Constructing supranational regions and identities through branding:  Thick and thin region-building in the Barents and Ireland–Wales

Introduction

Supranational integration has been a globally important political and economic feature since the end of the Second World War. While one of the key reasons for deeper integration across the borders of nation states has been the aspiration to reduce political tensions and ensure stability in border areas, recently supranational regional entities have been established increasingly as a response to the neoliberalization of the world economy (Johnson, 2009). Thus, much supranational integration is done in order to increase competitiveness in the context of purported inter-regional competition. When borders are regarded as obstacles to growth (Van Houtum, 2000), it is felt that their role should be diminished to foster frictionless flows of people, capital and goods within the new competitive spaces. Conceptually, supranational integration refers to a process in which different nation states or sub-national regions from two or more states are brought together on their own accord or with the assistance of a third party to form new territorial configurations. Supranational integration usually entails state-level membership in various political coalitions, where shared common goals diminish, to some extent, the sovereignty of the individual state in favour of collective interests (Zimmerbauer, 2013). Usually nation states make agreements to enhance supranational cooperation through established institutions and through sets of common rules. This has contributed to the rescaling of the nation state (Brenner, 2004; Jessop, 2004; Nelles and Durand, 2012).

As fitting examples of both rescaling governance and re-territorialization of state space, a number of recently conceived supranational regional entities, not only in Europe (with the idea of a Europe of the Regions) but around the world as well, have emerged as a result of supranational integration, as attested by the prominent examples of the Singapore–Johor–Riau growth triangle (Sparke et al., 2004) and Cascadia in North America (Smith, 2008). In Europe, the first ‘Euroregions’ date back to the 1950s, but the boom of cross-border regions truly began in the 1990s, resulting in the current situation of over 70 European cross-border regions (Perkmann, 2003). Accordingly, Deas and Lord (2006) have mapped over 140 newly conceived supranational regional entities in Europe alone. Many of these can be labelled as ‘non-standard’, for they often traverse, jar against and transcend national and regional boundaries as well as established territorially bounded bodies in order to contribute to broader supranational policy goals (Deas and Lord, 2006). Unfortunately, as Herrschel and Newman (2002: 48; cf. Johnson, 2009; Van Houtum and Lagendijk, 2001) note, typical of many of such regions are (1) the arbitrariness of their borders, which reflects their immaturity, (2) little relation to functional integrity in terms of culture and identity, (3) their ‘imaginary’ character, which has been envisaged by politicians and elites (in the forms of growth corridors etc.), (4) subjective delimitation involving ‘the map and the pencil’ without regard for functional geographies, and (5) difficulties in actually seeing the envisaged commonality.

Thus, as rather top-down constructs dominated by public sector actors (Blatter, 2004), many newly conceived regional entities seem to be merely ‘regions on paper’ (Paasi, 2001: 14) and as such lack the distinctive characteristics of a region (identity of the region) as well as a sense of regional consciousness and collective belonging and distinction (identification with the region) (MacLeod and Jones, 2001; Paasi, 1986). Yet, regional identity is of particular significance in the development of the relatively new supranational regions for at least three reasons. First, regional identity is not just a sense of attachment, but entails a broader concept of knowledge, emotions and actions. Therefore, its instrumental element can trigger regional activism, increase participation and cause positive development across borders (Veemaa, 2012). If cross-border cooperation, often ‘characterized by a relatively closed network of public agencies, chaired by a few leading politicians and senior public officials’ (Hall, 2008: 423), does not become recognized by a wider audience, the region itself is threatened with existing only in the perceptions of the elite, and only for as long as it stays on their political agenda (Nelles and Durand, 2012). Second, as the majority of the non-standard regions within Europe were conceived by the European Union after it launched the Interreg programme, the lack of regional identity raises suspicions about what would happen if funding becomes less generous or stops altogether, particularly due to the likelihood of EU enlargement for instance (cf. Hall, 2008). Many non-standard regions may exist only as long as (external) funding is secure; hence, by the time the funding diminishes or expires they should, and in fact must, have already secured legitimacy and become ‘standardized’ to survive (Scott, 2000). Third, and most generally, regional identities are simply regarded as elements that can increase regions’ competitiveness and serve as a tool for economic prosperity through cohesion, commitment and cooperation, (see Haughton et al., 2010; Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 2006). Similarly, the current literature emphasizes regional identity as an essential element of ‘brandscape’, even so much so that place brand and identity are seen as deeply intertwined and often inseparable (Pasquinelli and Teräs, 2012), both contributing to regional competitiveness in similar manner (Hospers, 2006).

