The Dictionary of Human Geography

Comp. by: LElumalai Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 9781405132879_4_R Date:2/4/09
Time:21:12:28 Filepath:H:/00_Blackwell/00_3B2/Gregory-9781405132879/appln/3B2/re-
vises/9781405132879_4_R-new.3d

government, and the distribution of resources

and responsibilities between them. Such

changes and the debates around them are

closely related to changing notions of govern-

ment – including the move from the political

representation of individuals and places to the

economic, social, cultural and political

responsibility of individuals and places – as

the distinctions between thestate,civil soci-

etyandeconomyare dissolved and recom-

bined in the attempt to maintain political

legitimacy in the face of such changes and

the globalizing geographies (seeglobaliza-

tion) that shape them. But beyond this,

questions of governance open up the ques-

tions of how who gets to speak for regions

and how regional policy gets to take place.

Central here is the issue of expertise and the

establishment of policy norms and target-

setting, which enables governmental action

on regions and the possibility of the emergence

of creative capacity within regions. However,

just as such capacities (or the lack of them) do

not guarantee ‘success’ – whoever may define

it – neither does it enhance the possibilities of

more participatory forms of democracy. This

is, perhaps, especially true of regions long

suffering from economic decline and the with-

ering of circuits of value. Hence the political

issue of the relations and modalities of power

between regional and national/supra-national

governance becomes central if the question

of uneven development is to be addressed

head-on in policy formulation. But, of course,

this does not mean that regional economic

policies, for example, will be based on the

pursuit of social justice rather than of eco-

nomic effectivity.

Such norms and targets raise a fourth

overarching issue concerning the objectives

of regional policies. For example, econo-

mic policies are increasingly narrowly for-

matted around issues of competitiveness and

productivityas measured through profitabil-

ity. Not only does this framing ignore a range

of issues such as the work that takes place -

and goes largely unmeasured – beyond the

capitalist economy, as well as the diverse

norms and social relations involved in materi-

ally effective circuits of value, including – but

not reducible to – the social economy lying

outside the mainstream, but it also tends

towards reductive notions of processes such

asinnovation defined in terms merely of

contributions to profitability.

Finally, the long-standing significance of

the region as a focus of distinctive identities

and even loyalties – and this not least as a

consequence of the crucial role of historical

economic geographies in shaping a sense of

belonging, albeit contested and conflicting

belonging – combines in a potentially prob-

lematic fashion with the notion of the region

as a formative economic, social and political

entity and a constructed object of policy in

which regional responsibility for development

is stressed. Under these circumstances, in

which the region is perceived as arepresenta-

tionof meaning and practice, blame is all too

readily attached to the victim. However, this

tendency may be countered from the perspec-

tive of geographicalpolitical economy. This

way of understanding is capable of recognizing

not only the role of people in making their

own geographies (if not necessarily under the

conditions and constraints that they would

choose) and the genuine material constraints

on regional development (which mark the

economic, political, cultural and geographical

limits of regional responsibilities for the con-

struction of geographies), but the political

possibilities in the pursuit of policies capable

of sustaining locally distinctive as well as

materially, socially, politically and culturally

effective regions. rl

Suggested reading

Amin, Massey and Thrift (2003); Coe, Hess,

Yeung, Dicken and Henderson (2004); Hudson

(2007); Lovering (1999); Macleod and Jones

(2007); Regional Studies Association (2007);

Rodriguez-Pose and Gill (2004); Scott (1998);

Scott and Storper (2003).

regional science A hybrid discipline origin-

ating in the early 1950s that combinedneo-

classical economics and quantitative

methodsto analyse spatial issues in econom-

ics, human geography and planning.

Regional science was the vision of a single

man, the American economist Walter Isard

(1919–). Isard roundly criticized the assump-

tion of the a-spatial ‘pin-head’economyfound

in standard economic theory, and provided

an alternative version based uponlocation

theory, and in 1954 he convened the first

meeting of the Regional Science Association

in Detroit. Partly because of Isard’s indefatig-

able energy, and partly because of the move-

ment’s fortuitous emergence in a period of

significant American regional and urban

growth, regional science rapidly expanded,

increasing its membership, forming new uni-

versity departments, inaugurating journals

such as the Proceedings of the Regional

Science Association and then, in 1958, the

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_R-new Final Proof page 638 2.4.2009 9:12pm

REGIONAL SCIENCE