National separation,controlled co-operation: how state-socialist elites communicated economic openings

This article describes how official journalists in the state-socialist dictatorships communicated economic co-operation with the West to the domestic audience. It discusses the hypothesis of West–East transfers causing a structural differentiation of the official spheres of state socialism regarding the issue of European co-operation and integration. Both a legacy of Stalinist narratives and rigid media control hampered a consistent explanation of East–West co-operation. Ultimately, growing ambivalence in the official public sphere undermined the legitimacy of state-socialist rule.     

Observation and assessment of local economic development with regard to the application of the local multiplier

This contribution deals with the observation and evaluation of the issues of local economic development with a focus on the relatively new method of the local multiplier LM3. The main objective of this article is to evaluate the application possibilities of selected tools for the analysis of local economic development, in order to verify the effectiveness of the methodology of the local multiplier LM3 and to discuss the possibilities of its practical use. This LM3 method is perceived to be one of the convenient methods on how to capture certain components of local economic development. This indicator of the power of local economies is verified within field research in two case studies conducted in the ?umava region in Southwest Bohemia. The added value of this contribution is both methodological and practical. Currently, there exist only very few studies using the LM3 method in the Czech Republic and they do not offer satisfying evaluation of possible broader use of this method in the area of local development in the specific Czech regions. Having summarized two new case studies, this article contributes to the methodological discussion of the LM method and includes concrete practical recommendations for future research and also practical use.     

Managerialism,governmentality and the state: a neo-Foucauldian approach to local economic governance

After decades of relative stability, the 1980s and 1990s witnessed a radical restructuring of local–central relations in Britain. This paper draws on neo-Foucauldian writings on ‘governmentality’ to argue that local state restructuring is a product of the ascendancy of neo-liberalism as a distinct political rationality. Material drawn from empirical research on local economic governance in the Scottish Highlands shows how the functioning of a distinct set of managerial ‘technologies’ — embedded in specific practices such as budgetary management, audit and targeting — is instrumental in giving the central state the capacity to shape local institutional practice. At the same time, however, local institutional actors retain some scope to adapt and ‘translate’ central directives to their own particular purposes. Whilst recent neo-Gramscian contributions argue that local governance must be seen as a product of national state restructuring, the neo-Foucauldian emphasis on governmental technologies specifies the precise mechanisms which give central state authorities the reach and capability to monitor and steer the activities of local institutions. In conclusion, the paper suggests that focusing on the reception of governmental technologies within sub-national institutional sites may offer a productive line of inquiry which can expose the internal contradictions and fissures of neo-liberal programmes.     

Evolutionary economic geography: reflections from a sustainable tourism perspective

ABSTRACT

Evolutionary economic geography (EEG) is receiving increasing attention from tourism geographers with over 30 publications explicitly incorporating EEG into tourism between 2011 and 2016. Many of these contributions are conceptual, which is not surprising given the novelty of EEG within economic geography, in general, and tourism, in particular. However, a sizeable number of these are built on detailed case studies, using EEG as an analytical lens rather than as a conceptual point of departure. Thus, many tourism researchers have found that EEG has great potential for understanding change in tourism destinations. In this Research Frontiers paper I critically reflect on this early research of EEG in tourism geographies from a sustainable development perspective. In the cases presented, EEG offers a fresh understanding of two related challenges in each of two separate aspects of sustainable tourism development. First, pro-growth governance models can be disrupted by engaged local stakeholders in order to make tangible sustainability gains but these gains remain precarious over time as pro-growth governance models prove tenacious in the very long-term. Second, regional institutional legacies hamper new path emergence in two ways – through institutional inertia which keeps the region's focus on past success in other sectors and through the (possibly competing) institutional imperatives of the dominant and emerging tourism sub-sectors or sub-regions. These challenges are illustrated through two complementary Canadian cases drawn from the extant literature – the mass tourism destination of Niagara and the resort community of Whistler. I highlight how a sustainable tourism perspective can also help to critique EEG theory and empirics in line with other recent political economy critiques in economic geography. I conclude that sustainable tourism, at its best, is an established reflexive lens which will help to develop, validate, and challenge aspects of EEG theory within tourism studies, in particular, and economic geography, in general.     

Determinants of regional resilience to economic crisis: a European perspective

The impact of the economic crisis has been highly asymmetric across the European regions. The objective of this paper is to investigate the determinants of resilience to economic crisis across European regions. Regional economic resilience was assessed based on employment changes during 2008–2013, while socioeconomic determinants were analysed pre-crisis (2002–2007). A highly heterogeneous pattern of resilience was observed within countries, while significant differences were also revealed between the continental northern-central regions and the southern periphery. A multilevel logistic regression model indicated the magnitude of country-effects on the performance of regional employment during crisis periods. Both EU-referenced and country-referenced regional resilience identified the positive effect of accessibility and the negative effect of a large manufacturing sector in the ability of regions to withstand recessionary shocks. Education and economic development level positively affected the resilience of both large and small regional European economies. Investing in education enhances the spatial homogeneity across Europe in terms of its ability to react to economic shocks. The results reveal the importance of narrowing disparities among regions and formulating targeted and differentiated regional development policies at country level, taking into consideration the size of the economy of the regions.     

