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036_LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT_2017_665

036_LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT_2017_665

B O L E S Ł AW D O M A N´ SKI

All things considered, there seems to be a value chains and affects their development
general increase in regional disparities encour- prospects. Foreign investors are responsible
aged by both endogenous and exogenous for strengthening more developed regions at
factors, which facilitate the development of the expense of weak ones since they are
more advanced regions, metropolitan areas in orientated to nationwide or international
the main, and marginalize the weak regions. markets and search for a quality workforce.
This results in the reproduction of the
prosperity and backwardness from the pre- The impact of the World Bank and the
socialist era, which was – through different European Bank for Reconstruction and
mechanisms – maintained under socialism. Development is often underscored as provid-
Thus, the contemporary spatial patterns of ers of blueprints for market reforms and the
local and regional development appear as a source of funds supporting macro-economic
structure of long duration. stability of post-socialist states. The aspira-
tions to join the EU, and accordingly West
There are obviously differences in spatial European influence, became important to
disparities and processes between post- the new Member States. It is too early to
socialist countries depending on the size of judge the effects of EU funds on the devel-
countries, their historical divisions, and the opment of problem regions.
dominant position of the capital in the urban
hierarchy, e.g., Budapest in Hungary vis-à-vis The nation state has been instrumental in
Warsaw in Poland. the transformation process due to its central
role in the overhauling of the institutional
Global forces, local agency system regulating various spheres of social and
and public policies: key players economic activity.This gave room for formal
in the relational perspective or informal bargaining between domestic
and foreign firms and governmental bodies
Finally, we may take into consideration the for favorable solutions concerning public
changing role of various agents of local and support, domestic market protection, etc.
regional development and relationships Despite common external influences, the
among them.The obvious effect of the open- regulations and policies adopted in particular
ing of former socialist economies and socie- post-socialist states differ significantly, e.g.,
ties was greater dependence of towns and labor-market regulations and the division of
regions on processes and phenomena in competences between central, regional and
faraway places. The earlier dependence on local levels of public administration (e.g.,
Soviet decision-makers and central decision- Swain 2007).The lack of coherence and sta-
making bodies, mainly industrial ministries, bility of national policies along with the low
has been replaced by the influence of tran- effectiveness of many government institu-
snational corporations and international tions undermines their strategies. Long-range
organizations.TNCs’ investment is an evolu- innovation policy is especially missing.
tionary process involving learning and bar-
gaining with various local stakeholders. The There has been no consistent and com-
scope of their embeddedness in networks of prehensive regional policy. There are public
local relationships is vital from the point of incentives offered to large investors in the
view of the multiplier effects they generate form of tax exemptions or public subsidies.
in the regional economy and the endurance Despite some efforts to use them as instru-
of their activity in particular places.The role ments for attracting investors to problem
assigned to particular places by TNCs affects areas (e.g., in the Polish Special Economic
their upgrading or downgrading in global Zone program), they are usually standard
forms of public support – the preference is
178 for attracting foreign investors to the country
rather than directing them to selected regions.

POST-SOC IA LISM A N D TR AN S ITION

Government support for peripheral areas is constitute the basis for citizen mobilization
mostly through infrastructure, especially road, and enterprise strategies. Local agency mat-
investment. Several post-socialist countries ters a great deal, hence endogenous capacities
have redrawn their regional administrative for development are crucial. The enhancing
boundaries, e.g., preparing for EU accession. of these capacities should be the main task of
Older ethnic and religious divisions re- public policies at all levels, which cannot
emerged as the basis for regionalist and some- only be preoccupied with the improvement
times separatist tendencies. Political breakup of technical infrastructure (Gorzelak et al.
and military conflicts hindered the economic 2001).The strengthening of linkages between
development of some areas. peripheral regions and fast-growing metro-
politan areas is also important so that the
The salient change has been a revival of former could benefit from the multiplier
elected local government which may repre- effects of the latter.
sent the community, provide public services
and have its own revenues. It has a significant Conclusion: transition as
impact as the activity of local leaders may modernization or a unique
mobilize the community, breaking out from process?
dependency culture and creating the atmos-
phere of local success. The role of regional The validity of the notion of transition is
authorities is usually less prominent, though questioned as implying a short-term, teleolog-
they can be involved in the allocation of the ical change from socialism to capitalism treated
EU structural funds now. as a single ideal type. Critics point out that the
idea of transition ignores the evolutionary
NGOs and trade unions are part of a broad nature of post-socialist changes and suggests
institutional setting missing under state that they end with the achievement of a cer-
socialism. Trade unions lobby for govern- tain predefined state (Grabher and Stark 1997;
mental support for certain places, whereas Pickles and Smith 1998). In fact, transition
NGOs may both strengthen local social and constitutes a specific form of the concept of
economic activity and oppose certain invest- modernization. Thus we may ask about the
ments, e.g., on environmental grounds. nature of post-socialist transformation from
the point of view of local and regional devel-
All these main groups of actors are linked opment processes. How far can it be concep-
by a multitude of relationships of competition, tualized as transition or modernization?
conflict, cooperation, and control. Crucial
relationships forged anew under post-socialism “Modernization” views development as
include those between foreign and domestic progress. It appears as a teleological (aiming
enterprises,between firms and public author- at a certain known end), uniform, linear, and
ities, and between state institutions and local normalizing process. The “underdeveloped”
government. In comparison with state social- countries and regions have to follow the path
ism, post-socialist regions are characterized of the “developed” ones, moving to higher
by an increased role of both global actors and stages of development, epitomized by the
local agents. latter. This rests on the geographical dicho-
tomy of core and periphery; the process of
The local and the regional should not be development means that peripheral regions
seen just as an arena, an obstacle or receiver become similar to the areas regarded as
responding to changes prescribed at the “advanced” (core). In the context of post-
national or global scale.There is copious evi- socialist Europe, this means adoption of the
dence that local and regional actors, the role West European economic and political models.
of which was denied under state socialism,
are vital. The activities of local governments 179
and other institutions, together with the
quality of human capital and public attitudes,

B O L E S Ł AW D O M A N´ SKI

“Europeanization” is another concept meandering policies. It has been a unique
belonging to the modernization perspective. process in some respects; certain factors and
It substitutes for the socialist model of mod- mechanisms may remain specific to post-
ernization, which formerly dominated socialist regions like to post-colonial ones.
Central and Eastern Europe.
The experience of local and regional
The problem with the interpretations development under socialism and post-
conveyed by the notions of transition, mod- socialism confirms that national, regional and
ernization and Europeanization is that they local structures, mechanisms, and culture
offer a partial, one-sided understanding of make a difference even at a time of major
post-socialist transformation.There is undoubt- economic and political shocks. This also
edly an element of modernization and there shows that many social, economic and spatial
is a process of becoming more similar to West structures are structures of long duration.
European countries, but they cannot be This is visible in economic structures, settle-
treated as general models explaining post- ment and infrastructural networks as well as
socialist changes. The post-socialist transfor- in human minds and behavior. Culture
mation comprises multiple processes of appears no less important than institutional
change, including the (re)introduction of lib- structures in the path-dependent processes.
eral democracy, marketization, technological In the evolutionary and relational perspec-
modernization, globalization and, in some tive, post-socialist transformation can be seen
cases, European integration. Many processes as a critical juncture in which the develop-
are rooted in structures, social cognition, ment paths of regions and localities are
practices and sequences of events from the molded by the interaction of older structures
pre-socialist and socialist eras; hence they are and the agency of various local, regional,
in a broad sense path-dependent.This means national and global players.
that current patterns and changes cannot be
understood without a broader historical per- References
spective. There is no single pre-determined
final stage and/or model to be achieved, the Bradshaw, M. (2006) “Observations on the
transformation is not a process of normaliza- Geographical Dimensions of Russia’s Resource
tion which would simply lead to copying the Abundance”, Eurasian Geography and Economics
attributes of advancedWest European regions 47, 724–746.
(Bradshaw and Stenning 2004; Doman´ski
2005). Any deterministic interpretation can Bradshaw, M. and Stenning, A. (eds) (2004) East
be challenged on the grounds that the pro- Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union:The
cesses of post-1989 development could have Post-socialist States, Harlow: Pearson.
taken a different form in many post-socialist
regions. Doman´ski, B. (1997) Industrial Control over the
Socialist Town: Benevolence or Exploitation?,
The belief in a single “jump” from social- Westport: Praeger.
ism to capitalism presumes the ability to
totally revamp social systems in a brief period Doman´ski,B.(2005)“The Economic Performance
of time, thus showing some resemblance to and Standard of Living of Post-communist
the faith of the socialist leaders from the past. European Countries since 1989: Factors and
Post-socialism constitutes a structural shift Processes Behind”, Geographia Polonica 78,
including elements of modernization medi- 107–126.
ated by the reproduction of former socialist
and pre-socialist mechanisms and spatial Gorzelak, G., Ehrlich, E., Faltan, L. and Illner, M.
patterns together with the creation of new (eds) (2001) Central Europe in Transition:
ones. There were piecemeal changes and Towards EU Membership, Warsaw: RSA Polish
Section.
180
Grabher, G. and Stark, D. (eds) (1997) Restructuring
Networks in Post-socialism: Legacies, Linkages and
Localities, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kornai, J. (1992) The Socialist System:The Political
Economy of Communism, Oxford: Clarendon.

POST-SOC IA LISM A N D TR AN S ITION

Nove, A. (1986) Socialism. Economics and Doman´ski, B. (1997) Industrial Control over the
Development, London:Allen & Unwin. Socialist Town: Benevolence or Exploitation?,
Westport: Praeger. (Industrial paternalism in
Pickles J. and Smith, A. (eds) (1998) Theorising socialist towns.)
Transition: The Political Economy of Post-
communist Transformations, London: Routledge. Kornai, J. (1992) The Socialist System:The Political
Economy of Communism, Oxford: Clarendon.
Rainnie, A., Smith, A. and Swain, A. (2002) (Economic mechanisms of socialism.)
Work, Employment and Transition: Restructuring
Livelihoods in Post-communism, London: Pavlínek, P. and Smith A. (2000) Environmental
Routledge. Transitions: Transformation and Ecological Defence
in Central and Eastern Europe, London:
Smith, D. (1989) Urban Inequality under Socialism, Routledge. (Environmental issues.)
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pickles J. and Smith, A. (eds) (1998) Theorising
Swain,A. (ed.) (2007) Re-constructing the Post-Soviet Transition: The Political Economy of Post-
Industrial Region: The Donbas in Transition, communist Transformations, London: Routledge.
London: Routledge. (Transition debate and various aspects of trans-
formation.)
Turnock, D. (2003) The Human Geography of East
Central Europe, London: Routledge. Rainnie, A., Smith, A. and Swain, A. (2002) Work,
Employment and Transition: Restructuring
Van Zon, H. (2008) Russia’s Development Problem: Livelihoods in Post-communism, London:
The Cult of Power, Basingstoke: Palgrave Routledge. (Labour market issues.)
Macmillan.
Turnock, D. (2003) The Human Geography of East
Further reading Central Europe, London: Routledge. (Broad
treatment of various post-socialist states.)
Bradshaw, M. and Stenning, A. (eds) (2004) East
Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union:The Van Zon, H. (2008) Russia’s Development Problem:
Post-socialist States, Harlow: Pearson. (Broad The Cult of Power, Basingstoke: Palgrave
treatment of various post-socialist states.) Macmillan. (Economy and power relations in
Russia.)

181

16

Migration and commuting
Local and regional development links

Mike Coombes and Tony Champion

Introduction In daily life, people were seen to decide their
home location by choosing between migrat-
At the outset it is not unreasonable to ask the ing to be nearer their workplace or commut-
rationale for exploring links between migra- ing from where they currently live. At the
tion and commuting in the context of local broader scale of cities and labour markets,
and regional development. A simple answer much regional science and associated policy
is that they are both ways in which people debates distinguished sharply between a labour
are spatially mobile, with both these forms of supply available within daily commuting dis-
mobility having potentially important impli- tance – which might adjust rapidly to chang-
cations for the places that act as origins and ing labour demand – and that which might be
destinations and also – especially in the case gained or lost through the slower adjustment
of commuting – impacts on the places in of migration. Commuting analyses have
between and on the environment more gen- accordingly been largely restricted to a sub-
erally. Moreover the salience of this answer regional scale, whereas migration research
has grown steadily as mobility has become an extends from the global to the very local. In
ever more important feature of modern soci- keeping with the view of commuting as dis-
eties. In more recent years this growing placing migration – in fact commuting has
mobility has attracted increasing academic been referred to as “daily migration” – a fre-
interest, to a degree which has even led to quent distinction is made between local and
some talk of a “mobility turn” across a range non-local migration, with this spatial distinc-
of the social sciences (Urry 2008). There is tion depending on whether the move was
also a less obvious reason for examining links further than most people are likely to be pre-
between commuting and migration, and this pared to commute. In fact this same separa-
is that these links are far more complex and tion of local from non-local migration also
multi-faceted than they may seem at first appears in studies of migration by the many
sight. It is this reason which motivates much population groups outside the labour force,
of the discussion here. despite commuting patterns being irrelevant
to them, as reflected in the demographer’s
Although it is an oversimplification, it can distinction between “residential mobility”
be argued that in earlier work migration and (address changing within a place that does
commuting were often posed as corollaries.

