa, France or elsewhere, join up with more academic interests. But in talking about the territorial structure of the state, we obviously need to know what this rather vague term is about. We know it has to do with electoral districting, the design of service areas, spatial planning and much more. But do these various concrete issues fit into a more coherent conception of the state and the way in which space intersects with its activities? Providing some guidelines on this has been the first priority in these notes. The second thing which I have felt important is understanding the way in which state structure, including its territorial structure, is never socially neutral. It is a product of struggles in society as a whole, different social forces come to colonize an inherited structure to their own advantage and then resist its reform, others seek to revamp the structure of the state in ways that will advantage them. The importance of the state's specifically territorial structure derives from the fact that social interests are always interests in particular places or spaces; people are locally embedded, perhaps, or geographically uneven development results in them seeing advantages to themselves of a recasting of the state's territorial form. Sometimes we may applaud what is happening in this revamping. But, and this brings me to the final point I want to consider here, we need to be aware of the very strict limits of the state's territorial structure in accomplishing policy goals. The state has its limits and so does its territorial structure. In particular the state cannot tamper too much with the rights of private property or with the commodity exchange that those rights underpin. The result is that considerable power exists, typically in concentrated forms, in civil society: power that can be turned to undoing the most ambitious hopes of those engaged in territorial design or, more accurately, territorial re-design. Each of these three major issues is now addressed