Geopolitical factors of maritime policies and marine spatial planning: State, regions, and geographical planning scope

This article sets out to explore the extent to which the maritime policies that have been formulated in recent years are public policies on a par with other State-level policies, or whether the geographical domain where they are applied makes them exceptional. Maritime policy and territorial structure are very closely related, and it can be seen that maritime policies are beginning to shift towards the domain of State internal affairs, necessitating the rethinking of the way powers are distributed between territorial bodies that have the legal power to be involved in the formulation of these policies and some instruments, such as marine spatial planning. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.