The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between regional identity and branding, their interplay and current use in supranational region-building. This is done by scrutinizing how regions are being simultaneously institutionalized and promoted in various planning practices. Identity and branding are connected to the practices of institutionalization where a region becomes manifested as a separate, distinguished territorial entity through thick and thin region-building (see Entrikin, 1999; Sack, 1997; Terlouw, 2009, 2011). The approach emphasizes regions and identities as historically contingent processes by which they become institutionalized in social practices and discourses related to politics, governance, economy and culture. The case studies of two supranational regions (the Barents and Ireland–Wales) underline how establishing new regions should be understood as contested processes of institutionalization where different (instrumental) interests sometimes contradict existing scalar identities connected to older regions (such as nation states). The research questions are: (1) how are the key elements of thin and thick region-building understood and valued by advocates engaged in spatial planning, and (2) how do newly conceived supranational regions become simultaneously branded and institutionalized through thin and thick region-building?

The chosen approach has not been extensively studied in contemporary geography and regional sciences. As Perkmann (2003) states, much research on supranational regions has been rather normative, leaving the overall picture rather opaque. While some work has concentrated on normative prescriptions and neglected the empirical analysis of actual cases, other empirical work has made useful contributions, but often only for single cases. Moreover, whereas in the new regionalism much emphasis has been put on rescaling governance, and specifically on its forces and consequences, less attention has been paid to how rescaling actually occurs and how it becomes manifested and contested during the institutionalization and deinstitutionalization processes (cf. Perkmann, 2007). Although cross-border networks have been emphasized, focusing on devolution of power and restructuring of governance has also meant that the questions related to the significance of and identification with supranational regions have remained less studied. This paper aims to contribute to these issues by highlighting the interplay of branding and identity-making as an element of region-building on both empirical and theoretical levels. The comparative approach not only emphasizes regional identity as a potential factor for successful development in differently conceived supranational regions (cf. Boman and Berg, 2007), but it also enlightens the different strategies and forms of agency that are inevitably contextual and geographically bound. Moreover, supranational case studies widen the current research agenda, as branding and regional identities have typically been studied as urban, sub-national or national phenomena (Barke, 1999; Kavaratzis and Ashworth, 2005; Kotler and Gertner, 2002). Also, as Pike (2011b) states, the ways in which the geographies of space and place are intertwined with brands and branding have been ‘unevenly recognized and under-researched’ (p. 206).

The case study regions were chosen due to their different paths of institutionalization. Not only does the role of supranational institutions (the EU) vary between the regions, but the nation states themselves also differ, causing different orientations of emphasis between cross-border ‘politics and business’ (cf. Svensson, 1998) among other things. In the Barents region institutionalization was originally driven by nation states and geopolitical interests (Wiberg, 2009), whereas in Ireland–Wales European regional development programmes have had a strong role (Ireland–Wales Operational Programme, 2007–2013). Moreover, their peripheral character (which is more distinctive in the Barents region) makes these cases fairly unique in relation to the current metropolitan-biased research on cross-border regions (see Herrschel and Newman, 2002; Perkmann, 2007; Sohn et al., 2009). The empirical data consists of 17 thematic interviews and supportive policy documents such as the Ireland–Wales operational programme, annual implementation reports (I–W), meeting documents (B) and annual reports of the working groups (B). The interviews each lasted about one hour and they were recorded and fully transcribed. The interviewees were key actors in the Barents and Ireland–Wales cooperation initiatives. They can be labelled as regional advocates, i.e. they are persons who operate in institutionalized positions that have continuity, such that even if the actors change, the advocacy will be continued by some other actor (Paasi, 2010). They were first selected with assistance from the heads of the Barents Regional Committee and the Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly. The snowball sampling method was then used, as each interviewee was asked to suggest other key persons to be contacted. The data were gathered during two periods, September 2008–September 2009 and September–November 2010.

The paper discusses the key concepts and theoretical framework with emphasis on the distinction between thick and thin place-making, their links to other key concepts and the interplay and interconnectedness of branding and institutionalization in particular. Then the case study regions are presented and empirical analysis is undertaken in relation to the two research questions. The concluding section then highlights some of the key results and discusses the findings in relation to the theoretical framework.

Key concepts and theoretical framework

To operationalize the research questions, the idea of thick and thin place-making and identities – as outlined by, for example, Robert Sack (1997), Nicholas Entrikin (1999) and recently by Kees Terlouw (2009, 2011) – is applied, linked to other key concepts and connected to supranational region-building practices. Following this analytical division, thick region-building is based more on a shared culture and community relations, and is attached to old regions. This means that thick regions have relatively impermeable borders and they remain opaque when viewed by outsiders. Thin region-building is, on the contrary, related to new regions, and more fluid, practical and utilitarian. In this case, regions are more open to view but may lose a sense of difference as a result. Accordingly, thick identities are usually historically bound and thereby relatively stable, whereas emerging thin identities are instead future-oriented, constructed for change and focused on supranational and global scales. Thick identity is typically linked to the general population’s identification with local and national scales, whereas the thin region concept is often constructed ad hoc by the stakeholders and administrators for well-defined and narrow purposes often related to competitiveness (Terlouw, 2009).

