Challenging the Concept of Left-behindness: Drivers and Perception of Territorial Inequalities and their Policy Responses

Policy Brief from the EXIT research. This brief aims to spark a discussion on the factors driving inequalities in areas labeled as “left behind.” It emphasizes the importance of focusing on drivers of inequality rather than solely on the “protest voting” of local populations. Concepts like “left-behind places” (Rodríguez-Pose, 2020) and “places that don’t matter” (Kölling, 2021) highlight the economic stagnation and political neglect in certain areas of the Global North. These terms have been interpreted in various ways across different fields of research, public debates, and policies, but their meaning remains elusive. We need to understand these places in light of both lack of growth and lack of cohesion and we also need to understand how these concrete locations, interact with neighbors, generate flows of goods, people, and ideas, and support concentration, economies of scale and scope (or de-concentration and diseconomies). In short, we need to understand the complexity of such places. EXIT explores and expands the discourse on “left-behind places” both through an innovative empirical approach and through a critical examination of the concept itself.