182

MIGR ATION A N D C OMMU TIN G

not alter its overall population) and “migra- their job – perhaps “downshifting” – so as to
tion” (between places). remain in the area they have chosen as
home.
A few stylized facts serve to illustrate ways
in which diverse recent trends have eroded At this point it is necessary to acknow-
this apparently straightforward distinction ledge that the above examples of links
between migration and commuting: between migration and commuting had to
be presented as stylized facts, or anecdotal life
i) More households have more than one histories, because the hard empirical evi-
earner, and in many multi-earner dence on these links between aspects of
households more than one member mobility is very patchy. The reasons are not
has a job whose location and pay sup- hard to find as far as the more longitudinal
ports longer distance commuting, so links are concerned: longitudinal datasets are
household migration decisions involve scarce and few cover both migration and
difficult trade-offs that may lead to commuting behavior.To make matters worse,
one or more persons still commuting in any one year relatively few people migrate,
a long distance. so migrants are a small minority of most
survey samples, and in fact in some surveys
ii) More people have complex working any migrants disappear due to the survey
patterns like “weekly commuting” method being based on repeat contact at the
which may be associated with tempo- same address.Without going too far into the
rary contract positions or with life- data minutiae – especially as the detail varies
style and life-chance decisions which between datasets and indeed countries – both
might involve preference for family migration and commuting measures are
upbringing in a more rural location or strongly affected by the rising problems for
in a place with better access to high- surveys in representing modern life styles
ranking schools. and behavior. In particular, measures of
migration and commuting depend on iden-
iii) More work is IT-enabled and this can tifying the “home” location for each person.
foster“teleworking”which may appear That concept is based on traditional norms
to negate commuting but there is of a single settled address in a defined house-
often still repeated travel, in some cases hold, norms which cannot cope with the
to the previous workplace: thus the more transitory behavior of growing num-
stereotyped migration from metropo- bers of people especially young adults and
lis to countryside enabled by telework- international labour migrants.
ing with the same employer is linked
to longer distance but more occasional The discussion so far has centered on indi-
journeys to the same workplace. viduals and households, but the decisions
made at this micro scale have significant ram-
At the same time, migration patterns include ifications at neighbourhood and wider scales.
the moves of distinct groups such as people This means there are key local, regional and
who are approaching retirement and who even national policies that could benefit from
may accept long commuting flows for a rela- a better understanding of the ways in which
tively short period between the place they migration and commuting patterns are linked
are retiring to and the work they will retire (Rees et al. 2004).The final part of this intro-
from. This longitudinal perspective can find ductory section outlines the way in which
other possible links through time, such as commuting and migration are linked in dif-
people who initially accept long-distance ferent ways at different scales, and it then uses
commuting as part of a move to a more these differences to break down the remain-
remote location they aspire to live in, but der of this chapter into two broad sections.
then weary of the commuting and change
183

MIKE COOMBES AND TONY CHAMPION

Given the emphasis here on local and options are strictly limited. In most countries
regional development policy issues, it is the city region scale is the focus of only lim-
important to stress the need for clarity on the ited policy leverage in general, with no lever-
limits of – and the distinction between – the age whatsoever over migration and commuting
local and regional categories.The local cate- flows. Despite this, many city regions respon-
gory is clearly a scale above that of the indi- sible for economic development have identi-
viduals and households who make the fied changing the balance of inflows and
migration and commuting decisions, and outflows across their boundaries as critical in
here it is distinguished from wider scales such growing their city region’s economic strength.
as the labour market area. As such there is a We look first at these city region issues before
substantial focus on the neighbourhood level going on to examine the more local scale.
of policy, but similar issues arise for whole
small settlements such as the towns and vil- The city region scale
lages that form part of the labour market
areas of larger cities.The ways that migration It is only recently that the city region has
behavior links with commuting to pose emerged internationally as a dominant spatial
policy issues at this neighbourhood scale are framework for sub-national economic analy-
dealt with in the last section of this chapter. sis and development planning. Earlier policies
In the current British policy lexicon, the used macro-economic regions distinguished
issues at this scale mostly fall into the “places” by their industrial structure, such as the
agenda centered on areas’ relative attractive- USA’s agricultural “corn and hog belt” or
ness to potential residents, and their appeal to the Ruhr coal-and-steel region. Policy to
employers too where relevant. More specifi- address industrial decline and restructuring
cally, both commuting and migration pat- initially took the form of special arrange-
terns are influenced by the extent of locally ments by central government, such as the
available jobs appropriate to the types of res- 1930s examples of the Tennessee Valley
idents attracted by the distinctive mix of Authority in the USA and the Special Areas
housing and other conditions in that area. in the UK. Later there was a widespread
One example of the policy questions at this development of “regional planning” to
scale is the challenge of creating new resi- combat widening core–periphery disparities
dential areas that can help toward a lower – such as the polarization between the Paris
carbon future by fostering local working and region and the rest of France (le désert
hence in-migration by people who will then français), or between north and south Italy –
not commute very far. but this was delivered through agencies for
broad administrative regions or the provinces
The regional scale is probably best termed of federal countries. With the recent accel-
the city region nowadays, for reasons that we eration of globalization, rather smaller scale
set out below. Policy issues at this scale tend to functionally defined entities have come to
privilege economic concerns and migration is the fore. In the words of Scott (2001: 1–4):
increasingly central to such debates, particu-
larly in seeking to attract and retain the people The new regionalism [is] rooted in a
who will be most valuable to the city region series of dense nodes of human labour
economy. In fact, very similar issues are and community life.… Such entities
increasingly part of national policy debates, so are becoming the focal points of … a
that legislation over international immigra- new global-city capitalism.… City
tion is often designed to maximize national regions are coming to function as the
economic gain. One way by which the basic motors of the global economy.
national and city regional scales differ is, of
course, that at this sub-national scale policy

184

MIGR ATION A N D C OMMU TIN G

This worldwide development has major geographical spread and for which no policy
implications for regional economic develop- response had been prepared. As shown in
ment policy (see, for example, Neuman and Figure 16.1, whereas immigration from tra-
Hull 2009). ditional non-A8 sources was still heavily
concentrated on the global city region of
The sustained growth of international London, migration from the A8 countries
migration flows is one aspect of the globali- was much less focused on this international
zation that has led to this shift of spatial focus “gateway city” and more strongly represented
in development planning. Once again there in smaller – and even rural – labour markets
are data limitations here related to the “loss” that had little experience of accommodating
of migrants who leave, but the broad picture immigrants (see also Coombes et al. 2007).
is one of increasing movement affecting most The subsequent global “credit crunch” eco-
areas. The point made above about city nomic downturn may have shrunk these
regions having little or no leverage to influ- inflows so much that the balance may have
ence arrivals or departures was starkly illus- turned to net outflow (datasets on out-
trated by the consequences for English migration are too weak for this hypothesis to
sub-regions of the European Union (EU) be tested).The link with commuting arises here
decision to incorporate eight Central and too because these international labour migrants
Eastern Europe countries as member states may use one area to live in even though their
(“the A8 countries”) in 2004. Stenning et al. work (largely gained via agencies) is in a
(2006) showed inflows across England which rather distant part of the country. In short, a
were unprecedented in their volume and

3.0
A8 non-A8

2.5

2.0

Location quotient 1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0 Other 0.7–1.0m 0.5–0.7m 0.4–0.5m 0.25– 125– <125k
London 250k

1m+ 0.4m

Figure 16.1 Distribution of England’s immigration from A8 and non-A8 countries, 2005–2006, by travel to
work area population size groups. Location quotient denotes the relationship to the share expected from
the distribution of total population, e.g., a quotient of 3 means.
Source: Calculated from National Insurance Number data provided by the Department for Work and
Pensions

185

MIKE COOMBES AND TONY CHAMPION

city region policy-maker may aspire to alter economy” idea may have been overplayed
the balance of the labour force through the recently, knowledge-rich sectors have tended
cumulative effect of net international migra- to accelerate urban and regional growth
tion flows, but few city regions have the (Pike et al. 2006), prompting city region
powers to influence either the number or the policies to attract talented/skilled/creative
composition of these inflows and outflows. migrants who are relatively scarce, as recom-
mended by Richard Florida (2008) in his
For most city regions in most times, its work on the rise of the creative class in the
migration exchanges with other parts of its USA and in his advice to people choosing
own country are likely to be larger than its where to live (Florida 2008).Thus many pol-
international migration flows. In fact most icies centered on migration focus on those
city regions have little more control over people in the labour force whose scarcity
these intra-national flows, just as there are makes them among the best paid, a fact
few countries that have policy leverage over which makes them more likely to commute
the commuting flows across their city region longer distances. In fact, even if the appropri-
borders. Even in the case of China where ate jobs are attracted to the city region, the
policy regimes exist to control intra-national people whose rare skills make them the most
migration and limit where people can work, sought-after sometimes use their labour
people move but remain unrecorded. While market power to avoid moving to the area,
these flows are largely beyond city region instead becoming “occasional commuters”
policy influence, they are by no means (Green et al. 1999).At a more mundane level,
random in their patterns. In particular, across commuting can act to more locally diffuse
the world there is a well-established tendency growth which otherwise might have required
for the key/capital city regions to gain net in-migration to balance the labour
younger adults from other parts of their market. Gordon (2002) outlined the way in
countries but then lose people more estab- which a succession of shifts in the balance of
lished in their careers to other favoured city net commuting between neighbouring areas
regions and amenity-rich areas (Fielding can help to satisfy new labour demand with-
2007). Mature economies tend to have few out any major in-migration to the city
city regions that suddenly experience very region.This absorption of new job opportu-
large net migrant gains; instead the net nities by commuters is in fact all too familiar
inflows tend to impact through their cumu- in the policy field where job creation tar-
lative effect over time.This cumulative impact geted at areas with many workless people
works primarily through the labour market finds many new jobs taken by people com-
and thus again interacts with commuting muting in from elsewhere, as recognized by
patterns. Gordon’s notion of the “leaky bucket” in his
1999 paper arguing the case against localized
The increasing economic development employment creation.
policy interest in longer distance migration
stems from the observation that migration’s The extent to which commuting flows
impact on a city region’s skills base is often are contained within an area is measured by
highly selective (Champion et al. 2007). Con- calculating the area’s self-containment
tinuing loss of highly skilled and better paid (Goodman 1970). Returning to the issue
people can progressively reduce the regen- mentioned above of providing workers for
eration potential of a city region economy local jobs, the key measure is demand-side
through its negative impacts on entrepre- self-containment, defined as the share of
neurship and the availability of the skills mobile work trips ending in the area which start
employers seek, as well as having indirect within the area and so do not cross its bound-
effects on the municipal tax base and private ary. The other measure is the supply-side
sector confidence. While the “knowledge

186

MIGR ATION A N D C OMMU TIN G

equivalent, which is the proportion of local employment in traditional sectors where
working residents whose workplaces are local working was common and by job
within the boundary of the area. Coombes decentralization to city edges. More people
(forthcoming) details the ways in which these working further from their homes also means
measures can be used when analyzing com- that – with the distance between settlements
muting data to identify labour market areas. remaining constant of course – adjacent
This focus on commuting patterns as identi- towns and cities which previously had been
fying the regions around cities which are the foci of discrete labour market areas can
closely tied to them dates back to at least the become parts of the same polycentric labour
1940s when the United States first defined market area.This process has been illustrated
its Standard Metropolitan Areas – a practice in detail within Denmark by Nielsen and
that is now widespread across countries with Hovgesen (2005) and by Lambregts et al.
modern economies (Cattan 2001). One con- (2006) for the Randstad area in the
sequence is that updated commuting data Netherlands.
prompts the updating of labour market area
definitions:the pervasive trend across modern One way that polycentric labour market
economies for more long-distance commut- areas have been conceptualized is that they
ing means that more people will cross a pre- encompass several sizable settlements between
viously defined labour market area boundary, which at least some people can commute and
so to meet a given level of self-containment so do not need to migrate.Yet this is to think of
the boundary will need to be drawn more migration only as labour migration (i.e., resi-
widely. Despite the pervasiveness of the dential moves which by definition are prompted
growth in longer distance commuting result- by a change of workplace). In fact, far more
ing in declining self-containment, there are people change where they live for other rea-
relatively few direct empirical demonstra- sons, so most migration flows are dominated
tions of the trend. One exception is Pike by people moving for these other reasons.Most
et al. (2006) where 25 of Britain’s medium- of these non-labour migrants do not move far.
sized labour market areas (defined on the It is worth recalling here the traditional con-
basis of fixed boundaries) were analyzed over trast between commuting flows, which are not
two intercensal decades. Looking at both the expected to cross city region boundaries, and
demand- and supply-side containment levels, the moves of labour migrants whose crossing
average values fell from around 80 per cent of those boundaries is expected, precisely
in the commuting data from the 1981 Census because the new workplace is too far away for
to under 75 per cent in 1991 and by 2001 commuting to be practicable. In the same way,
they stood at 70 per cent (demand-side) and non-labour migrants are mostly expected to
just over 65 per cent (supply-side). Put stay within city region boundaries, so that their
another way, the average area was able to pro- unchanged workplace can still be accessed
vide local work for around four out of five of (although non-work migrants who have retired
its working residents in 1981, but 20 years can be among longer distance movers).
later over a third of local working residents
were commuting to work outside that area Indeed the coupling of housing and labour
boundary. markets, along with other sub-regional geog-
raphies, features increasingly prominently in
The trend toward more dispersed labour the contemporary economic development
market areas is being exacerbated by commut- policy discourse on city regions (e.g., OECD
ing patterns becoming less heavily centralized 2007). Here defining functional economic
on large city centers. Diverse commuting areas is a necessary preliminary to avoid policy-
patterns are enabled by growing car use, related analyses misreading the geography
while also being prompted by declining over which the relevant market processes
operate (e.g., Coombes 2009).

