Pour une géopolitique extrospective du développement urbain: Malaga et Mazara del Vallo, la coopération transfrontalière par le pragmatisme territorial

This article contributes to research on urban geopolitics through an extrospective theorization of local territorial influence on the international stage. Empirically, the article focuses on a comparative study of extrospective development initiatives from Malaga (Spain) and Mazara del Vallo (Sicily) that have recently emerged in response to the effects of the Great Recession. We examine the symbolic, infrastructural and territorial dimensions of these strategically outward-oriented processes in order to advocate for a more transversal conceptualization of local geopolitical power than has been typically employed in current research. In doing so, our specifically extrospective approach provides a pathway for thinking across three key analytical distinctions that underpin geopolitical reasoning in the French School of Geopolitics: (i) those concerning territorial actions internal and external to the nation-state; (ii) the rapport between political and economic power rivalries, and; (iii) the role of conflict or consensus animating territorial action. Together, the issues seek to provide political geographers with scope to imagine alternative spaces by which local geopolitics is constituted today.