The European system of capital cities

Capital cities reflect the nature and organization of the states they control. Their functional role is higher in centralized systems, societies where the state is the source of all legitimacy, and countries using Continental Law. It is lower in federal systems, pillarized societies and countries, which are ruled according to a Common Law. The symbolic status of capital cities is higher when the state is the source of all legitimacy, lower in consociationalist societies. Theses processes were responsible for the development of two types of political capital cities and one type of economic and cultural capital cities during the nineteenth century. A partial standardization of the functions and statuses of capital cities occurred later. The European Union is neither a state nor a super-state since its main responsibilities are still in the economic field, it lacks a huge administrative bureaucracy and does not have definitive territorial limits. The European Union has officially three capital cities, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels. The really important one is Brussels. Its functions are nevertheless quite different from those of national capital cities during the first half of the twentieth century. European capital cities are thriving because most of them managed to become economic metropolises. The result is that the European Union has a complex and rapidly evolving system of capital cities.     

The cityscapes of European capital cities

Capital cities are politico-administrative centers. They are command centers, they symbolize authority and also the unit that is governed. Primarily they are capitals of states, but other governance systems may also have capitals. In the European context there are now regional capital cities and at least the concept of a European capital. Particularly on account of their symbolic function but also for the uses made of its appearance in political life, the cityscape of capital cities is an interesting topic for research. There are different types of capital cities in Europe that give rise to different cityscapes. Existing urban networks and types of political regime are important in this respect. Although cityscapes are pretty stable, they are differently perceived over time and uses made of them also change. A research agenda for this intersection of historical, cultural and political geography should concentrate on the evolution of these cityscapes, their perception and the uses made of them in the acting out of politics.     

Dictators and their capital cities: Moscow and Berlin in the 1930s

Stalin and Hitler planned major changes in the townscapes of their capital cities. These plans were part of their effort to install highly mobilized despotic regimes that needed a wide-ranging set of symbols to focus allegiance and to impress awe. These plans remained to some extent paper exercises but part of it left significant traces in the contemporary cities, particularly in Moscow. The intended changes showed similarities in their megalomania expressed in plans for a gigantic dome surrounded by a huge public square in the core of the city. There were also differences as regards the type of symbols used due to both dictotors' different roles within their regimes, the degree of didactic intent due to the nature of the commanding ideologies and the level of modernization of both countries, and the diverging versions of antimodernist building style (which they shared with many others elsewhere at the time).     

World cities and territorial states under conditions of contemporary globalization II: Looking forward, looking ahead

The influence of globalization on the future study of political geography is investigated through research on world cities. It is argued that political geography, like most social science, has been excessively state-centric in its organisation and that this will not help in understanding new transnational processes within contemporary globalization. Study of the state should not be abandoned, of course, but it must be set in a new context where much politics takes place beyond the state. This is illustrated through using the world city network as an alternative spatial framework to the world political map. The political geography of the twenty first century will have to incorporate traditional concern for political areas with new concerns for power networks in more subtle geographies than heretofore.