187

MIKE COOMBES AND TONY CHAMPION the localities shunned by people with the
economic power to choose from a wide set
The local scale of options can see many of these characteris-
tics get worse as the better-off leave. In the
The evolving polycentric areas mentioned policy field this leaves a harsh dilemma:
above represent a situation where a blurring whether to accept that some areas must be
is occurring in the traditional distinction the least favoured – the spatial equivalent of
between the regional and the local. Turning “the poor are always with us” – or to spend
now to the scale of the settlements and most regeneration funding on the areas least
neighbourhoods found within city regions, likely to become favoured places to live.The
the links between migration and commuting commuting aspect comes into play here
are more complex and so it should not be through a key area characteristic not men-
expected that areas which are relatively self- tioned in the list above, job accessibility. Less
contained in terms of one of these types of favoured areas include old inner-city neigh-
mobility are also likely to be have few cross- bourhoods, outlying public sector housing
boundary flows of the other type. For exam- developments (like the outer metropolitan
ple, more deprived areas tend to have few banlieues around Paris) and earlier settle-
local jobs so that those residents who are in ments created to serve now-ceased single
work probably have to commute out, mean- industries (as in former coalfield areas like
ing the area has low self-containment of its the Ruhr). The basic urban economics of
commuting flows, but the fact that the area rent gradients focused on key employment
will not be very attractive to many residents nodes ensure that the likelihood of new
of other areas is likely to mean that it has few investment is greater in those areas with
migration connections with other parts of easier opportunities for commuting.This can
the city region and so is highly self-contained involve the gentrification of previously unfa-
in migration terms. voured areas and the transformation of CBD
fringes with “loft living” as the iconic form
At this scale, residential preference is a key of a completely new population migrating
driver of different areas’ prospects, and this into a job-rich part of the city, as originally
has a feedback through the characteristics of demonstrated by Zukin (1988) for NewYork
neighbourhoods. In particular, migration and more recently by Nathan and Urwin
patterns can be highly selective so that, even (2005) for London and other UK cities.
if an area is close to balance between its over-
all inflows and outflows, this may disguise Whereas a specific migration stream can
major net shifts in different groups’ move- rapidly change an area’s character, as with
ments (e.g., the affluent moving out while gentrification, by contrast the major change
poorer people move in).Whether the better- in commuting patterns – the trend toward
off are tending to move in or out will relate the greater spatial separation of home and
to local characteristics such as: workplace – tends to be gradual but also very
generalized. Over a long time span, however,
i) housing types and condition this too can have profound impacts on com-
ii) reputation of schools, secondary-level munities. For example, areas within a city
region with middle-income residents will
ones in particular usually be located where there is good access
iii) levels of crime or antisocial behavior to jobs but, as people become able and willing
iv) retail and leisure facilities to commute longer distances, the competi-
v) access to open space and the quality of tion for those jobs will grow because they
can be reached by people living further away.
the local environment including the If the city region has a lack of employment
public realm.

Unfortunately for less favoured areas, there
tends to be a cumulative process in which

188

MIGR ATION A N D C OMMU TIN G

generally, then the residents of the middle- certain other groups, people in more rural
income areas gain little from the new option areas are still more likely to commute longer
of commuting further, while losing some of distances than urban residents.
their “local” jobs to commuters from further
away (cf. Coombes and Raybould 2004). These patterns reveal two limitations to
This process has been overshadowed by the policy advocating “smart growth” or more
more acute policy problems caused by major compact cities to reduce people’s daily travel.
losses of particular types of jobs in distinct Simply restricting the land available for
parts of city regions, especially due to decen- development on the urban fringe may just
tralization from inner urban areas (Renkow lead to “leap-frogging” with migrants choos-
and Hoover 2000). Here the link with ing more distant settlements from which they
migration and commuting has prompted can still commute back. Equally those plan-
debates about “spatial mismatch” (Preston ning policies aiming for a closer spatial
and McLafferty 1999) because the remaining matching of housing and employment bring
industrial jobs are in peripheral areas and pay no guarantee that workers will take the jobs
wage rates which make it an economic made available close to their homes. People
impossibility for inner-city residents to either make their decisions based on many other
commute the longer distance to those areas factors, such as rising fuel costs or road-use
or to migrate to the more expensive housing taxes (see Champion (2001) and Downs (2005)
there. for further discussion of this conundrum in
relation to the UK and USA respectively).
The challenges of making appropriate job
opportunities accessible to each area’s resi- There are also social aspects of sustainabil-
dents are part of a broader policy remit, as in ity which may be undermined in communi-
England’s Sustainable Communities Plan ties where long-distance commuting is
(ODPM 2003). This framework includes a widespread. For example, do long-distance
growing recognition of environmental aspects commuters actually gain the well-being they
to sustainability, A key concern is that the expected from a rural lifestyle if much of
growing mobility of people (Echenique their time is in, or traveling to, a city? English
2007) – as highlighted by, but far from lim- city dwellers continue to state a strong pref-
ited to, commuting patterns – directly links erence for living in a more rural area
to growing carbon emissions, with the trans- (Champion and Fisher 2004), but not all
port sector a key driver of this growth. The who move to areas stereotyped as rural are
link to migration is less obvious and yet counterurban migrants and people’s moves
deeply pervasive: the drift of people is away may not match with their motivations
from larger settlements to less densely popu- (Halliday and Coombes 1995).
lated areas where car use is most intense.
Analysing UK National Travel Survey data, A concluding word on policy
Banister (1997) shows a clear correlation
between increasing settlement size and Returning finally to local and regional policy
decreasing commuting distance. Even after considerations, a recurring feature of the pre-
allowing for personal characteristics and ceding discussion has been an echo of
various aspects of geographical context, Cheshire and Magrini (2009) in that key
Coombes and Raybould (2001) confirm that drivers of the trends which are creating
short-distance commuting is most likely in uneven outcomes in modern economies
larger settlements. Champion (2009) found are very largely beyond the remit or influ-
that, even after allowing for the greater ence of sub-national governance structures.
propensity for longer distance commuting International-scale mega trends like oil prices
among recent in-migrants, car owners and affect the likelihood of continuing growth in

189

MIKE COOMBES AND TONY CHAMPION

personal mobility, while economic globaliza- rural sustainability agenda?”, Planning Practice
tion helps to drive international migration. and Research 24, 161–183.
Then there are national (or EU) policies Champion, T. and Fisher, T. (2004) “Migration,
seeking to regulate cross-border migration, residential preferences and the changing envi-
and the new recognition of the need for ronment of cities”, in M. Boddy and M.
environmental sustainability (although the Parkinson (eds) City Matters, Bristol: Policy
latter can seem like lip service when the pri- Press, 111–128.
mary political concern is sustained economic Champion, T., Coombes, M., Raybould, S. and
growth, without a “green new deal” to Wymer, C. (2007) Migration and Socio-economic
achieve both objectives).Whatever the policy Change: A 2001 Census Analysis of Britain’s
outcomes are at these (supra-)national scales, Larger Cities, Bristol: Policy Press.
local and regional policy may have the objec- Cheshire, P. and Magrini, S. (2009) “Urban growth
tive of creating sustainable communities but drivers in a Europe of sticky people and
they have few policy levers that can bear implicit boundaries”, Journal of Economic
down strongly on the decisions people make Geography 9, 85–115.
about their commuting and migration behav- Coombes, M. (2009) “English rural housing
ior. It should also be admitted that research market policy: some inconvenient truths?”,
has yet to provide very clear evidence on Planning Practice and Research 24, 211–231.
some key issues. For example, there is much Coombes, M. (2010) “Defining labor market
European policy interest in a polycentric pat- areas by analyzing commuting data: inno-
tern of regional development with greater vations in the 2007 review of Travel-
connectivity between places, aided by more to-Work Areas”, in J. Stillwell, O. Duke-
investment in public transport infrastructure. Williams and A. Dennett (eds) Technologies for
Yet it is unknown whether this would really Migration and Population Analysis: Spatial
be a more sustainable scenario, rather than Interaction Data Applications, Hershey, PA: IGI
simply abetting the growth in personal mobil- Global.
ity which may be inherently unsustainable. Coombes, M. and Raybould, S. (2001)
The best that local and regional policy- “Commuting in England and Wales: ‘people’
makers and planners can do in these circum- and ‘place’ factors”, European Research in
stances is to work toward an environment that Regional Science 11, 111–133.
maximizes the potential for people to reduce Coombes, M. and Raybould, S. (2004) “Finding
their mobility, such as mixing together jobs work in 2001: urban-rural contrasts across
and housing within city regions and aiming England and Wales in employment rates and
for a better balance between city regions in local job accessibility”, Area 36, 202–232.
both the quantity and the quality of employ- Coombes, M., Champion, T. and Raybould, S.
ment and other life-chance opportunities. (2007) “Did the early A8 in-migrants to
England go to areas of labor shortage?”, Local
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Environment and Planning B 24, 437–449. Planning Association 71, 367–378.
Echenique, M. (2007) “Commentary: mobility
Cattan, N. (2001) Functional Regions:A Summary of and income”, Environment & Planning A 39,
Definitions and Usage in OECD Countries, Paris: 1783–1789.
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Champion, T. (2001) The Containment of Urban trends”, in H.S. Geyer (ed.) International
Britain: Retrospect and Prospect, Milan: Handbook of Urban Policy, Volume 1,
FrancoAngeli. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 107–137.
Florida, R. (2008) Who’s Your City?, New York:
Champion, T. (2009) “Urban–rural differences in Basic Books.
commuting in England: a challenge to the Goodman, J. (1970) “The definition and analysis
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190 lems”, British Journal of Industrial Relations 8,
179–196.
Gordon, I. (1999) “Targeting a leaky bucket: the
case against localized employment creation”,
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MIGR ATION A N D C OMMU TIN G

Gordon, I. (2002) “Unemployment and spatial London: Communities and Local
labor markets: strong adjustment and persistent Government.
concentrations”, in R. Martin and P. Morrison Urry, J. (2008) “Moving on the mobility turn”, in
(eds) Geographies of Labor Market Inequality, W. Canzler, V. Kaufmann and S. Kesselring
London: Routledge, 55–82. (eds) Tracing Mobilities: Towards a Cosmopolitan
Perspective,Aldershot:Ashgate, 13–24.
Green, A., Hogarth, T. and Shackleton, R. (1999) Zukin, S. (1988) Loft Living, London: Radius.
“Long-distance commuting as a substitute for
migration: a review of trends”, International Further reading
Journal of Population Geography 5, 49–67.
Champion,T., Coombes, M. and Brown, D. (2009)
Halliday, J. and Coombes, M. (1995) “In search of “Migration and longer distance commuting in
counterurbanization: some evidence from Rural England”, Regional Studies 43, forth-
Devon on the relationship between patterns of coming. (A direct analysis of the link between
migration and motivation”, Journal of Rural recent migration and current longer distance
Studies 11, 433–446. commuting in English rural areas.)

Lambregts, B., Kloosterman, R., Van Der Werff, Champion, T., Coombes, M., Raybould, S. and
M., Roling, R. and Kapeon, L. (2006) Wymer, C. (2007) Migration and Socio-economic
“Randstad Holland: multiple faces of a poly- Change: A 2001 Census Analysis of Britain’s
centric role model”, in P. Hall and K. Pain Larger Cities, Bristol: Policy Press. (An analysis
(eds) The Polycentric Metropolis: Learning from of whether Britain’s largest cities attract the
Mega-city Regions in Europe, London: Earthscan, talented people that they need for securing
137–145. their future prosperity.)

