Project summary

The process of economic and political integration in Europe implied fundamental changes in the nature of EU’s internal and external borders. The project aims to study the changing nature of state borders and its impact on regional development and socioeconomic performance of border regions. The main research questions are: What are the effects of bordering processes on socioeconomic development in different border regions? What are the determinants of these potentially heterogeneous effects? What are the underlying mechanisms behind the socioeconomic changes in border regions and what role do the regional key actors play?

The empirical research focuses on border regions in the Central European region (Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria,) which were affected by the changing nature of borders due to major institutional changes following the fall of the Iron Curtain and European integration process. Theoretically, the project builds upon the latest contributions to theories of regional development. Methodologically, quantitative and qualitative methods are combined in order to integrate the analysis of macro-level impacts of the changing nature of borders on the socioeconomic performance of border regions with the micro-level perspective represented by perceptions of key agents on the role and effects of borders.

Five relevant publications of the research group

Netrdová, P., Nosek, V. (2017): Exploring the variability and geographical patterns of population characteristics: Regional and spatial perspectives. Moravian Geographical Reports, 25(2), 85-94.

Netrdová, P., Nosek, V. (2016): Spatial patterns of unemployment in Central Europe: emerging development axes beyond the Blue Banana. Journal of Maps, 12(4), 701-706.

Nosek, V., Netrdová, P. (2014): Measuring Spatial Aspects of Variability. Comparing Spatial Autocorrelation with Regional Decomposition in International Unemployment Research. Historical Social Research, 39(2), 292-314.

Blažek, J., Netrdová, P. (2012): Regional unemployment impacts of the global financial crisis in the new member states of the EU in Central and Eastern Europe. European Urban and Regional Studies, 19(1), 42-61.

Blažek, J., Netrdová, P. (2009): Can development axes be identified by socio-economic variables? The case of Czechia. Geografie, 114(4), 245-262.

Current research grants of the group

Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR) 18-20904S – In the core or at the periphery? An institutional perspective on impact of border processes on socioeconomic development in Czech border regions; Principal investigator Pavlína Netrdová; 2018-2020

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