Regional Devolution and Regional Economic Success: Myths and Illusions about Power

The proposition that regional devolution in and of itself will lead to economic success has become deeply embedded in beliefs and policy discourses about the determinants of regional prosperity, and in turn has led to political demands for such devolution. In this paper I seek critically to examine such claims, using the case of the north‐east of England as the setting for this examination. The paper begins with some introductory comments on concepts of power, regions, the reorganization of the state and of multi‐level governance, and governmentality, which help in understanding the issues surrounding regional devolution. I then examine the ways in which north‐east England was politically and socially constructed as a particular type of region, with specific problems, in the 1930s — a move that has had lasting significance up until the present day. Moving on some six decades, I then examine contemporary claims about the relationship between regional devolution and regional economic success, which find fertile ground in the north‐east precisely due to its long history of representation as a region with a unified regional interest. I then reflect on the processes of regional planning, regional strategies and regional devolution, and their relationship to regional economic regeneration. A brief conclusion follows, emphasizing that questions remain about the efficacy of the new governmentality and about who would be its main beneficiaries in the region. The extent to which devolution would actually involve transferring power to the region and the capacity of networked forms of power within the region to counter the structural power of capital and shape central state policies remains unclear.     

RAPID REGIONAL ENLARGEMENT IN SWEDEN: A PHENOMENON MISSING AN EXPLANATION

According to Swedish register data, regional size and the extent of commuting have both increased rapidly in recent decades. From the perspective of policy-making authorities, this would indicate good prospects for regional development, as small regions could be integrated into larger ones resulting in increased economic growth. However, there are few concrete manifestations of such regional enlargement, and alternative datasets give other impressions of the effects of commuting. Here we argue that this apparent growth might stem from several problems inherent in a register-based way of measuring changes in commuting patterns. Thus, regional enlargement and the extent of commuting may be exaggerated when measured conventionally, and the high hopes of using such enlargement to lever regional development might be misplaced. More generally, this study considers the problems arising as census or other enquiry and interview based data are replaced by register data.     

Green industry development in different types of regions

ABSTRACT

At the regional level, the imperative of sustainable development often manifests itself in an emphasis on developing green industries. However, regions vary in their preconditions for achieving this. In this paper we link regional preconditions to various pathways for green industry development. This provides the foundation for identifying place-based policy implications for growing green industries in different types of regions, grounded in the emerging perspective in innovation studies on transformative innovation policy. The paper thereby helps to understand the pathways for greening the economy in different regional contexts and how such green pathways can be promoted through policy.     

REGIONALIZING “MODE 2”? THE ADOPTION OF CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE IN SWEDISH RESEARCH POLICY

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of university research for innovation and economic growth, a debate highly influenced by concepts such as Mode 2 and regional innovation systems and clusters. A prominent trend in many EU and OECD countries is to direct research funding towards so‐called Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in order to stimulate the industrial output of scientific research. The implementation of the CoE approach is viewed as an attempt to bridge research and innovation policy. By using Sweden as an example and providing an overview and critical discussion concerning Swedish research policy during the period 2001 to 2007 we show that the rhetoric within research policy has changed and become increasingly intertwined with innovation policy. In practice, however, this is not as evident. The study draws on (a) an analysis of policy literature pointing out regulatory and organizational changes concerning the increasing emphasis on linking research to competitive industrial milieus, and (b) a comprehensive database including 110 CoEs, presenting a detailed picture of university‐industry collaboration, cross‐disciplinarity, and prioritized sectors. We fiind that the CoEs account for a relatively small share of government funding, but may however have a strengthening impact on particular research milieus and industries, especially in the life sciences. Additionally, although contemporary policy rhetoric appears to highlight steering funding to geographically‐concentrated milieus, thereby linking leading university research to regional industrial clusters, this has only been manifested in a few cases – notably in the Vinnväxt programme run by Vinnova, the national agency promoting innovation systems.     

The costs of putting Valencia on the map: the hidden side of regional entrepreneurialism, ‘creative city’ and strategic projects

ABSTRACT

Strategic projects based on culture and sports have been one of the vectors of regional development since the 1990s. Accordingly, local and regional governments have drawn up entrepreneurial strategies to project their image internationally and foster investment and tourism. These developments have been described in Spain as ‘The Calatrava Model’ for putting a city/region on the map and for boosting tourism. However, from the study of the case of Valencia and four strategic projects (The Fifth World Meeting of Families, The America's Cup, Formula 1 and The City of Arts and Sciences), we will show how there is a hidden side to this paradigm, which boils down to an unsustainable, top-down system whose sole purpose is to gain and maintain political hegemony. We will also assess the medium and long term impacts of these projects in terms of: opportunity costs, snowballing debt, corruption, and an utter breakdown of democratic controls as a result of Valencia’s poor regional governance.     

In Search of Causality: A Regional Approach to Urban Growth in Eighteenth-century England

The simple equation of industrialisation and urbanisation contains much truth: recent national surveys confirm that rapid coal-based industrial growth spawned massive urban development in Britain. And yet at the local level a wide diversity of growth experiences reflect a complex and overlapping nexus of growth stimuli which defy attempts at generalisation. In taking a regional perspective, this paper seeks to occupy a productive middle ground in this ongoing debate. Placing urban growth in north-west England into its real economic and geographical context, it recognises the complexities of urban growth but transcends the narrowness of the particular. In so doing, it challenges some of the certainties of industrial urbanisation, emphasising instead the importance of rural industry, urban commercial functions and inter-place linkages. Most fundamentally, it argues for a more nuanced understanding of the geography of causality.