Trajectories Of Regions And Spatial Integration In The World‐System

In this paper, we reconstruct the trajectories of the southern Low Countries as part of the world‐system and of the Campine, initially as part of the Duchy of Brabant (itself part of a small world‐economy), and later as part of the southern Low Countries, on the basis of a hypothesis that spatial integration/fragmentation involves the upgrading/downgrading of the status of a region in the world‐economy. Spatial integration is conceived of as a process of transformation that (re)produces a coherent pattern of functional shapes. However, the degree of coherence is not necessarily measured by the volume of horizontal relations between the integrated areas. Moreover, a distinction should be made between the factors of transformation that (re)produce the pattern and other factors that produce a configuration that happens to coincide with that pattern. Finally, the world‐economy should be considered as an autopoietic system, functioning in the manner of a transformation matrix.