Thick regions, which are rich in cultural traditions and customs that create difference, albeit often ‘through erecting highly impermeable boundaries that restrict entry and access’ (Entrikin, 1999: 272), are manifestations of spaces of regionalism (Jones and MacLeod, 2004) that stem from ‘locally rooted regionalism’ and emphasize regions as relatively stable, homogenous and distinctive (historical) units. The borders of thick regions can be political, but are more often social and cultural ones that maintain distinctions between insiders and outsiders. Thin regions, on the other hand, are more permeable and open to view, but at the same time they may lack a sense of local distinction and become more like other places. Thus, whereas thick region-building stems from historical–cultural identity and strengthens it, thin region-building is heavily shaped by institutional context and generated by existing supranational institutions (Boman and Berg, 2007). This means that branding is an implicit part of thin region-building; it both contributes to and stems from thin identity, although some ingredients in branding are apparently provided by thick (historical–cultural) identity as well. Accordingly, developing branding through thin identity may eventually result in stronger us–them distinctions and thus contribute to thick identity also.

The division between thick and thin region-building resonates well with several other similar debates in regional geography. In particular, the spatial form of identities (closed vs. open) is parallel to the ongoing borders–networks discussion and the ‘boundary debate’, in which over the last decade most academics have taken a more relational approach as opposed to the ‘territorialist’ one (Allen et al., 1998; Amin, 2004; Jones and MacLeod, 2004; MacLeod and Jones, 2007). Although the interplay of the two approaches has been emphasized recently (Goodwin, 2012; Jones and Merriman, 2012; Varró and Lagendijk, 2012), they can still be analytically distinguished. In a nutshell the relational view overrides some significances of territorial boundaries and emphasizes the nature of a region as an open, fuzzy and internally diverse ‘kaleidoscopic web of networks’ or ‘space of flows’, whereas the territorialist approach stresses the concept of a region as a more spatially defined and articulated ‘space of places’ that has certain distinguishable characteristics (Blatter, 2004; Harrison and Grove, 2012; MacLeod and Jones, 2007). This distinction, for one, bears strong resemblance to the concepts of spaces of regionalism and regional spaces (Jones and MacLeod, 2004) and meshes fluidly with Blatter’s (2004) conceptualization of instrumental and identity-providing institutions, where cross-border governance is conceptualized as either territorial or functional.

Fundamentally connected to thin region-building is place branding for its utilitarian rationale is to offer the place or region as the best possible ‘package’ to the relevant target groups (Pasquinelli, 2011), hence boosting its competitiveness. Place branding has many partly overlapping definitions, but generally it can be defined as a process that aims at establishing a good reputation and building brand equity (Pasquinelli and Teräs, 2012). A brand is constituted of values, awareness and associations, which are, according to Pike (2011a: 7), ‘imbued to varying degrees and in different ways by spatial connections and connotations’. Place branding is said to differ from that of conventional products due to the role of regional identity in guiding the branding. It deals with both regional images and identities, as brands cannot be ‘built in the air’, but the concept of the region must first be familiar and clear to those living in it (Zimmerbauer, 2011). Some scholars employ the term brand identity when referring to the mixture of tangible and intangible attributes that represent the way in which regions desire to be perceived.

The concept of regional identity is a complex one, as it refers to both a region’s features and its regional consciousness and identification (Paasi, 1986). In both meanings regional identity refers to distinction, either as discursive foundations of ‘us and them’ divisions (Adams, 2012) or as distinctive attributes. Thus, identity (like brand) serves as a tool for distinguishing one region from another (Zimmerbauer, 2011). Regional identities become constructed during institutionalization and spatial socialization (Paasi, 1986), which means that building the region and making its citizens individual are both fundamental aspects. Regional identity is to a great extent constructed through shared symbols and the articulation of landscape, where certain views and scenes that people identify with gradually assume the role of regional icons. Unique settings thus not only represent typical characteristics of that region but also become simultaneously the building blocks for regional identity. Moreover, the political actors often ‘define certain historical features as relevant to the construction of a notion of community within the area’ (Hønneland, 1998: 280).

The above indicates that branding and building a regional identity (especially the identity of a region) are fundamentally overlapping processes in region-building, as territorial boundaries, symbols and institutions are produced in both (Paasi, 2003). In both instances, regions are basically ‘created’ through symbolization and various ‘speech acts’ (Neumann, 1999), and in this sense the identity and brand of a region can be seen as conceptually intertwined modes of the discursive production of specific spatial entities. This production is substantially fuelled by various regional symbols that are reproduced and renewed simultaneously, as is the case in the articulation of landscape and turning it into ‘brandscape’, for instance. Both regional image and identity are also based on classifications and the distinguishing of a given region from other (competing) regions. Crucial is effecting symbolic and cognitive differentiation, which is built up by bordering and moreover by highlighting aspects of regional (identity) qualities that are thought to be somehow unique. The aforesaid ties regional image and identity not only to thick and thin region-building but also to social constructionism, where language-based conceptualization and production of reality is the fundamental aspect (Berger and Luckmann, 1966).

