The reader may be amazed when they are faced with the sheer number of territorial divisions associated with public action, and full of questions. What justifies this diversity? What are the problems that arise from these divisions? Why don't the limits of public action simply follow administrative and political subdivisions?
Territorial Division for Public Action focuses on the situation in France, proposing three different approaches. First, we consider the functions that are associated with these territorial divisions: equitable distribution of resources across the territory, administration and the management of public services. However, they are also a tool for maintaining power.
Lastly, we consider the effects these divisions have on the implementation of public action and on socio-spatial structures. These divisions reflect political projects, which embody the issues as much as the partition design itself does. The recent reform of territorial regions, alongside a gradual imposition of intercommunal links in France, has given rise to political debates at both local and national levels.
Acknowledgements xiii Introduction xv Antoine LAPORTE and Antonine RIBARDIÈRE Part 1. Territorial Division and the Political Project 1 Chapter 1. France's Départements and Municipalities: Fossils or Phoenixes? 3 Antoine LAPORTE 1.1. Introduction 3 1.2. Republican equality embodied by regular territorial division 6 1.3. The age of decentralization: the invention of regions and intermunicipal structures 12 1.4. In the 2010s, continuing decentralization without eliminating any tiers 17 1.5. Conclusion 22 1.6. References 23 Chapter 2. Intermunicipal Division: An Ambiguous Revolution 25 Guillaume VERGNAUD and Antoine LAPORTE 2.1. Introduction 25 2.2. The origin of the intermunicipal association: the inadequacies of an unbreakable municipal territorial division 27 2.3. Intermunicipal division: the rapid but gradual construction of a new division at local level 30 2.4. Impacts, stakes and debates 37 2.5. Conclusion 43 2.6. References 43 Chapter 3. Contradictory Bets on a Greater Paris 47 Xavier DESJARDINS 3.1. Introduction 47 3.2. Bigger, more democratic? 49 3.3. Bigger, more coherent? 54 3.4. Conclusion: how the scale changes 55 3.5. References 56 Chapter 4. Creating Neighborhoods for Participatory Democracy 59 Anne-Lise HUMAIN-LAMOURE 4.1. Introduction 59 4.2. Neighborhoods at the National Assembly and the Senate: the grand narratives of republican territory reinterpreted 61 4.3. Setting up neighborhoods: elusive legality, uncertain pragmatism 65 4.4. Making territories: the facts of division 69 4.5. Conclusion 75 4.6. References 76 Chapter 5. Division for Better Governance in Post-Revolution Tunisia 77 Maher BEN REBAH 5.1. Introduction 77 5.2. Genesis and evolution of territorial divisions in Tunisia 79 5.3. Land communalization in post-revolution Tunisia: the legal impasse, the political agenda and the technical solution 84 5.4. Communalization: between past territorial heritage and future electoral implications 88 5.5. Conclusion 99 5.6. References 101 Part 2. Territorial Division and Access to Rights 105 Chapter 6. The Challenges of the French Judicial Map 107 Etienne CAHU 6.1. Introduction 107 6.2. Rationality, equality, technicality, profit: the multiple foundations of the French judicial map 109 6.3. What impact do judicial territorial divisions have on access to the courts and the delivery of justice? 120 6.4. Conclusion 131 6.5. References 132 Chapter 7. School Sectorization, the Territorial Division of the French Republic's Schools? 135 Jean-Christophe FRANÇOIS 7.1. Introduction 135 7.2. From Jules Ferry to the collège unique: standardizing public secondary education and financing private schools 137 7.3. Opening up education and sectorization (1981-2007) 142 7.4. 2007-2012: pseudo-de-sectorization and its consequences 146 7.5. 2012-2020: Believing that sectorization is a good thing, but that current boundaries are wrong and lead to segregation 150 7.6. Conclusion: when the framework hides the territorial division 153 7.7. References 154 Chapter 8. The Territorial Division of Social Action to Promote Cohesion and Reduce Inequalities 159 Antonine RIBARDIÈRE 8.1. Introduction 159 8.2. Professional territorial division, unstable by nature? 165 8.3. From specialized administrative zoning to the territorialization of the département's public action 168 8.4. Towards infra-département division? 171 8.5. Conclusion 174 8.6. References 175 Chapter 9. France's Territorial Frameworks for Public Health Policy 179 Catherine MANGENEY, Emmanuel ELIOT, Véronique LUCAS-GABRIELLI, Guillaume CHEVILLARD and Magali COLDEFY 9.1. Introduction 179 9.2. When the territorial division of healthcare translates into state oversight 183 9.3. Division as a tool for redistribution 186 9.4. Towards multi-form territories? 191 9.5. Conclusion 198 9.6. References 199 Part 3. Sharing Public Action: From Territorial Division to Zoning 203 Chapter 10. Selecting and Acting upon ""Priority Neighborhoods"" to Reduce Inequalities? 205 Violette ARNOULET and Christine LELÉVRIER 10.1. Introduction 205 10.2. Urban policy or the construction of a territorialized public problem 206 10.3. ""Priority geography"" as a tool for decentralized public action 211 10.4. Acting on ""priority neighborhoods"" to combat inequality? 217 10.5. Conclusion 220 10.6. References 221 Chapter 11. Demarcate to Preserve: Zoning Protected Areas in France 225 Lionel LASLAZ 11.1. Introduction: territorial division and nature: an oxymoron? 225 11.2. From naturalistic and deterministic presuppositions to the political boundaries of protected areas: an ongoing negotiation 229 11.3. Inside and outside: the territorial division of protected spaces or the shaping of compromise through space 238 11.4. Stacking territorial divisions: the temptation to overlay protected areas 245 11.5. Conclusion 254 11.6. References 255 Chapter 12. Public Action Zoning in Rural Areas 259 Pascal CHEVALIER and Guillaume LACQUEMENT 12.1. Introduction 259 12.2. From public policy zoning to public action zoning 261 12.3. Project territories for regional development 271 12.4. From mobilizing stakeholders to building project territories: the ambivalence of public action zoning 275 12.5. Conclusion 282 12.6. References 282 Chapter 13. Rural Revitalization Zones: Between Equality and Efficiency 287 Christophe QUÉVA 13.1. Introduction 287 13.2. Logics and principles of ZRRs: an ideal of territorial equality 290 13.3. ZRRs between (in-)efficiency of public action, issues of attractiveness and territorial equity 300 13.4. Conclusion 304 13.5. References 306 List of Authors 309 Index 311 Index of Places 315
Antoine Laporte is Assistant Professor at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France, and member of the UMR EVS. Antonine Ribardière is Professor at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, and member of the UMR Géographie-Cités.