Nathan, M. and Urwin, C. (2005) City People: City Coombes, M. (2010) “Defining labor market areas
Centre Living in the UK, London: Centre for by analyzing commuting data: innovations in
Cities. the 2007 review of Travel-to-Work Areas”, in
J. Stillwell, O. Duke-Williams and A. Dennett
Neuman, M. and Hull, A. (2009) “The future of (eds) Technologies for Migration and Population
the city region”, Regional Studies 43, 777–787. Analysis: Spatial Interaction Data Applications,
Hershey, PA: IGI Global. (A demonstration of
Nielsen,T. and Hovgesen, H. (2005) “Urban fields innovative methods for the analysis of interac-
in the making: new evidence from a Danish tion data which shows variation in levels
context”, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale of commuting self-containment at different
Geografie 96, 515–528. spatial scales.)

ODPM (2003) Sustainable Communities Plan, Coombes, M. and Raybould, S. (2001)
London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. “Commuting in England and Wales: ‘people’
and ‘place’ factors”, European Research in
OECD (2007) OECD Territorial Reviews: Madrid, Regional Science 11, 111–133. (A regression
Spain, Paris: OECD. analysis identifying human or environmental
factors associated with shorter distance com-
Pike, A., Champion,T., Coombes, M., Humphrey, muting, which is environmentally preferable.)
L. and Tomaney, J. (2006) The EconomicViability
and Self-containment of Geographical Economies, Hall, P. and Pain, K. (eds) (2006) The Polycentric
London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Metropolis: Learning from Mega-city Regions in
Europe, London: Earthscan. (A detailed study
Preston, V. and McLafferty, S. (1999) “Spatial of evolving urban forms in Europe from one
mismatch research in the 1990s: progress particular viewpoint.)
and potential”, Papers in Regional Science 78,
387–402. Renkow, M. and Hoover, D.M. (2000)
“Commuting, migration and rural–urban pop-
Rees, P., Fotheringham, A. and Champion, T. ulation dynamics”, Journal of Regional Science
(2004) “Modeling migration for policy analy- 40, 261–287. (Econometric modeling suggests
sis”, in J. Stillwell and M. Clarke (eds) Applied that in the US more of the trend to longer
GIS and Spatial Analysis, Chichester: Wiley, distance commuting is due to the preferences
259–296. of people than to industrial restructuring.)

Renkow, M. and Hoover, D.M. (2000) Stenning,A., Champion,T., Conway, C., Coombes,
“Commuting, migration and rural–urban M., Dawley, S., Dixon, L., Raybould, S. and
population dynamics”, Journal of Regional
Science 40, 261–287.

Scott,A.J. (2001) Global City-regions:Trends,Theory,
Policy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stenning,A., Champion,T., Conway, C., Coombes,
M., Dawley, S., Dixon, L., Raybould, S. and
Richardson, R. (2006) Assessing the Local and
Regional Impacts of International Migration,

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MIKE COOMBES AND TONY CHAMPION

Richardson, R. (2006) Assessing the Local and Urry, J. (2008) “Moving on the mobility turn”, in
Regional Impacts of International Migration, W. Canzler, V. Kaufmann and S. Kesselring
London:Communities and Local Government. (eds) Tracing Mobilities: Towards a Cosmopolitan
(A quantitative analysis of the large sudden Perspective,Aldershot:Ashgate, 13–24. (Revised
inflow of East European migrants to England version of a key review of the new social
in 2004 to 2005 with short case studies of city science interest in mobility.)
regions.)

192

17

Within and outwith/material and political?
Local economic development and the
spatialities of economic geographies

Roger Lee

Introduction multiple geographies as much as the engage-
ment or lack of engagement of cities and
All development is local. It must necessarily regions in them that shape and are shaped by
take place. In this sense the notion of local the trajectories of urban and regional devel-
development is tautologous. But local devel- opment or underdevelopment.
opment is rarely, if ever, completely bounded
by place.And this is not just a question of how These complex geographies raise difficult
‘local’ or ‘development’ may be defined. Local issues – intensely political as well as material –
development intrinsically involves mutually in conceptualising, theorising and practising
formative and politically significant intersec- local development. Neither the material or
tions of territorial and relational spatialities – the political nor the within and the outwith
themselves inseparable and constituted can be understood in isolation. Following
together – across a multitude of organisational Don Mitchell (2003), David Harvey (2006:
and geographical sites. Another way of 239) highlights the politics arising out of the
putting this is that the ‘local’ shapes ‘develop- intersection of territorial and relational
ment’ at the same time as ‘development’ geographies (see also Cumbers et al. 2008):
shapes the ‘local’. The one is always insinu-
ated in, and formative of, the other. For It is only when relationality connects
example, the diversity of class, gender or to the absolute spaces and times of
ethnic divisions of labour within cities or social and material life that politics
regions reflects the day-to-day spatialities comes alive.
and social relations of the particular forms of
economic activity and the environmental However, the use of the word ‘only’ here is
and social topographies through which they problematic. It was used in an essay discuss-
take place in those cities and regions. But ing different notions of space and does not
they also reflect wider economic geographies mean, I think, that politics can arise in no
and the place of particular cities or regions way other than in the connection of absolute
within them as well as the class/gender/ and relational spaces. Like economy, politics
ethnic relations associated with these wider cannot but take place.Thus a very much alive
geographies. It is the diverse nature of these politics is associated within both territorial
and relational spaces. Both the politics of

193

ROGER LEE

different territorial spaces (e.g. the differen- consistent application of such ideas by Ray
tial access of particular groups to those spaces, Hudson, e.g. 1989, 2001).The chapter begins
or the priority given to, and achieved by, such by considering the material spatialities of
spaces in the pursuance of polices to promote economy (what I call circuits of value) before
the provision for and sustenance of local moving on to consider the political signifi-
development) and of different relational spaces cance of the social relations that direct them.
(e.g. power relations along global commodity It then explores the significance of these spa-
chains (Gereffi 2005), networks of value tialities and the questions that they raise for
(Smith et al. 2002) or production (Dicken local political transformations and local
et al. 2001; Coe et al. 2008) generate signifi- development including the (im)possibilities
cant political struggles. of endogenous development. I then move on
to examine the potentially transformed con-
Nevertheless, as the global spread and ditions for local economic development
retreat of financially driven circuits of value towards the end of the 2000s in the face of
reveal, it is doubtless the case that the inter- the financially induced fracturing of circuits
section of relational and territorial spatialities of capital – not least financial circuits (Plender
clearly does raise profound geo-political 2009). The concluding comments return to
questions including those associated with reflect on the insights on the possibilities of
local and regional development. And to local economic development that may be
repeat, these intersections are mutually form- offered by considerations of the ordinary
ative. Changes in one generate changes in economy. It thereby considers the paradox
the other.This is a continuous dynamic that that, in “a period of inconclusive struggles
must, somehow, be resolved to enable econo- between a weakened capitalism and dispersed
mies to function.Where resolution is impos- agencies of opposition, within delegitimated
sible or inadequate (for example, in resolving and insolvent political orders” (Balakrishnan
the need for territorially based financial reg- 2009: 26), radically new geographies of local
ulation with the hyper-spatial flexibility of development become imperative.While local
flows of finance, or in coping with the ter- economic development may be impossible, it
ritorial consequences for employment and may be the only possibility to be pursued.
local economic activity or the spatial restruc-
turing of multi-site corporate organisations) Spatialities of circuits of
uneven development is likely to result. In value and local economic
other words, the resolution of the differential development
dynamics of territorial and relational spatiali-
ties is a major driver of the politics and poli- There is something irreducibly material and
cies of local development. irreducibly geographical about economies/
economic geographies. Economic geogra-
These are the themes addressed by this phies are constituted of circuits of value which
chapter. Its focus is on thinking local and necessarily involve the incessant movement
regional development from the standpoint of and transformation of value – from consump-
economy/economic geography.By this I mean tion via exchange to production via exchange
not merely that the economic aspects of devel- to consumption – for which territorial and
opment are its focus but,rather,that the inher- relational geographies are not only the essential
ent socio-spatialities of economy/economic conditions of existence but also the objectives
geography frame the concerns of the chapter. (the expansion, extraction and recirculation
It attempts to think local development of value) of this movement and transformation.
less from the perspective of the locality (how- Upon the possibilities of such spatial and
ever defined) than from the equally complex
frame of the formative socio-spatialities of
economy/economic geography (see the

194

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

temporal repetition is all social life materially a range of possible social evaluations to
predicated. which such circuits are necessarily subject
and the regulatory relations and technologies
Circuits of value are simultaneously both involved.
social and material. Figure 17.1 is, therefore
(and notwithstanding the continued use of Figures 17.1 and 17.2 emphasise the move-
such a model of economy used,largely uncrit- ment and transformation of value across space
ically, by mainstream economics), a practical and through time inherent to circuits of value
impossibility as it abstracts from the social and their economic geographies. But circuits
relations which drive such circuits. It shows also require at least temporary spatial fixity to
the flows of value which must take place enable the consumption, exchange and pro-
across space and through time if the economic duction of value to take place. It is this com-
geographies constituted of such circuits are plex of relationships between movement/
to be sustained and, schematically, identifies relationality and fixity/territoriality circuits
the elements and processes of reflexive evalu- of value that lies at the problematic heart of
ation and regulation to which such circuits ‘local’ economic development.And it is these
are necessarily subject. Figure 17.2 represents inherently complex spatialities rather than
a capitalist circuit of value in which the social any apparent failings in the field of local eco-
relations of capital (labour:capital relations) nomic development which explains its lack
and the imperative of the production of of “a coherent theoretical framework”(Rowe
surplus value and its accumulation shape its 2009: xvi). It follows that, unless the develop-
trajectory. It points, again schematically, to mental effects of these spatialities are fully

Spaces of productive
consumption of
value

Final
consumption

of value

Spaces of Spaces of exchange
exchange of values of values

(material and immaterial values) (labour power and means of production)

Logistics of outputs Organisation, logistics
and combination of inputs

Spaces

of production

of value
(production/reproduction)

Regulation through sustainability/reproducibility

Lower Self-regulation External regulation
Material

Reflexivity Logistical

Higher Environmental
Calculation/accounting

Circuits of value and their regulation

Figure 17.1 Circuit of value.
Source: Author’s research

195

ROGER LEE

Spaces of finanical hegemony
“the headquarters of the capitalist system”

(Joseph Schumpeter)

M’

=
Spaces of realisation s Spaces of (re/dis) incorporation
[material/immaterial + [commodity, property,
M labour markets]
commodities,
property]

LP
C’ C MP

P
Spaces of production

Regulation through profitability/accumulation

Spaces of financial Spaces of political
reflexivity reflexivity

Lower Financial analysis/
capital switching

Reflexivity State-centred policy

Higher Diverse economies
Calculation/accounting

Circuits of capital and their regulation

Figure 17.2 Circuit of capital.
Source: Author’s research

incorporated, efforts to deal with this lacuna civil society and locally embedded socio-
from within the field are doomed to failure. political relations. Such necessary territorial
conditions of existence of circuits of value
Local development point to the place-based nature of circuits of
as problematic value. But they do not involve the place
boundedness of circuits of value.Furthermore,
Local development is problematic because – just as places are, to an extent, substitutable in
even leaving aside the question of what may the dynamic geographies of circuits of value,
be meant by the ‘local’ – there is a contradic- so too can they be used to structure the
tion between territories of development and geographies of the circuits. Particular parts of
the relationalities of circuits of value. The circuits may be placed in those locations that
geographies of circuits of value are consti- offer the greatest benefits to powerful par-
tuted of the relational networks and circuits ticipants in the circuit regardless of local
of the production exchange and consump- developmental consequences.
tion of value.These circuits cross, and locate
– in whole or in part – within territories. Can economic development
Further, they are heavily dependent upon be local?
territories for their conditions of existence
with respect, for example, to legal relations, Given the necessary but fluid relationships
economic policies and regulation, to say between movement and stasis in circuits of
nothing of the built environment and the value and the geographically substitutable
economic significance of social institutions, relationships between places which are,