Although it can be argued that strong regional identity is somehow a prerequisite for constructing regional image and brand, the process is bidirectional. As the concepts overlap, it can be presumed that image-building practices simultaneously improve consciousness within the region, as ‘no region can exist in a cocoon’ (Zimmerbauer, 2011: 258). Regional symbols and discursive processes that are perhaps primarily utilized in promotion and created for branding serve also as constituents of internal regional consciousness (cf. Veemaa, 2012), and thereby branding creates ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 1991) too. Although brand cannot be built in the air, it can fill the air quickly, as branding and identity-building are mutually boosted by their interplay.

Institutionalization of the case study regions

Barents Euro–Arctic region

The Barents region consists of 13 sub-national regions in Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden (Figure 1). The current population of the region is about 5,540,000 and its size is 1,755,800 km² (Barentsinfo, 2012). Although the history of cross-border cooperation in the region dates back to the Pomor trade era of the early 19^th century, the Barents Euro–Arctic Region (BEAR) was officially established in January 1993 at a meeting in Kirkenes, Norway, when the region’s council was founded (Nielsen, 1994; Svensson, 1998). Originally the initiative for establishing the region (also known as Barents Region Cooperation) was actually raised by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As Svensson (1998: 14) states, the creation of the Barents region was an example of using a political strategy to handle the problems and the opportunities related to the East–West relationships in the post-Cold War reality.

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Figure 1.

Barents Euro–Arctic Region.

The most notable characteristic of the Barents region is the huge contrast between its western and eastern parts. Differences, some of which originate from the pre-Soviet period (Castberg, 1994), exist between the Nordic countries and northwest Russia in practically all spheres of life: standards of living, language and culture, religion, history and political and economic traditions. The Barents region is also unique due to its location in a setting that was once perhaps the most acute stage for military confrontation between the East and West. It still straddles the boundary between Russia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and thus has strategic nuclear forces stationed in its area (Zimmerbauer, 2013). Although military cooperation as such is absent from the framework, this geopolitical aspect cannot be underestimated and sets the Barents apart from many other region-building projects in Europe. However, according to Elenius (2006) and Veggeland (1994), parts of the region also have many features in common, such as: (1) peripheral location, (2) a sparse population spread over a large area, (3) a harsh climate, (4) many ethnic minorities (e.g. the Sami), (5) a delayed start to industrialization followed by a rapid phase of catching up, (6) a certain ‘polar romanticism’, and (7) recent efforts to improve higher education.

As Wiberg (1999) states, Finland and Sweden’s membership of the European Union in 1995 has underlined the importance of EU regional policy in reshaping the Barents region. Thus, in the mid and late 1990s the Barents region was supposed to be ‘europeanized’, much according to the key ideas of new regionalism. However, European interest in the Arctic has dominated the EU’s approach lately. An important step here was the Finnish initiative to launch a Northern Dimension in the EU in the late 1990s (Wiberg, 2009), which included both the Barents region and the Baltic Sea region together with other regions in the European north. The initiative emphasized the role of the Arctic in EU and global politics (Heininen, 2011).

Although there has been no single funding instrument that covers the Barents region totally or exclusively (Zimmerbauer, 2013), numerous programmes such as Technical Assistance to the Common-wealth of Independent States (Tacis), European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI), Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) and Interreg have co-funded a great number of projects. While there is some inconsistency in classifying these projects as exclusively under the Barents label or not, some hint of the economic scale involved can be given by noting that between 1994 and 2009 the Barents secretariat alone supported around 3000 small and middle-sized, mainly bilateral, projects implemented by Norwegian and Russian partners (Alnes, 2010). Moreover, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs itself allocated around 19 million euros to neighbouring area projects with Russia in 2010. The funds were used for co-funding approximately 200 projects that were being implemented on an annual basis. In Finland as well as in the other countries in the region there is a veritable abundance of institutions that allocate funding for the Barents region as well.

Due to the high number of rather small-scale, bilateral and locally funded initiatives, the overall picture of Barents cooperation is rather blurred. In any case, there has been a shift from geopolitics to geoeconomics, as current collaboration is increasingly based on cultural and business cooperation, especially in the fields of tourism, energy and trade (Zimmerbauer, 2013). According to Heininen (2011) the shift stems not only from globalization, but also from the fact that the ultimate goal of the Arctic states, ‘to decrease the military tension and increase political stability’, has been nearly accomplished. One good example of the new cooperation is the Barents 2010 project, which focused – rather typically – on the environment, transport, industrial development and higher education (Zimmerbauer 2013). Moreover, there are currently many ongoing bilateral business and trade projects, mostly including actor(s) from Russia with a partner from one of the Nordic countries (Wiberg, 2009). It is thereby not uncommon for businesses in Sweden, Norway and Finland to view each other as competitors in the race to gain profits from Russia (Svensson, 1998). This makes the region-building asymmetrical (cf. Adams, 2012; Larner and Walters, 2002) with multiple regionalizations that concomitantly splinter the region.

