2026/04/30 by Karst Berkenbosch, Arie Stoffelen, Federica Bono · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Coastal and Marine Management #Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration #International Maritime Law Issues
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/21622671.2026.2654659
openalex publication_date 2026/04/30 · openalex created_date 2026/05/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Geopolitical dynamics are shaped in a variety of contexts, including local and everyday settings. In order to better understand how geopolitics emerge as dynamic and multiscalar processes, we focus on how multi-level governance links local-level, operational geopolitical interests with strategic interests at higher spatial scales. We focus on fisheries governance in the Gulf of Saint-Malo between France, the Channel Islands and the United Kingdom. We show how Brexit dismantled a cross-border fisheries governance network, and simultaneously scaled up and reterritorialised fisheries governance, making it more nationally and hierarchically organised. In response, local governance actors attempted to down-scale governance competencies and forge new cross-border relations. Combined, these top-down and bottom-up restructuring efforts resulted in a hybrid situation wherein national territories and scalar hierarchies remained more pronounced than before Brexit, but where certain cross-border networks and governance competencies were regained at the scale of the gulf. Overall, we show how geopolitics emerge from the interactions between spatial scales and are therefore best understood as dynamic multiscalar constructs.