NEW PERSPECTIVES ON REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN WESTERN ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF'THE NEW REGIONALISM'

Abstract

In early 1980s, region, long considered an interesting topic to geographers, was rediscovered by mainstream western social science and treated as a fundamental units of economic and social life in contemporary capitalism. Since that, studies on regional economic development were soon resurging, therefore, the regionalism or the institutionalist perspective came into being and became mainstream thoughts in western economic geography. This paper briefly introduces historical contexts of technological and organizational changes, then investigates characteristics and origins in its theories, which come mainly from a set of theoretical tools involving economic sociology, evolutionary economics and institutional economics. Following, three main strands, which consist of the flexible specialization school, the California school and the technological innovation school, and four main policy orientations such as building clusters and local economies of association, improving capacities of learning and adaptation, broadening local institutional base and Mobilizing social economy, of new regionalism are discussed. Finally, paper gives a critical assessment to significant theoretical improvements and inadequate problems.

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