Ireland–Wales border region

The Ireland–Wales border region is centred on the main sea routes between Ireland and Wales. It comprises the Welsh counties of Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, Ynys Môn (Isle of Anglesey), Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire and three Nuts III regions in Ireland, Dublin, the Mid-East and the South-East. The Ireland–Wales cross-border region is a relatively small area with a total population of 2.827 million (2.06 millions in Ireland). The main sea routes between Ireland and Wales are the southern sea corridor between Rosslare/New Ross/Waterford and Fishguard/Pembroke Dock/Milford Haven and the central corridor between Dublin/Dun Laoghaire and Holyhead. As the major urban centre is Dublin, the Irish part has a higher population density (126 vs. 70 persons per sq. km). Also, the Irish areas of the region have considerably higher levels of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita than their Welsh counterparts, Ireland as a whole and the EU. There are four institutions of higher education is on the Welsh side and 10 on the Irish side. The region does not include Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, and Swansea is also excluded (Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

The Ireland–Wales cross-border region.

The dominant feature and an important actant (Law and Hassard, 1999) of the Ireland–Wales cross-border region is its shared maritime border, which poses common challenges in issues such as water quality, biodiversity and pressures on the environment resulting from development in urban, rural and coastal areas. In addition, the regional profile consists of (1) low levels of overall deprivation, despite some pockets in both urban and rural areas, (2) a natural environment of good quality in many parts of the region, (3) imbalances in terms of economic success, e.g. between the Greater Dublin area and rural Welsh parts of the region, (4) a weak research, technological development and innovation base, and (5) substantial population growth in both parts of the Cross Border Region (CBR) and a strong labour market characterized by rising employment (Ireland–Wales Operational Programme, 2007–2013).

Whereas the Barents region was established as an offshoot of the foreign (and later economic) policies of nation states, the advent of the Ireland–Wales cross-border region is closely attached to EU Interreg programmes. Naturally, there has been a long history of informal cooperation between both parts of the region, carried out by institutions such as the Irish Sea Forum and the Central Sea Corridor, but particularly crucial for its institutionalization has been the inclusion of the maritime area under Interreg II in 1994. Although many current partnerships trace their origins to the 1994–1999 programme, cooperation was brought to a new level during the Interreg IIA and IIIA programmes. It can be stated that the Ireland–Wales cross-border region is essentially the result of EU regional policy and programme-based regional development, entailing over 200 projects in all (Ireland–Wales Operational Programme, 2007–2013).

With the Interreg programmes as its backbone, the overall economic picture for Ireland and Wales is clearer than that for the Barents region. According to the Ireland–Wales Operational Programme for 2007–2013, the cooperation has two priorities: ‘knowledge, innovation and skills of growth’ and ‘climate change and sustainable regeneration’. While the first priority underlines economic and social aspects, the latter guarantees that environmental issues – more precisely those connected with the Irish Sea – are high on the agenda, underscoring that the physical border affects the allocation of money and collaboration as a whole. The total budget for the current Ireland–Wales programme is €70 million, with approximately €52 million in grants provided through the European Regional Development Fund. The first priority has a total budget of €39.6 million and the second €26.4 million (the remainder being allocated for technical assistance). The largest projects approved in round two (in 2009) focused on shellfish productivity in the Irish Sea (Susfish, €2.9 million), creativity and innovation in micro-enterprises (CIME, €2.8 million), pre-incubation of digital innovation enterprises (Inventorium, €2.6 million), regeneration of coastal communities (Rising Tide, €2.1 million) and Celtic sea trout (CSTP, €2.1 million) (Ireland–Wales Annual Implementation Report, 2009).

Thick and thin region-building in planning

The key actors and institutions of supranational region-building practices in both Barents and Ireland–Wales are regional developers and planning institutions. The formal organization of the Barents region is centred upon advocates in regional councils and county administrative boards. However, besides the sub-national government bodies and the instrumental regional administration, business actors are also deeply involved. This means, for example, that chambers of commerce, consulting enterprises, various business clusters and individual companies have a strong role in the Barents region. Moreover, due to its geopolitical origins, the formal organization is based on the intergovernmental Barents Euro–Arctic Council (BEAC) in addition to the inter-regional Barents Regional Council (BRC) (Barents Euro-Arctic Council, 2013) which means that the national scale is still one of the ‘driving forces’ of cooperation (cf. Johnson, 2009; Nelles and Durand, 2012). In Ireland–Wales, much responsibility and resources are in the hands of the Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly, as their advocates manage the programme on behalf of the governments of Ireland and Wales. On the project level, one of the major differences between Barents and Ireland–Wales is the high degree of university participation in the latter (Ireland–Wales Annual Implementation Report, 2009).