196

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

nevertheless, necessary conditions of exist- decisions governing the spatial and
ence of circuits of value, to what extent can temporal switching of flows of value.
economic development become, or remain iv) Localisation of parts (as a whole or
local? It is possible to envisage at least five merely fragments) of circuits of value –
possible answers to this question: production, exchange, consumption.
Here the degree and form of local
i) Localisation of circuits of value. But economic development would be
then how much of a circuit of value shaped by which parts of circuits of
within a locality would constitute value are present within a locality and
local economic development: above or how fragmentary their localisation
below 50 per cent? 75 per cent? 100 may be.
per cent? v) Localisation of spaces of incorporation
(e.g. labour markets, property markets)
ii) Localisation of any surplus created and/or of logistical relations (e.g. the
within circuits of value in a locality. movement of commodities). Local
The same questions of how much control over the relations of exchange
would constitute local economic does not, of course, imply any control
development applies here too. Reten- over production or consumption.
tion of the surplus without local con-
trol over it may constitute only a Shaped and driven from both within and
highly partial form of local economic without, local economic development can be
development. But this raises further only partially local.‘Development’ it may (or
questions around the locus of control may not) be but ‘local’ it isn’t in anything
of this surplus – the spaces of hegem- other than a partial sense. This is a central
ony in Figure 17.2. All economic problem for local development policy and
geographies – even Robinson Crusoe practice. It is perfectly possible to think of
single-person economic geographies locally autarkic circuits of value, for example,
– must have loci of control over their but almost impossible to envisage that these
developmental trajectories. In capitalist could make anything more than a marginal
economies these are the places of con- contribution to local economic development
trol over capital including, for example, (see, for example, Lee et al. 2004). From this
corporate headquarters. But, in recent perspective, then, ‘local economic develop-
years these loci of control have taken ment’ means little more than the grounding
place and been created and practised in of bits of circuits of value in ways that might
a hierarchy of financial centres which be considered to enhance local economic
control the switching of finance capi- activity.
tal into and out of places and activities
around circuits of value. Although Social relations and the
they are, of course hegemonic only in spatialities and politics
certain spaces and times and are con- of circuits of value
stantly vulnerable, they can and do
exert hegemonic control thereby rais- But this is not all. What has been discussed
ing profound questions about the thus far has focused primarily on a concep-
nature of their regulation by appropri- tion of economic activity considered in
ate authorities (see Lee 2011). purely material terms – as circuits of value.
This is an inadequate formulation.
iii) Localisation of the spaces of hegem-
ony. Depending on the extent of the 197
localisation this would imply a form
of local economic autarky in terms of

ROGER LEE

Social relations and circuits Unless effective mechanisms of regula-
of value tion and evaluation are in place to
maintain specific criteria by which
While circuits of value may have the superfi- value is assessed – and thereby to impose
cial appearance of material flows of value a particular trajectory upon economic
through consumption, exchange and pro- practices and the spaces through which
duction, the nature, trajectory and purpose of they take place – value may be ever
these flows are shaped by social relations of changing, not only in form and specifi-
value (compare Figures 17.1 and 17.2). Social cation, but also in the mode and criteria
relations of value are the shared, contested, or of its evaluation. Under such circum-
imposed understandings about the nature, stances, the sustenance of the practical
norms and purposes of circuits of value.They coherence of economy across space and
make sense of, give direction to and, above time may be severely hampered.
all, define the parameters and the criteria of
evaluation of circuits of value.Within circuits (Lee 2006: 416)
of capital (circuits of value shaped and driven
by capitalist social relations of value) such But such coherence is not merely a question
criteria are primarily financial and concerned of economic logistics; it is a deeply political
with accumulation and profitability. Any process. Different sets of social relations of
consideration of circuits of value not founded value involve not only different bases of
in these social relations is wholly incomplete. power and different relations of power but
And this inherently social nature of the different spatialities – fragmented feudalism
economic is inescapably political. It brings a versus expansionary capitalism, for example
whole new set of political and power rela- (Poulantzas 1974).What is more, different sets
tions into play. of social relations also powerfully constrain
the politics of choice.They define the limits
Social relations and the evaluation of the possible in terms of the norms,
and coherence of economic standards and objectives of circuits of value.
geographies They identify what is good or bad; better or
worse.
Economic geographies are, then, constructed
not only out of material circuits of value but Politics and the spatialities
out of evaluations of these circuits. Social of circuits of value
relations of value provide the templates for
valuing value.They are, therefore, integral to In such circumstances the politics arising
economic geographies.And this is significant. from the conjunction of territorial and rela-
Different social relations of value shape the tional spatialities is all too apparent. The
construction of different economic geogra- policy and practice of local economic devel-
phies. But such evaluations must be capable opment are those of relations of power played
of taking into account what is materially, out between the drivers of the spatialities of
environmentally and technologically possi- territories and the drivers of the spatialities
ble. Further, the existence of an accepted, of relational circuits of value. And these rela-
acceptable or imposed set of social relations tions of power are asymmetric in that the
of value (no matter how socially marginal or spatialities of circuits of capital are driven
politically vulnerable that acceptance, accept- primarily by assessments of the financial con-
ability or imposition may be) is also a neces- sequences (which are far from necessarily
sary feature of all economic geographies. congruent with any local developmental con-
sequences) – assessments that are potentially

198

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

global in extent. Furthermore – and as indi- social relations, metrologies and semiotics
cated above – such assessments are normally with local circumstances and the resultant
made outwith the locality with little, if any, social and material contradictions and con-
concern for local developmental conse- tested transformations of the local and the
quences beyond those that might affect the global. Capitalism is, then, highly diverse (see
financial performance of the relevant circuits e.g. Peck and Theodore 2007). It demands a
of value. However, one of the consequences geographical critique of what can easily
of the global financial crisis which began in become essentialist notions of state, capital,
2007 is that the global reach of these finan- labour civil society brought to bear upon it
cial assessments is likely both to be curtailed in analyses lacking the geographical imagina-
and substantially nationalised (temporarily at tion vital to its comprehension (see, for
least), if not further localised. example, Lee 2002).

And this politics is central to the question In the contemporary world, this politically
of local development. As a result of the charged set of interactions takes place
decentred nature of the capital:labour rela- between the geography of an expansive capi-
tion, the significance and geographical indif- talism and a world already full of history and
ference of finance capital and the Brennerian geography. The power geometries and poli-
(Brenner 1977) centrality of competition tics to which these intersections give rise are
within capitalist circuits of value, capitalist captured in Eric Hobsbawm’s description
spatialities are inherently expansionary.Thus, (1979: 310) of the making of the capitalist
if local development is both territorial and world economy:
relational – its characteristics shaped by inter-
actions between relational and territorial The capitalist world economy has grown
spatialities – then a critically significant fram- up as an international, and increasingly
ing of this interaction and the politics that worldwide, system evolving largely as
arises from it is that of the uneven geograph- a function of the development of its
ical and temporal dynamics of circuits of ‘advanced’ sector, and in the first
capital (Fagan and Le Heron 1994) and other instance largely for the benefit of that
circuits of value and their diverse engage- sector. With certain exceptions, it
ment in material configurations of economic therefore transformed the remainder
activity. of the world, insofar as this was not
temporarily left to its own devices as
Circuits of value and the making of lacking, for the time being, economic
the world economic geography interest, into a set of subsidiary and thus
dependent economies.
It is important to stress the complexity of the
geographical and temporal dynamics of cir- Hobsbawm here describes dynamic circuits
cuits of value that constitute what is so mis- of capital pushing out selectively into the
leadingly referred to simply as ‘globalisation’. domains – both already capitalist and (today
As Peter Dicken points out (2007: 29), increasingly rare) non-capitalist – which sur-
globalisation is far from an “all-embracing, round them (see Wallerstein (e.g. 1979) for a
inexorable, irreversible, homogenising force”. different take on the making of the world
Quite the reverse. Globalisation is a process economy).
not a condition. It involves the multiple
interactions of more (or less) geographically The relations and contradictions between
expansive circuits of value, especially circuits the dynamics of capitalist circuits of capital
of capital, diverse networks of influence, and those of the circuits of value into which
they seek to expand are captured by Ernest
Mandel (1975) in his suggestion that the

199

ROGER LEE

growth and spread of the world economic In Figure 17.3 struggles to establish or to
geography consists of three interrelated resist capitalist social relations of production
moments: take place primarily at the intersections
where labour power and the means of pro-
i) ongoing capitalist development in the duction or commodities are transferred
domain(s) of established capitalist cir- between circuits of value to circuits of capital.
cuits of value As a result of such intersections, the material
and social bases of local development may be
ii) pre-capitalist and partial capitalist undermined – in whole or in part – while the
development [and, it might be added, restructuring of capitalist and non-capitalist
non-capitalist development] outside social relations occurs as local circuits are
these domain(s) linked to wider bases of valuation. But Figure
17.3 underplays the extent and significance
iii) struggles between the expansion of i) of financial relations in seeking out capitalist
and the resistance of ii). and non-capitalist circuits of value for inte-
gration into wider capitalist circuits. It also
The process of the formation and transfor- implies that capitalist social relations may
mation of the world economic geography spread mainly through the establishment
may, then, be understood in terms of a set of of capitalist systems of production, whereas
intersections of circuits of capital and circuits exposure not only to financial flows but also
of value (see Figure 17.3). Expansionary cir- to the possibilities and imperatives of con-
cuits of capital (IV) push out from the major sumption opened up by capitalism is a major
centres of capital accumulation and intersect factor dissolving existing systems of produc-
with non-capitalist circuits of value (III) tion-consumption relations.
(Gibson-Graham (2006, 2008) offers many
examples) and/or with local, partial or Furthermore, global circuits of capital now
declining circuits of capital (V). Given the not only involve the circulation of commod-
geographically expansionary and increasingly ity capital (international trade), production
global nature of circuits of capital, it would capital (see, for example, Palloix 1977) and
be rare to discover autonomous circuits of production sites, but massive global flows of
value (I) and inconceivable to find isolated finance capital (banking capital as well as
circuits of capital (II).

I — c — el — p — euv — c —
II — M — C {lp, mp} .... P .... C’ .... M’ —
III —— c — el — p — euv — c —

IV — M — C {lp, mp} ..... P ..... C’ ..... M’ —

...... C’ {lp, mp}

......P’ ......

......C’ ......

V — M — C {lp, mp} ...... P.... C’— M’ —

c = consumption Ip = labour power
el = exchange of labour power mp = means of production
p = production P = (capitalist) production
euv = exchange of use values P’ = expanded (capitatist) production
M = money capital C’ = expanded value of commodities
C = commodities M’ = M + surplus value

Figure 17.3 Intersecting and non-intersecting circuits of value.
Source Author’s research

200

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

direct and portfolio investment). Flows of choreographed by networks of inter- and
commodity capital subject the circuits of intra-firm relations.
value with which they connect to potentially
devastating forms of evaluation from outwith But there is more to such networks than
as a growing proportion (currently around this.They are shaped by capitalist relations of
30 per cent) of global production enters into value defined, implemented and enforced
international trade. Prices of commodities through calculations of value and profitabil-
are, thereby, brought ever more intensely into ity and the consequent switching of capital
competitive relationships with each other undertaken within spaces of hegemony. In
and so become increasingly affected – and the years leading up to the financial crisis of
hence disciplined – not only by local pro- the late 2000s these spaces came to be domi-
duction costs and patterns of consumption nated by financially shaped circuits of capital
but by global evaluations shaped increasingly now shaped to an extent by state and near-
by financialisation (Lee et al. 2009), especially state regulated finance. However, no matter
of commodities. how apparently ‘free’ markets may appear to
be, production networks are always heavily
The often highly uneven – in both space embedded via relations of governance in the
and time – historical geography of financial territories across which they create and per-
capital flows reflects the hyper-mobility of form their relational geographies.
many forms of such capital.They incorporate
the economic geographies in which they are The geographies of these networks thereby
insinuated into wider circuits of capital.This reflect, once again, intersections between
not only increases the dependence of these territorial and relational geographies. But
geographies on the conditions of investment these geographies are also closely shaped by
in the regions from which the flows of capi- the power relations of participants – produc-
tal derive but imposes new forms of evalua- ers, consumers, market makers and suppliers
tion upon the recipient geographies. Even of logistics – within the networks.Thus net-
flows of directly invested productive capital works of production take place through dis-
engage in dizzying constructions and destruc- tinctive spatialities which, until the late 2000s
tions of economic geographies – often under (at least and probably beyond) had become
severe conditions of financial evaluation both more intensely interconnected and
(see, for example, Lee 2003). geographically extensive.The increasing spa-
tial extent and growing interconnection
Orchestrating circuits within and between production networks or
in networks the fracturing of such links have clear impli-
cations for the possibilities of the capture of
What is more, these relations are orchestrated value through local development, notwith-
not merely through markets but, as indicated standing the crucial significance of the
above, through global commodity chains, embeddedness of the networks in the places
networks of value, or global production within which many of their conditions of
networks. Such networks are “extremely existence are to be found.
complex structures with intricate links –
horizontal, vertical and diagonal – forming Spatialities of circuits of capital,
multidimensional, multilayered lattices of local political transformations
economic activity” (Dicken 2007: 15). It is and the (im)possibility of
through them that circuits of value (circuits endogenous development
of production, exchange and consumption
extended across space and through time) are However, the consequences of a geographi-
cally expansionary or a receding capitalism

