ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book brings together the two, largely separate strands of 'border debates' political-administrative, with its scalar dimension, and social-relational, with its varying degree of imagination versus 'realness'. This is, because borders inherently combine both: variably scaled territoriality and more or less imagined spatiality. It refers to the marginalising effects of network-based policy making and associated spatiality of inclusion and exclusion. Personalities, regional knowledge and policy-making capacity and capability matter. This reflects the fact that merely operating through administrative channels, relying on administrative 'positions' gained through positioning in government hierarchies, no longer suffices. The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) offered the most complex and diverse picture, very much reflecting a multi-level border 'landscape' which undergoes continuous dynamics. The adoption of the Euro as common currency in a growing number of Eastern European countries further adds to appearance of a common space, seemingly substituting difference.