The key actors were not able to explicate the relevance of key aspects of thick region-building clearly. Instead, they admitted in the interviews that their region is top-down, the elements of thick identity are lacking and it is questionable as to what added value increased regional consciousness would create. Thus, instrumental thin region-building and branding outweighed the relevance of thick region-building and identity. Or, alternatively, the latter had just not been thought over.

It’s like, kind of a political region, so people don’t know about it, and I don’t know what’s the use if they know that they belong to the Barents region. The consciousness as such has no value. Maybe. I don’t know really. (M40–45yrs/B)

Thick region-building was seen as troublesome, and creating an imagined supranational community (cf. Anderson, 1991) was regarded as time-consuming. Moreover, it was felt that advocates and supranational institutions have only limited means to promote thick identity. Thus, supranational identity as historical or widely adopted by the inhabitants as a sense of belonging was fairly un-emphasized in region-building, and its construction was viewed as challenging, particularly in the Barents region. While it was acknowledged that thick identity as such exists, the instrumental thin identity and its promotion to EU bodies was stressed.

Whether the Barents identity will ever arise properly is a difficult question. It’s difficult to develop as well, for after all we have four states and indigenous peoples too… But then how it could become made, it’s a long-term task and I don’t think it’s easy, but through various activities we can develop it little by little. I mean activities that are rather grassroots and close to the general population. That’s how identity could become established. But what we should eminently do is to pay attention to Brussels, to launch and promote the idea of Barents region stronger there. And it is in fact what we now strive to do. (M60–65yrs/B)

Fawning over Brussels can be explained by the strong role of the European Union in the institutionalization of both regions (cf. Clark and Jones, 2008). However, whereas Ireland–Wales was fundamentally institutionalized by the EU and its Interreg programme, Barents has been institutionalized, at least lately, increasingly for the EU. However, both regions have become institutionalized predominantly through institutions that, through their instrumental role, manage the cooperation and draw greatly on transnational planning rhetoric (Healey and Upton, 2010). Thus, institutionalization occurs through institutions themselves, and one interviewee actually stated that ‘Barents was originally explicitly founded by establishing certain institutions that have duplicated themselves slightly since’. Although these have been rather top-down in origin, it was recognized that through their actions they nevertheless may begin to establish the knowledge of the regions and supranational networks among a wider audience.

Whereas old thick identity, or historical–cultural identity as Boman and Berg (2007) term it, was almost non-existent in the Barents region (cf. Hønneland, 1998), in Ireland–Wales cooperation prior to the official structures was stressed. Thus, although the current formal cooperation was seen as strictly enabled by the Interreg programme, it was felt that the long history of interaction across the sea has contributed to thick region-building, and cooperation would probably continue in the future also, in the form of new Interreg programmes or similar instruments.

It’s fair to say that there is a history of cooperation between Wales and Ireland that preceded the introduction of Interreg and will last beyond the Interreg. Because of our historical connections: the ferry routes and all the rest. There’s movement of people and goods across the Irish Sea, which will continue. We’ll be extremely confident that [there] will be an Interreg Five Programme, a cross-border maritime programme between Ireland and Wales. (M50–55yrs/I–W)

Thick supranational region-building was connected not only to the Irish Sea as a unifying link and common asset but also to Celtic heritage and England as ‘the other’. Moreover, thick identity was seen to be strengthened in everyday social interaction between the Irish and the Welsh.

We come from the Celtic people going back thousands of years, there is a common base there. It’s a kind of an unspoken kind of a thing really. If you take that on into the 21st century, the biggest thing you’d probably see is, for example, when Ireland play Wales in rugby… If the game is on, a load of Welsh people will come over on the ferry and they stay over and watch the rugby in the pubs. They’ll come over to Ireland for the weekend because it’s fun. And you meet all the Welsh people, and you have great fun together. There’s a natural empathy there and I think in that sense from a cultural point of view, people…we all speak the same language. And we watch often the same TV stations, we like beer. So on a human level there’s an identity. I think it’s a human and kind of semi-intangible thing but it is based on a real kind of historical links and I think it is there. (M40–45yrs/I–W)

As a whole, however, region-building embraced the ideas of new regionalism and was to a large extent instrumental, as it became connected with regional economies and external funding possibilities. It is thus intertwined with practices of institutionalization and branding. Accordingly, identity in planning appeared ambivalent and vague. However, it was felt that regional identity may have some significance and that there are processes transpiring that can strengthen it. Moreover, the interviewees realized that regional identity is also part of European regional policy, and that they must react accordingly by promoting it (cf. Healey, 2012; Paasi, 2012). The advocates were aware that they, as supranational political and policy elites, are projecting ‘EUropean’ soft power and implementing EU interests, ideas and identities by performing a European way of doing cross-border cooperation (Clark and Jones, 2008).