Does graduate human capital production increase local economic development? An instrumental variable approach

Using a survey on Italian graduates, we investigate whether universities' degree production affects the economic development of the regions where academic institutions are located. To deal with suspected endogeneity between human capital development and economic growth, we employ an instrumental variable approach, using a global lump sum transferred to each university as an instrument for human capital production. Once we control for the regional flow of mobile students and graduates, the findings reveal the beneficial effect of the university system on local economic development through the gain in human capital.     

Exploring the intellectual structure of creative economy research and local economic development: a co-citation analysis

The aim of the present research is to investigate the intellectual structure of creative economy research (CER) with a bibliometric analysis based on co-citation. Firstly, we try to reconstruct the evolution of academic research on creative economy with particular attention to the themes of regional and local economic development. Secondly, we investigate the community of contributions/actors that contributed to its generation throughout social network analysis. We analyse publications collected from ISI Web of Science, which includes all academic works starting from the seminal contribution of Department of Culture Media and Sport in 1998. Through the analysis of 941 publications produced over 16 years, we investigate the evolution of CER. Then we apply a relational analysis exploring co-citations of ‘disseminators’ and founders’ work’ of CER. Results underline that creative economy may be considered as a successful multidisciplinary paradigm born and developed in English-speaking countries, developed even on a global level, and still in a developmental phase. The internal structure of research appears fragmented in many sub-communities concentrated around some key concepts. Whereas creative class and creative city contribute to the foundation of the field, cultural and creative industries are the most important and recent topic.     

Rally politics and political organisation: An institutionalist perspective on the French far Right

The study of the French far Right has often overlooked the relationship between parties and institutions. Here the presidentialisation of French politics under the Fifth Republic is taken to signal the institutionalisation of a form of rally politics within the French party system. Using a neo-institutionalist definition of institutions, rallies in the Third, Fourth and Fifth Republic are examined in turn. The conclusion is that the relative success of the Front national (FN) should be understood in light of the opportunities provided by the institutional framework in place in France from 1958 onwards.     

Entrepreneurship dynamics and economic cycles: an analysis for local systems and industrial districts

ABSTRACT

We propose a research framework that expressly takes into account the moderating and differentiated influence that can be exerted on the dynamics of entrepreneurship capital by both the type of local system and the economic situation. Moreover, we investigate whether industrial districts are a more favourable context for the evolution of the entrepreneurship capital. We apply this framework to data of municipalities, grouped in local labour systems, of three Spanish regions and in two sub-periods of, respectively, crisis (2007–2011) and incipient recovery (2011–2014). Results are consistent with a set of sensible relations that can be extracted from the background literature.     

Sustainable new economic centres in European metropolitan regions: A stakeholders' perspective

In many European metropolitan regions, new economic centres have emerged at the edge of large cities or in their (post-)suburban areas. This paper explores the possible contribution of these new centres to a more sustainable regional development of European metropolitan regions. The realization of sustainable business parks is even more complicated at 'greenfield' sites than at 'brownfield' sites. With the absence of space scarcity or congestion problems, the temptation to choose easier, less sustainable solutions is hard to resist. Nevertheless, in the Dutch Randstad region, some edge-city and suburban business locations try to meet high sustainability standards. Two case studies in Hoofddorp and Almere illustrate the tough road towards truly sustainable business parks, focusing on the role of the various stakeholders that either encourage or discourage the realization of sustainability potentials.     

Medieval Ireland and the Shannon Hydro-Electric Scheme: reconstructing the past in independent Ireland

This essay considers the position of Irish medieval buildings in the early years of the twentieth century. Focusing on the treatment of the oratory of St. Lua at Killaloe, it examines the ways in which the ruins of the medieval past were used to signify a range of political, religious and cultural ideas and attitudes. The rising water levels following the Shannon Scheme works (begun in 1925) meant that this stone oratory was moved from its original position on Friar’s Island to the grounds of St. Flannan’s Roman Catholic Church in 1929. The resulting paper trail reflects the complex processes of decision-making within a civil service in transition as the new Irish Free State calibrated its position with regard to the past and the treatment of medieval ruins throughout the countryside. The case study of St. Lua’s oratory is considered here in the context of the nineteenth-century tradition of scholarship on medieval buildings, the development of the idea of a national Irish architecture during this period, and the impact of this tradition on subsequent engagement with the buildings of the medieval past.     

Turkish-Israeli ntilitary co-operation: changing intplications for Greece and Cyprus

Abstract

In order to fully grasp the dynamics of the trilateral relations between Israel, Turkey, and Greece today, one must look first to the history of their mutual interrelations in the last 50 years, that is, from the time of the establishment of the State of Israel.