201

ROGER LEE

go well beyond those of disruptions to local These transformations demand, in turn,
circuits of value and the possibilities of the wider socio-political change.Within Europe,
capture of value and local development.The for example, labour came to be alienated
creation of a capitalist world economic geog- from the ownership of the means of produc-
raphy involves not only the expansion of a tion more readily in the west than in the east.
circuit of capital into, but the transformation From the sixteenth century onwards, this
of the social relations of production and pattern of uneven development gave rise to a
consumption within, places. The geographi- momentous division (Okey 1982) with pro-
cal expansion of capital as a social relation found geo-economic and geo-political con-
necessitates the creation and/or transforma- sequences which continue to reverberate
tion – ruthlessly if that is what it takes – of well after the collapse of communism and
pre-existing social relations in places. Specif- the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
ically, the reach of circuits of capital takes And, with the geographically constrained
place through the: adoption of capitalist social relations and
criteria of evaluation of circuits of value
i) purchase of labour power which pre- in China (albeit within a communist/state
sumes the existence of labour as a socialist regulatory framework), capitalist
commodity (or the possibility of trans- economic geographies now dominate, even
forming labour into a commodity – if they do not necessarily fully determine, the
labour power – capable of being global economic geography.
bought and sold across a market), as
well as of the means of production Within Russia, the failure to recognise the
significance of deep-seated pre-capitalist
ii) (geographical) restructuring of relations of circuits of value in Russia during
production the sudden attempt to introduce capitalism
into the country during the 1990s contrib-
iii) sale both of means of production – uted to the severe crisis of 1998.The liberali-
which presumes the existence of a sation of trade, large-scale privatisations
system of capitalist property relations and macro-economic control – especially of
– and of commodities which intro- inflation – were presumed to induce the
duces capitalist forms of exchange spread and growth of capitalism. But, as John
Thornhill (1998: 14) posing the revealing
iv) subjection of local circuits of value to question ‘Who lost Russia’? (‘lost’, that is, to
financial evaluation and financialisation capitalism), wrote at the time:
from within the spaces of hegemony.
while the reformers’ model may have
The struggles associated with the geographi- been valid for part of the economy, it
cal expansion of capital identified by Mandel did not capture the whole picture.The
may have one of four possible outcomes: legacy of 74 years of Communist rule
[and, it might be added, before that, the
i) transformation of non-capitalist social centralised feudality of the Czarist
relations as a result of their replace- regimes] meant that large swathes of
ment by capitalist social relations the economy were seemingly immune
to market [i.e. capitalist] disciplines.
ii) the mere interconnection of capitalist ‘Privatised’ companies continued to be
with the pre-capitalist social relations run like Soviet-era quasi ministries,
subtracting rather than adding value to
iii) the partial adjustment of local social their inputs. They failed to pay either
relations towards a capitalist form their taxes or their workers’ wages.

iv) the rejection of and isolation from
capitalist social relations and the
development of alternative circuits of
value.

202

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Loss-making industries reverted to Party conference in June 2007. Brown is an
barter trade, plunging workers into a advocate of endogenous growth but misses
largely non-cash economy. the point that the endogenous notions of
“British jobs” and “British workers” are
Unsurprisingly, the consequences of these meaningless in a globally connected eco-
kinds of disruption have not been confined nomic geography. In such a context, there is
to economic disruption. For example, the a profound distinction to be made between
almost continuous decline of especially male the economic geography of Britain (or any
life expectancy in the Soviet Union during other territory for that matter) and the
the 1990s was one manifestation of the effects British economic geography.The latter is, of
of the ‘shock therapy’ of mass privatisation course made up of circuits of value extend-
administered to the post-socialist countries ing well beyond Britain and they in turn
during the decade (Stuckler et al. 2009). both shape, and are shaped by, the economic
Although countries with high levels of social geographies taking place within the territory
capital suffered less, there could hardly be a of Britain.Yet conventional economic notions
clearer demonstration of the all too probable of endogeneity refer not to the spatialities
links between ‘development’ and social and involved – these are ignored – but to the
environmental ill-being (e.g. Lee 2010a).The relative significance of supply- and demand-
links between certain quantitative measures side influences on sustained changes in the
of ‘development’ and their manifestation as so-called natural rate of growth (for a regional
social and environmental underdevelopment example, see Lanzafame 2009).This is a cru-
are all too obvious (see Pike et al. 2007). cial issue for policy as it not only has
the effect of extending and constricting what
The case of Russia points once again to is economically possible but, as indicated
the limited and highly problematic possibili- above, has powerful reactionary political res-
ties of local development within spatially onances too.
extensive and highly dynamic circuits of cap-
ital. The comforting but uncritical distinc- Fractured spatialities and
tion between endogenous and exogenous transformed conditions of local
development in accounts of local economic economic development?
development (see, for example, Stimson and
Stough 2009) is undermined not only by the The economic and political uncertainties and
mutually formative relations between terri- vulnerabilities of globalisation have, perhaps,
torial and relational spatialities but by the never been more apparent than they are at the
disruption of endogenous relations by exter- end of the 2000s, and herein lies a set of pos-
nal norms and metrics of value and by the sibilities for local development. In many ways
perpetual geographical switching of circuits – and notwithstanding the arguments pur-
of capital in response to financial evaluations sued above on the constraints on local eco-
or state directives from the spaces of capitalist nomic development in a spatially extensive
hegemony (Figure 17.1 and 17.2). Not only world – there has rarely been a more preg-
is this distinction unsupportable given the nant time to consider these possibilities.Ways
constant interactions between territorial and of doing things – of practising circuits of
relational spatialities, it is politically naïve, value, for example – need to change and this
reactionary or both. opens up spaces for the insertion of diverse
economic practices less encumbered or con-
Think, for example, of the widespread strained by circuits of capital into established
repetition of the then UK Chancellor of the and entrenched relations of power.
Exchequer (later to be Prime Minister)
Gordon Brown’s careless remark “British jobs 203
for ... British workers” made at a UK Labour

ROGER LEE

But there is a further and associated con- in the latter (to be increased) and, at the same
sideration highlighted by the financial tur- time, to recognise the differentiated geogra-
moil of these years.The material spatialities of phies and uneven development especially –
globalisation do not merely wax and wane but not only (see Cienski et al. 2009;Wagstyl
but may be transformed along very different 2009) – within the global South.This is not
social relations of value and hence along very merely a question of market reform but of
different political dimensions. Two examples the restructuring of the provision of social
of these qualitatively and politically different security with particular attention being paid
social relations of value shaping the vectors of to the needs of the elderly and others mar-
globalisation would include global justice and ginal to circuits of value.
responsibility (Massey 2004) not merely
within but across territories and relational Further, the relations of development
spaces. As J. K. Gibson-Graham (2008: 622), between North and South in the form, for
following Doreen Massey (2005, 2007; and example, of copyright, intellectual property,
see Cumbers et al. 2008) on the simultaneity expertise (which, vitally, recognises the com-
and togetherness – conflict ridden or not – of plex nature and developmental power of
social life puts it, this would involve a “move local expertise), infrastructure projects, aid
from a structural to an ethical vision of deter- and trade policy require fundamental reform.
mination”. In terms of local economic devel- In terms of South–South relations, localities
opment it follows from this move that: might be opened up to each other through
supportive circuits of value and flows of
[T]he academic task becomes not to policy and ideas shaped by social relations
explain why localities are incapable of driven by collective and mutually supportive
looking beyond their boundaries but developmental agendas (see, for example,
to explore how they might do so. Manuel 2009). If able to recognise and to
make such a critique, localities may look
(emphasis in original) beyond their boundaries in sustaining a local
economic development not based merely
And what may bring such profound trans- upon the local grounding of circuits of capi-
formations to greater significance is the tal in locations deemed most effective by
destabilisation, not merely of the spatialities profit-driven criteria emanating from spaces
of economic growth but of the social rela- of capitalist hegemony. Such transformations
tions of value resulting from the profoundly would enable the redrawing of power
geographical nature – in both cause and pos- geometries and hence the source and nature
sible resolution – of the global financial crisis of the evaluations which shape the spatialities
at the end of the first decade of the twenty- of economic development.
first century (McCarthy 2009). In the late
2000s, the further disturbance of hegemonic So what might such transformed condi-
relations between global North and global tions of local economic development look
South as a result of the financial crisis opens like? Table 17.1 is little more than a list –
up the possibilities of new spatialities and, merely indicative and illustrative and doubt-
along with them, of new mutualities of less thoroughly incomplete – but, hopefully,
development between South and South, as it provides one way at least of framing some
well as between North and South. possibilities as a way of looking forward.The
distinctions between the various conditions
A central feature of the latter is the need to listed in Table 17.1 are not made merely on
redress the massive global imbalances and levels one dimension – for example, that of the
of uneven development within and between quantitative and spatial extent of their effects.
North and South in terms of consumption They also represent a range of different
in the former (to be reduced) and wage levels notions of what may be meant or imagined

204

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

by ‘local development’. And here the social politics deriving from them. However, the
relations of value and the politics associated sections in the table should not be taken to
with them are crucial.Table 17.1 is, therefore, imply that the distinctions highlighted by
arranged broadly in terms of the degree of them are anything other than porous. The
fissure of the conditions of local economic snapshot is both out of focus and in soft
development from the spatialities and social focus. The conditions of local economic
relations of capitalism.Thus as well as differ- development are more accurately envisaged
entiating between different modes of local as being arranged along a continuum.
economic development, the table also pro- Certainly many could and should well appear
vides a snapshot – however much out of in more than one row of the table.
focus – of the complex intersections between
the spatialities of circuits of value and the A critical feature of such potential transfor-
mations in local economic development

Table 17.1 Conditions of and policies for local economic development

conditions of … … and policies for … ..… local economic development

I capitalism market-based policies of spatial • driven by circuits of value
(regulated) financially development emanating primarily from
driven circuits of capital elsewhere

locational development policies of attraction and support • surplus appropriated largely by
and variegated localised for capital: e.g. (financial) capital
economic geographies • enhancing potential for
• coping with internationalising and
• localising/clustering localising processes globalising processes
• internationalising – policy-driven clustering
• regionalising – institutionalised clustering – • grounding and holding down
• globalising high-speed fragments of circuits
universities. etc. of value
locally regulated/reformist • recognising potential of
capitalism • local attempts to lock down
regionalising processes (e.g. EU) capitalism (e.g. Coe et al. 2004;
for local development policy Yeung 2009)

• interventions to take ‘[C]apitalism e.g.
beyond the crisis’ (Sen 2009: 4) • Bologna and the ‘third’ Italy
• China – localised capitalism;
• regulatory and reformist policies
to shape capitalism so generating geographically graduated relations
‘variegated capitalism’ (Peck and of value
Theodore 2007) • credit unions (see, for example,
Fuller and Jonas 2002; but also
‘It is government’s duty to promote Pickard 2009)
growth while securing non-material • green new deal ‘designed to power
values people hold dear’ (Anon 2009) a renewables revolution, create
• ‘The audacity of help’ thousands of green-collar jobs and
rein in the distorting power of the
(Thornhill 2009: 17) finance sector while making more
low-cost capital available for
pressing priorities’ (New
Economics Foundation n.d.)
• Black 2009

(continued)

205

ROGER LEE

Table 17.1 (Cont’d)

II resistance to capitalism local (national state, city, region) radical social relations but constrained in
militant particularism interventions to displace capitalist terms of spatial extent and hence of
(Harvey 2001) social relations transformation, e.g,
‘the place of socialist Hayter and Harvey 1993
politics’ (Harvey 1996: 32). policies designed to enhance the • living wage/housing, etc., i.e.
A relational world necessitates ‘meeting social needs and enhancing
‘the move from tangible social citizenship (Amin et al. distributional issues rather than
solidarities … to a more 2002: 125) economy-wide
abstract set of conceptions
that would have universal local initiatives operating in parallel with
purchase’ but ‘in that move, mainstream economic relations, e.g.
something [is] bound to be • on-line person-to-person finance
lost’ (Harvey 1996: 33)
(e.g. Zopa.com)
the social economy • a range of detailed examples
‘non-profit activities designed
to combat social exclusion illustrative of the inherent
through socially useful goods limitations of the social economy
sold in the market and which (but see Benjamin 2009; Clark
are not provided by the state 2009) is offered in Amin et al. (2002)
or the private sector. (Amin: widespread practice of often small-scale
et al. 2002: vii) initiatives operating on the basis of
alternative values, e.g.
the ordinary economy policies to enhance the realisation • gardens for food (RHS 2009;
(Lee 2006) of the multiple, simultaneously but see Pudup 2008)
‘Values matter and they are practised values in all circuits of • community enterprises and
affected by our theories’ value across multiple differentiated companies (e.g. pubs, shops, post
(Layard 2009: 19) localities offices) (see, for example, Brignall
2009; Jenkins 2009)
III post-capitalism ‘performative practices for other the practice of autonomous economic
diverse economies worlds’ (Gibson-Graham 2008) geographies with circuits of value driven
including designing and thinking by locally agreed and practised social
policy otherwise relations, e,g.
• LETS (see, for example, Lee et al.
democratised economic policies based on the democratic 2004; Leney 2009)
geographies right to the economy (Gowan 2009) • Fuller et al. (2010) offer a range
and city (Harvey 2009) of examples
Source:Author’s research relations of economic engagement and
practice driven by inclusive democratic
relations

concerns the scale and institutional infra- example, “can never become a growth
structure involved. Micro-level initiatives machine or an engine of job creation, or a
may have great political and social significance substitute for the welfare state, but it can
– not least through the realisation of auton- stand as a symbol of another kind of econ-
omy from the practices and relations of power omy”. By comparison the reform of banks
within circuits of capital – but their material through the credit union movement or the
consequences are limited and localised. For provision of retail banking through a (re-)
Amin (2002: 125) the social economy, for nationalised post office, for example, or the

