Regional development-core-periphery relations : The Greek case
Part of : Επιθεώρηση κοινωνικών ερευνών ; Vol.24, 1975, pages 320-355
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320-355
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Articles
Abstract:
An attempt was made in this paper to demonstratethe process by which regional polarization and developmentoccur in industrializing countries. The caseof Greece was presented and analyzed as an exampleof highly polarized regional development.In Greece the polarization process actually startedin the 1830s with the emergence of the new modernGreek nation-state. It was the social change and «institutional» innovations injected into the system thattransformed the «traditional» socio-economic spatialstructure of the country by attracting innovative personalities;the country’s élites; and consequently alleconomic activities; science; education; and cultureinto the enclave of accelerated change, the new capitalAthens, which later became the core region while therest of the country was left in a backwater. The coreregion started organizing the periphery into dependencyby the gradual neutralization and co-option ofthe periphery’s élites; by the creation of an adaptivesystem characterized by authority-dependency relations;and by the penetration and transformation ofthe periphery’s social values and institutions in thedirection of greater acceptance and conformity withits own value system.The polarization process that started in the 1830swas later reinforced by the «technical» and «economic» innovations introduced in the 1950s into thesystem. The industrialization of the country was onceagain focused around the core region, Athens. Butdue to fundamental structural weaknesses in thecountry’s economy, the so-called economic «miracle»of the core region was not based on modern dynamicindustry and productive investment but rather on the«spread effects» of invisible receipts which in turnstimulated consumption and construction in the coreregion. At the same time the periphery sank deeperand deeper in backwater and stagnation and neverparticipated in the core region’s «miracle.»It is believed that the above process of regionalpolarization and development is characteristic of mostindustrializing countries where core-periphery relationsare still predominant influences.
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