I think it’s [cross-border identity] something the Commission would like to see … that in terms of breaking down borders and in terms of, you know, the ultimate legitimacy of the European project is the idea of a European identity, of people identifying with the institutions and the money and the, you know, the euro, the Finnish markkas or Irish pounds or whatever. And I think it feeds into a wider political debate that a lot of those in charge in Brussels would like to see happen. (M40–45yrs/I–W)

Interplay of region-building and branding

According to Paasi’s theory of institutionalization (1986), regions and regional identity are created to a large extent (although not only) through symbolization. This notion further emphasizes the interplay of branding and identity, and in fact Paasi convincingly argues that regional symbols are manifest (and manipulated) when the ‘subjective identity’ of a region is created and recreated in social practices, often by the institutional sphere. Some symbolization occurred in both case study regions. When asked, interviewees referred to slogans and logos that had been created. Systematic use of established regional symbols had not yet started, however, and there was a bit of uncertainty as to whether it would happen anytime soon.

There aren’t specific [symbols]… Of course in our logo, we have stylized northern light in Barents’ logo, but as a whole… I think Norwegians have even some kind of flag of Barents too, but it is the same as the logo. There is no reason why symbols wouldn’t start to emerge little by little, but there hasn’t been systematic planning behind them. So time will tell. (M60–65yrs/B)

In the Ireland–Wales cross-border region, the programme itself was thought to have a strong role in branding the region together with the various events aimed at the regional advocates. Branding also was cited when the interviewer asked about the naming of the region.

It’s been the fourth programme where there’s been this cooperation and organizations are quite aware of it. So, I think it has quite a high profile, but we also do quite a lot to promote the programme as part of the publicity for the programme. We’ve got the annual event that’s coming up, and the Development Officers have quite a high profile and we’ve got the website: the Ireland–Wales website, as well. (F45–50yrs/I–W)

You need to respect the identity of both countries. The name for the purposes of this programme, we actually stripped it down, I actually did that because, for example, our website: Ireland–Wales, i.e.; pick up the phone – ‘Hello, Ireland–Wales office’. And I think you’d be losing something if you didn’t have that. Because previously, Ireland–Wales Interreg III A Programme was just…we tried to strip it down, just Ireland–Wales, that’s almost like branding. (M40–45yrs/I–W)

Interestingly, particularly in Ireland–Wales, networks across the border were stressed instead of bounded territory. Network topology emphasized movement as a building block of cooperation (cf. Axford, 2006) and something supranational identities and brands are constructed upon. This probably stems from the fact that the Irish Sea is not only a physical hurdle that makes networking fundamentally challenging but also an asset and driving force for cooperation.

Like region-building, branding in planning became emphasized as an activity in which the asymmetry becomes muted and regions are represented as relatively uniform to the decision-makers in Brussels. This was the case particularly in the Barents region and emphasizes the mutuality of branding and thin region-building. It indicates that planning is not only about place-making (Hague, 2005), but, like Paasi (2012) states, that currently one of the main foci of planners in place-making is marketing and branding practices.

The obvious reason [for naming the region] is the coverage. Globally we enter the situation where nation states aren’t the key players, but things happen through the regional networks. And then, if you want to create some kind of brand, then you need to invent good slogans which you then promote. So in this situation I think it’s essential in this global competition that we are regions in the far north working under an umbrella called Barents. (M60–65yrs/B)

Events serve as a performative tool of institutionalization and branding in Barents also. For instance a Tour de Barents ski competition and Barents exhibitions for both regional elites and wider audiences have been arranged. Also, the Barents Centre has been established in Rovaniemi, Finland, to operate as a marketer mainly for small and medium enterprises. According to their website, their aim is to ‘gather, assemble, create and refine information in the Barents Euro Arctic Region for the special needs of business, education and administration’.

In general, region-building and branding appeared as strategic and managerialist activity where regional spaces with the ability to confront ‘today’s globalizing quicksilver economy’ (Jones and MacLeod, 2004: 435) became emphasized. Region-building and branding were made through planning institutions by providing information and promoting regions not only ‘upwards’ to the European Union (although this aspect was emphasized), but also ‘downwards’ to the inhabitants of the regions. In all, institutionalization and branding became intermingled in what can be labelled promotional performativity of scale (cf. Kaiser and Nikiforova, 2008), where events, promotional measures and dissemination of information are managed by the advocates (or regional elites) to familiarize various target groups with the region.