206

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

financing of local authorities via National mean that localities are somehow powerless.
Savings, pension funds and other institutional A recognition of the possibilities for local
investors to enable green infrastructural development arising from the intersections
investment and schemes such as gardens for of relational and territorial space, and for
food, to take just two examples, are institu- thinking local development otherwise than
tionally well-founded measures which address from the evaluative constraints and norms of
wider questions of carbon emissions as well the social relations of value of the mainstream
as enhancing skills and local employment economy presents a range of policy options.
and so increasing the possibilities of the local
capture of value. Of course, these are neither easy to imple-
ment nor to sustain in any materially effec-
Such initiatives involve political compro- tive fashion. However, the notion of the
mise in using existing mainstream institu- ordinary economy accepts the material sin-
tions. Further, while such institutions have gularity of circuits of value as irreducible but
national, and even international, coverage and also argues that:
reach, they require reform and reorientation
more fully to sustain the possibilities of local the economy is an integral part of every-
economic development offered by initiatives day life, full of the contradictions, ethi-
beyond capitalist circuits of value. A good cal dilemmas and multiple values that
example would be the reform of social secu- inform the quotidian business of
rity rules and the bases of personal taxation making a living.
to encourage diverse economies. Similarly,
the spatial constraints of many such initia- (Lee 2006: 414)
tives require institutions which enable extra-
local linkages to enable mutual support Here, perhaps, within this multiplicity of
involving, for example, flows of resources values lie the possibilities of democratic geog-
such as knowledge to sustain innovation, and raphies of economic development reaching
access to extra-local markets to sustain well beyond the prevailing norms and values
demand. In essence what is necessary here is of the geographies of capitalism. But, like all
the involvement of institutions capable of economic geographies, such have to be con-
recognising and working with the relational- structed. The possibilities are great but not
ity of circuits of value, so linking the extra- infinite. And they are not infinite not least –
local with the local while, at the same time, but not only – because of the inherent mate-
the social relations of the territorial institu- rialites of economic geographies (see Lee
tions from which local economic develop- 2010a). To be capable of effective social sus-
ment derive many of its conditions of tenance, all economic geographies have to be
existence are reformed to enable local eco- capable not only of producing at least as
nomic development. much value as is needed merely to maintain
a population, a city or a region at a minimally
Concluding comments acceptable level of living but they must also
be capable of being continuously reproduced
This chapter has argued that a recognition of across space and through time. So policy-
the formative relations between territorial making must be hard-headed. One round of
and relational spatialities is vital for any effec- a circuit of value – alternative or otherwise
tive form of local development and, at the – is a waste of effort and a material contra-
same time, that these intersections pose criti- diction in terms, notwithstanding the politi-
cal difficulties for any form of local develop- cally liberating effects that even such a limited
ment founded on localities. But this does not alternative might engender.

However, the significance of such political
liberation is not to be gainsaid. A critical

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ROGER LEE

imagination is also vital for effective policy- necessary to sustain the kind of profound
making (see Lee 2010b).There are only lim- economic, social and environmental change
ited options facing policy-makers in trying capable of offering some kind of hope for
to make the ‘local’ fit for prevailing main- dealing with the current conjuncture (Gowan
stream norms of economic ‘development’. 2009; Lee 2010b). However the dynamics
What must also be designed into policy is the of territorial and relational spatialities imply
pursuance of alternatives. These must be that economic practice and policy must
materially and environmentally effective but also be dynamic; solutions are inevitably
will likely be driven by quite different social temporary.
relations of value and, thereby, environmental
norms. Whether policy-making within the But these are issues not merely for policy-
state – at whatever level – is capable of think- makers. Quite the contrary. The point of a
ing like this and so going beyond its role as “a democratic form of economic development
committee for managing the common affairs is that it should be informed by social rela-
of the whole bourgeoisie” (Marx and Engels tions of value which reflect democratically
1968: 37) is, of course, a moot point. agreed preferences. But first there has to be a
meaningful democracy of choice.As Rajaram
Certainly, given prevailing social relations and Soguk (2006: 367) argue, “‘[T]he politi-
of value, conventional institutions of policy- cal’ begins with the imposition of perma-
making and implementation within the state nence onto an unhinged and fluid spatiality”.
are probably not only incapable of the imag- The point is to rupture and fragment such
ination necessary to design and implement permanence. As Balakrishnan (2009: 26) has
the kinds of policies necessary to breathe sus- concluded, “[I]n the absence of organized
tainable economic life back into localities political projects to build new forms of
abandoned by mainstream circuits of value, autonomous life, the ongoing crisis will be
they also lack the political and institutional stalked by ecological fatalities that will not be
legitimacy to do so.And yet: evaded by autonomous growth.”

[E]conomic geographies cannot … be Herein lies the real – i.e. ecological and
reduced to a consideration of one static political – significance of alternative forms of
set of dominant social relations of value development and the alternative geographies
as such would be an impossibility. through which they may take place. Such
Rather they are constituted geograph- development does not represent only imagi-
ically, socially and politically – and native material responses to thinking devel-
hence practised – as co-present and opment otherwise. The practice of such
dynamic hybridizations of alternative, responses is able to release the imagination to
complementary or competing social design and implement ecologically sound
relations which may vary over the alternatives around which policy choices
shortest stretches of time and space. might be freely and effectively made. But, of
course, such policies are dependent upon the
(Lee 2006: 421) adoption set of social relations of value capa-
ble of sustaining them. Thus the problem of
The political problem of policy lies, first, in policy is less that of logistics than of politics.
the recognition of the diverse developmental The politics remains central.
possibilities presented by this impossibility,
second, in the critique of mainstream options Acknowledgements
required to create a real democracy of
choice based on the realisation of the futility, As ever, colleagues and friends have been
constraints and limitations of mainstream immensely generous in offering guidance
options and, third, in the political mobilisation

208

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

and advice. Particular thanks to Peter Dicken, analysing the global economy’,Global Networks,
Ray Hudson and to the editors of this book 1: 89–112.
for offering such generous and incisive Fagan,R.and Le Heron,R.(1994)‘Reinterpreting
insights. Despite their generosity, I doubt that the geography of accumulation: the global
I am able to come anywhere near their shift and local restructuring’, Environment and
degree of insight. Thank you once again to Planning D – Society and Space, 12: 265–285.
Ed Oliver, cartographer and web manager in Fuller, D. and Jonas, A. E. G. (2002) ‘Institutional-
the Department of Geography at QMUL, ising future geographies of financial inclusion:
who drew the diagrams with his all too easily national legitimacy versus local autonomy in
taken-for-granted elegance and patience. the British credit union movement’, Antipode,
34: 85–110.
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circuits of value.)
Dicken, P. (2007) Global shift: Mapping the changing Leyson A, Lee, R. and Williams, C. (eds) (2003)
contours of the world economy, London,Thousand Alternative economic spaces, London: Sage
Oaks: Sage Publications, 5th edition. (On the Publications. (On examples of alternative eco-
complex geographies of globalisation.) nomic practices.)

Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006) A postcapitalist politics,
Minnesota: Minnesota University Press (On

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18

Spaces of social innovation

Frank Moulaert and Abid Mehmood

Introduction working modalities of the capitalist economy
or, instead, opens new opportunities for
The concept of ‘social innovation’ has gained human development.The next section looks
prominence in scientific research, public at the dangers of social innovation becoming
debate, collective action and public policy a fashion or decorum for local, regional and
(Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2007). In the international development to conceal (un)
scientific world, the concept has been used social practice, thus stripping it from its core
for a long time, but it regained momentum policy and scientific message. Section III then
over the last twenty years. Its contemporary highlights various definitions and perspec-
applications range from the nature and func- tives on social innovation especially in terms
tions of social innovation in countering of social transformation, social economy and
mainstream perceptions of technological and exclusion.Subsequently,the analytical dimen-
organizational innovation, to the innovative sions of social innovation concepts and theo-
behaviour of social, economic and political ries that are relevant for the study of the
agents in socially innovative initiatives (Klein spatiality of social innovation initiatives and
and Harrisson, 2007). Thus, it broadens processes are presented. In the penultimate
the explanations of human progress and section, two types of ‘spaces of social innova-
development from economic and techno- tion’ are presented and analysed: places that
logical only to social and socio-cultural ones pursue local development through integrated
(Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2008). area development (IAD) and spatial networks
of social innovation initiatives. The conclu-
This chapter provides an overview of dif- sion points at possible directions for future
ferent approaches to social innovation that research on spaces of social innovation.
have been developed in a diversity of disci-
plines in social science for the last twenty Social innovation, fad or robust
years approximately, with a particular focus analytical concept?
on the quite recent discussions on the spatial-
ity of social innovation. It dwells on the ques- Since the end of the revolutionary 1960s in
tion if the introduction of social innovation the US and Europe, the term social innovation
principles in different sectors of economy
and society leads to a wider acceptance of the

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S PAC ES OF SOC IA L IN N OVATION

has received growing interest from academic But at the same time there is relevant opti-
and policy circles, with a proliferation of vary- mism that offers arguments in favour of scien-
ing interpretations as a consequence.The very tific work built on the concept of social
loose usage of the term generates a risk that it innovation, or socio-political movements pur-
would begin to lead a life as a fashion and no suing social innovation initiatives. Social inno-
longer reflect its scientific contents and its vation has shown its power as a challenger to
relationships with political reality and ideo- one-sided interpretations of the role of tech-
logical debates.What happens when scientific nological innovation in business and econom-
themes become fashionable is that the various ics (Hamdouch and Moulaert, 2006). Social
social and economic sectors use them in dif- innovation as a socio-political mobilizing
ferent meanings, thus spreading substantial theme has become apparent from the studies
ambiguity. One such example is its use in carried out under the banner of the European
business administration through Corporate Commission’s Framework Programmes in the
Social Responsibility (Moulaert, 2009: 11) SINGOCOM and KATARSIS projects for
which often turns up as an attempt at improv- various neighbourhoods and cities in Europe
ing the image of capitalism instead of an ethi- and North America (MacCallum et al., 2009).
cally concerned initiative to humanize business Elsewhere, the Center for Social Innovation
activities. Similar examples can be observed in (CSI) at Stanford University and Centre de
the cases of more environmentally concerned recherche sur l’innovation sociale (CRISES)
actions such as green economy, green banking in Montreal are engaged in interesting work
and green New Deals as forms of green on social innovation research (Powell and
Keynesianism, as in the United Nation’s Steinberg, 2006; Klein and Harrisson, 2007).
Environmental Program’s drive for a global The variety of perceptions and applications
green new deal (UNEP, 2009). Although this of the term in both of these research centres
programme is in essence ethically honourable, is striking but interesting. CSI remains more
without a clear understanding of its socially concerned with mainstream acceptance of
innovative content, a bias towards the logic of the term connecting it with productivity and
the global market economy remains tempting. how workers within a corporation can be
In addition, there is a danger that social inno- made to collaborate by promoting different
vation is used as a cheap active welfare policy, types of social innovation in corporate busi-
fitting the World Bank’s poverty relief agenda, ness culture, social interaction and work
which in some cases ends up in paying half a organization. But at the same CSI also con-
decent welfare income to those unemployed tributes to put sustainability on the corporate
who have become active (Mestrum, 2005, agenda, to improve the working of the social
ch. 2) instead of capacitating and empowering economy, in collaboration with social econ-
people to take their destiny in their own omy agents and providing instruments to
hands, as capability theorists (Sen, 1985; improve the management of NGOs to work
Nussbaum, 2001) and social innovation advo- towards social efficiency, etc. In this way CSI
cates (Kunnen, 2010; Gibson-Graham and has certainly contributed to a deeper ethical
Roelvink, 2009; Moulaert et al., 2000) argue. foundation to business practice and network-
Similar directions of fashionable word use can ing. CRISES in Montreal, then, provides a
be observed in the European Union’s views of more socially innovative focus on the concept
future territorial cohesion policy, for example of economy, society and urban revitalization.
(Faludi, 2007). As Servillo (2007) argues the It puts a particular stress on the networks of
diversity of views of territorial cohesion public-private agents as a regional system of
objectives across policy agendas and levels is social innovation (Klein and Harrisson, 2007;
so wide that the term itself is completely Lévesque and Mendell, 1999). CRISES’
hollowed out to a near slogan status. approach is genuinely concerned about the

