MAURO FOTIA

Territorio e analisi politologica

N. 145

Summary — Territory, owing to the complex social dynamics by which it is characterized (being a physical place where communities settle) is a typical border subject. Namely, it covers a plurality of scientific prospects which, naturally, need to be linked together in a consistent way. Such unitary principle can only be supplied by a socio-politological approach. And this both because the socio-economic exchanges, started by the territorial dynamics, are in constant interaction with the political power, and for the fact that this interlacement determines the exigency of a political regulation which the market private mechanisms are not able to meet. So it is important to grasp the manifold relations between territory and politics. These relations may be gathered around two conceptual knots: the first one refers to the territoriality as fundamental character of the political analysis; the second concerns the fundamental politological dimension of the science of the territory. From the study of these knots it comes out hat the State's action administers the existence of milions of citizens not only directly through institutional and administrative channels, but also by the indirect way provided by space instruments. The actual method of carrying out such administration is represented by the plan as instrument of direction, proposal, constraint, control. Actually, the main object of the plan does not lie in foreseeing a specific use of space, but in establishing it by means of a combination of legislative, executive and administrative activities which only the State can provide. The planning of the territory, on the other hand, cannot be torn off from the ampler framework of the economic planning. This latter in its turn, sets in motion far-reaching social planning processes. One must conclude, therefore, that politics is a fundamental dimension of the whole planning mechanism. The consequent tendency towards an increasing juridical regulation of the planning activities is therefore of a more substantial than formal importance, in the sense that, more than to the law, weigh is given to the delegation of the powers of regulation and control and to the enforcement of rules easy to make in regimes of power concentration, as usually are planned regimes.