Conclusions

Newly established supranational regions, which tend to be ‘imaginary regions on paper’, become institutionalized by regional advocates, primarily through thin region-building. In these practices regional identity plays an instrumental role as part of a branding which is aimed mainly outside the region. Thus, the inward-looking idea of identity is challenged by relational thinking and an outward orientation that emphasizes representations, images and exogenous promotion (Veemaa, 2012). As a result, the whole concept of identity refers increasingly to the identity of the region instead of regional consciousness. Accordingly, regional advocates and their respective institutions continue to build supranational regions and construct regional identities as a rather strategic activity. Reflecting the agenda of EU regional policy, they respond to ‘normative prescriptions derived from general polity paradigms for an integrated Europe’ (Axford, 2006: 172; cf. Blatter, 2003: 508). Thus, regions and identities both become performed in what could be called a rhetoric game of catch. This refers to practices whereby popular concepts and themes circulate between programmes made by Eurocrats and the upward and downward representations made by regional elites (cf. Healey, 2012; Paasi, 2012).

Nevertheless, like territorial and relational space, thick and thin identities should not be understood automatically as separate or exclusive categories, but as contextual and overlapping concepts at the ends of a continuum (cf. Jones, 2009; Painter, 2010; Terlouw, 2009). They are thus sometimes but not always contested categories. Moreover, regions themselves should not be understood so much as separate ‘scales’ that are fixed and bounded, but rather more as processes or performances that bring together the local, national and global scales (cf. Kaiser and Nikiforova, 2008). Regions thereby need to be treated distinctively as social constructs that do not arise in a vacuum but are the results of complex, often asymmetrical processes of institutionalization that occur in all social action and discursive practices. As Felgenhauer et al. (2005) put it, the region gets real in the act of its performance (i.e. by quoting it, referring to it and talking about it). This is what they call significative regionalization, referring to the ways we use language and symbols to make the world comparable and understandable (but, inevitably, more simplified as well). While this research does not unambiguously support the notion that identity is something regions never have but only do (Kuus, 2007: 97), the planning discourse underlines regions as palimpsests upon which identities are performatively and repeatedly written and rewritten. The current tendency of ‘neoliberal regionalism’ underlines this, as its vocabulary of growth, dynamism and prosperity (and only sometimes a regional sense of community) (Larner and Walters, 2002) tends to produce multiple and coexisting spatializations and fragmented regional identities.

Similarly, region-building and branding are about dialectics of networks and territories so that networks are embedded in territories and vice versa. Thus, territory and network should not be seen as fundamentally incommensurable categories, but as mutual and intertwining dimensions in both branding and region-building. As networks produce a range of territorial configurations, there is respectively some mutuality between thin and thick region-building. However, as Axford (2006) states, network ontology (which was particularly strong in Ireland–Wales) is ‘usually read as thin, when set against the thick identities of bounded states and regions’ (Axford, 2006: 164). While networks challenge formal organization, hierarchy and boundedness, borders fundamentally underwrite them. Although contemporary planning discourse emphasizes institutionalizing network-oriented regional spaces and utilitarian thin identity, branding – as representations of a region – entails the idea of boundedness and a degree of territorial thinking.

Besides this paradox, the tension between branding and planning is such that whereas in branding the rhetoric of distinction and symbolized boundedness with ‘us and them’ distinction is stressed, in planning fluidity and fuzziness are commonly underlined as the competitive edges. Also, as planning vocabulary tends to be rather uniform, it has a tendency to homogenize regions rather than differentiate them. Thus, newly conceived regions need to acquire a unique brand to stand out (Hospers, 2006), but at the same time their advocates and institutions tend to utilize widely used and dominant expressions (such as creativity, competition, innovation, cluster and learning region) in region-building and planning (cf. Paasi, 2012).

Emphasis on thin region-building and branding does not mean that the newly conceived supranational regions could not have any significance in the everyday lives of their inhabitants in the future, however. After all, many regions that we now regard as having strong historical and cultural identity, and which are strongly identified with, were once novel and emerged as top-down processes, and as such have had very little meaning for their respective citizens in the past. Through thin region-building and branding, community and culture-based thick identity may begin to replace the utilitarian thin one, leading possibly to, at best, a hybrid regional identity where the region has secured its status in the regional system and is able to simultaneously link up with higher-scale administrations (Terlouw, 2009). Consolidation of hybrid and thick identities could be boosted by a stronger shift towards cultural and social issues as well as through more genuinely multilateral networks and bottom-up initiatives during the oncoming phases of the supranational cooperation (cf. Nelles and Durand, 2012; Zimmerbauer, 2011). It needs to be stressed that in the long run common identity cannot be imposed from above, but should gain the attention and acceptance of the wider population to become reality. Eventually the regions on paper and regions in discourses may transform into regions in social practice (Johnson, 2009; Paasi, 2001) that are highly meaningful and have concrete effects on the everyday lives of their inhabitants.