Competitiveness and Cohesion: A Janus Head? Some Conceptual Clarifications

Abstract

This chapter addresses the growing conceptual ambivalence linked to the new generation of policy frames that replaced former ones with more open egalitarian terminology and targeting. It situates this growing ambivalence in the EU context where reformist policy frames of social democrat inspiration have increasingly had to face the dominant pressure of neo-liberal discourses and political realities. The authors reflect on the effectiveness of voluntarist contentions that socially contradictory objectives, like economic competitiveness and social cohesion, can be combined and lead to win–win results, and on the impact of conceptual ambivalence in shaping the social content of urban policies.