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FRANK MOULAERT AND ABID MEHMOOD

development of the local and regional com- within different perspectives it is increasingly
munities which it analyses and works with complex to arrive at a fixed contemporary
especially in Canada and Latin-America.We definition of the term. The SINGOCOM
could indeed argue that its researchers have project (2001–2004) funded by European
given a more tangible content to the‘humane’ Commission FP-5 programme, developed an
dimension of spatial development by stress- Alternative Model of Local Innovation
ing the role of participation, governance and (ALMOLIN) that embraced the following
multi-partnerships in setting and implement- definition of social innovation:
ing development agendas (MacCallum, 2008;
Agger and Löfgren, 2008; Mandarano, 2009). Social innovation is path dependent
and contextual. It refers to those
The fulfilment of the market dream which changes in agendas, agency and institu-
many neoliberal ideologists, but also market- tions that lead to a better inclusion of
economy practitioners pamper ultimately excluded groups and individuals into
involves universal commodification, i.e. allo- various spheres of society at various
cation of all use-values through the market’s spatial scales. Social innovation is very
price mechanisms. But from the analyses we strongly a matter of process innovation,
have looked at, we have learned that the fur- i.e. changes in the dynamics of social
ther removed from the logic of the capitalist relations, including power relations.
market, the better the nature of social innova-
tion is analysed and implemented in authentic It further added that:
terms of human development in which origi-
nal human values of solidarity and shared as social innovation is about social inclu-
creativity form the base-source. This is, for sion, it is also about countering or over-
example,the case in‘Spaces of Social Economy’ coming conservative forces that are
(Amin et al.,1999) or theAlternative Economic eager to strengthen or preserve social
Strategy Network (Cumbers and Whittam, exclusion situations. […] social innova-
2007). Indeed the tendency towards ‘a com- tion therefore explicitly refers to an eth-
modified world’ puts a heavy burden on social ical position of social justice.The latter is
relations geared towards solidarity, reciprocity of course susceptible to a variety of
and cooperation, and leads to an uncertain interpretations and will in practice often
future for a plural economy (Williams, 2005). be the outcome of social construction.
This does not mean however that more main-
stream research or management learning cen- According to this definition social innova-
tres (such as CSI) and networks are just there tion cannot be considered as an ad hoc and
to cover up the evils of the corporate world by overnight problem-solution approach to
veiling them with an image of CSR. In fact community issues. For it requires connecting
CSI has significantly contributed to make sus- to ongoing social relations within the con-
tainability and social innovation tangible in cerned communities and the carefully nego-
business development plans and tractable in tiated and co-produced socially creative
actual corporate practice, thus contributing in strategies to overcome crisis situations. Social
their own way to economic plurality through innovation to be effective to the develop-
ongoing research and regular publications. ment of a community should therefore be
path-dependent, spatially embedded and
Defining social innovation socially re(produced). We will return to this
in sections iv and v.
With the growing research and literature on
social innovation in various languages and Looking at earlier works on social innova-
tion we find that as far back as the eighteenth
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S PAC ES OF SOC IA L IN N OVATION

century, Benjamin Franklin evoked social book on social innovation, Chambon, David
innovation in proposing minor modifications and Devevey (1982) built on most of the
within the social organization of communi- issues highlighted in this debate. According
ties in Philadelphia (as analysed by Mumford, to these authors:
2002); and in 1893, Emile Durkheim
highlighted the importance of social regula- Socially innovative […] practices are
tion in the development of the division of more or less directly aimed at allowing
labour which accompanies technical change an individual – or a group of individuals
(Durkheim, 1893). Technical change itself – to deal with a social need – or a set
can only be understood within the frame- of needs – that could not be satisfied
work of an innovation or renovation of the from other means.
social order to which it is relevant (Weber,
1968 [1921]). At the start of the twentieth (Chambon et al., 1982: p 8, our
century, Max Weber examined the relation- translation from the original text)
ship between social order and innovation, a
theme which was revisited by French phi- This definition is very general and does not
losophers and social scientists in the 1960s really stress on the process dynamics of the
(Chambon et al., 1982).Among other things, problem. However, this short book in the
Weber affirmed that changes in living condi- series Que sais-je? remains the most complete
tions are not the only determinants of social ‘open’ synthesis on the subject of social inno-
change. Individuals who introduce a behav- vation to this day. In brief, the authors exam-
iour variant, often initially considered devi- ine the relationship between social innovation
ant, can exert a decisive influence; if the and the pressures bound up within societal
new behaviour spreads and develops, it can changes, and show how the mechanisms of
become established social usage (Weber, 1968 crisis and recovery both provoke and acceler-
[1921]). In the 1930s, Joseph Schumpeter ate social innovation.Another link established
considered social innovation as structural by Chambon et al. concerns social needs and
change in the organization of society, or the needs of the individual, individually or
within the organizational forms of enterprise collectively revealed. In practice, social
or business (1947). Schumpeter’s theory of innovation signifies satisfaction of specific
innovation went far beyond the usual eco- needs thanks to collective initiative, which is
nomic logic, and appealed to an ensemble of not synonymous with state intervention.
sociologies (cultural, artistic, economic, polit- According to Chambon et al., in effect the
ical, and so on), which he sought to integrate state can act, at one and the same time, as a
into a comprehensive social theory that barrier to social innovation and as an arena of
would allow the analysis of both develop- social interaction provoking social innovation
ment and innovation (Schumpeter, 1932; from within the spheres of state or market.
Becker and Knudsen, 2005). Finally, these authors stress that social innova-
tion can occur in different communities and
Finally, in the 1970s, the French intellec- at various spatial scales, but is conditional on
tuals of the ‘Temps des Cerises’ organized a processes of consciousness raising, mobiliza-
debate of wide social and political signifi- tion and learning. Many other definitions of
cance on the transformation of society, and social innovation are available in the literature.
on the role of the revolts by students, intel- It is not our concern to provide an exhaustive
lectuals and workers. A major part of the overview,but to reveal those analytical dimen-
debate was echoed in the columns of the sions that will allow us to understand the
journal Autrement, with contributions from agency and structure-process dimensions of
such prominent figures as Pierre Rosanvallon, social innovation as well as their spatiality.
Jacques Fournier and Jacques Attali. In their This is what we will do in the next section.

215

FRANK MOULAERT AND ABID MEHMOOD especially those under the nationalist and
self-interest agendas.The latter view of public
Social innovation: intrinsically life has been severely criticized by several
social progressive authors (e.g. Raes, 1997). Filling
this gap then means the building of commu-
The key to understanding social innovation nities from the social innovation point of
is its intrinsically social nature. In the same view which can be instrumental to rebuild
way as technological innovation cannot be both the public sphere and the neutral state
understood outside the logic of techniques that entitles all members of the different
(e.g. technology can be defined in different communities to the same basic rights. The
ways,ranging from‘socially neutral’to socially conception of community as the enabler of
embedded explanations), social innovation citizenship rights (Silverman, 2004) advo-
cannot be apprehended outside the dynamics cates a broadening of the notion of citizen-
of society and its different components. ship by the inclusion of further rights, while
Broadly speaking we can address this societal at the same time recognizing the responsi-
character of social innovation from two per- bilities of citizens within their communities
spectives: its politico-ideological significance and society (Moulaert, 2010). In this vein,
as a driving force in society; and the way dif- social innovation can also be considered as
ferent social sciences have addressed this guaranteeing basic rights to avoid or over-
societal character. Later in this section we come social and economic alienation, exclu-
will draw some analytical lessons from these sion, deprivation, and poverty both in the
societal dynamics,on how to combine‘micro’ material and ethical sense. MacCallum et al.
and ‘macro’ perspectives and what they mean (2009) provide a number of examples of how
for the analysis of the spatiality of social people can join hands in very extreme situa-
innovation. We will do so while trying to tions of deprivation to work their way out
avoid the maelstrom of debates on the spati- collectively. In today’s policy arena, the global
ality of social reproduction (scalar geography, institutions do refer to many such experi-
politics of scale, relational geography, political ences but they do not draw the conclusions
ecology) which are all relevant to the discus- that they would be expected to draw from
sion on the spatial character of SI as agency such cases.They prefer to stick to the ‘micro-
and process but bypass the ambition of this cosmos’ the ‘good practice communities’, in
short chapter. this way not recognizing the general demands
for the basic rights that are voiced in and
Politico-ideological significance across most communities. They do not in fact
recognize the hopes, fears and clashes of
We experience the politico-ideological sig- communities as working grounds for general
nificance of social innovation by being citi- citizenship rights building under the auspices
zens, members of movements or just by being of a neutral state.
conscious and reflective. A clear mobilizing
power that social innovation offers as a con- Finally, there is the politico-ideological
cept and as an issue for public debate is in its significance in terms of ‘micro’ ethics which
reaction to the economistic and technologist very often have a community basis.The Slow-
interpretations of innovation. Similarly, it food movement is a good example. It grew
offers an intellectual, ideological and political from discontent about fast-food production
reaction to privatization discourse and prac- and provision, as a threat to the high-quality
tice. It also holds the potential to fill the food provided by local agriculture, food
gap between ‘fall of public man’ (Sennett, stores and restaurants, especially but not
1977) on the one hand, and the rise of the exclusively in smaller cities (Knox and Mayer,
communities of interest on the other hand, 2008). From a political point of view, ‘micro

216

S PAC ES OF SOC IA L IN N OVATION

ethics’ which are in support of friendly com- viewpoints on social innovation and what
munication and tangible expression of soli- ‘path-dependency’ allows (Moulaert and
darity are at the heart of debates, practices, Nussbaumer, 2008, ch. 3). We will illustrate
sharing experiences and feelings in the work- the relationship between these dimensions in
place, the community house, the public section five,when we talk about‘place-linked’
squares and bars; from the outside they may social innovation, by presenting the dynamics
appear unimportant, but in fact they are vital of integrated area development, but also by
for social interaction and know-how build- explaining the wider spatial dynamics of SI
ing. People in their very small microcosm observed in social movements, city-networks,
react to ‘fast society’ in all its aspects such as wide-area social learning and communities
the new management practices (bureaucratic of SI practice.
taylorism, work organization codes), hyper-
mobility, and commodification of political We notice from Table 18.1, and the litera-
life (markets for votes). These reactions pro- ture that backs it up, that compared to the
vide grounds for new social movements or ‘older’ ones, the recent scientific approaches
reinvigorate existing ones. to social innovation put more stress on the
‘micro’ perspective of social innovation ini-
Social innovation in contemporary tiatives and governance – except maybe in
social science the fifth strand on ‘Governance and public
administration’ (Moulaert and Nussbaumer,
But social innovation has also been con- 2008: 52–66). The guidelines for SI analysis
structed through social science practice. in contemporary social science indeed stress
Different social science disciplines have agency, micro initiatives, and bottom-linked
recently delivered new or revised concepts governance. Table 18.2 then brings to the
(sometimes just ‘notions’) and related theo- front and combines what we believe to be
ries of social innovation, corresponding to the main concepts and explanatory catego-
their problematics and problem-solving ries that should play a role in SI analysis, bor-
codes. Table 18.1 looks particularly at how rowing from both ‘old’ and ‘new’ literature.
the concept of social innovation has been On the one hand, Weber and Durkheim
used from the point of view of different dis- stress the transformation of social relations
ciplines. Five fields with specific contempo- within economy and society, or the social
rary approaches have been identified: organization within economic and political
management science and organization theory; communities. Schumpeter can be considered
approaches covering the links between econ- as a bridge figure between the ‘macro’ and
omy, society and environment (e.g. social ‘micro’ approaches. Not only does he address
economy, environmental economics, eco- the relationships between development and
nomic sociology …); fine arts and creativity; innovation, he particularly highlights the role
spatial development analysis (urban sociology, of the entrepreneur as a leader who, facing
social geography); public administration and many contradictions, introduces innovations
governance. In the literature covering these in the organizational modes of society. He
fields five dimensions of social innovation stresses the multidimensional character of
have been striking: purpose or as the French development and entrepreneurship, the role
say more explicitly finalité of a SI initiative; of different types of innovation in human
organizational changes linked to the initia- agency and the relationship between organi-
tive; the role of special agents: leaders, charis- zational change and innovative behaviour.
matic individuals and (artistic) creators; the His approach thus links in with the ‘micro’
role of path-dependency and structural con- foci presented in Table 18.1, but places them
straints; and the tension between normative within their societal dynamics (for the latter
see especially Schumpeter, 1947).

217

Table 18.1 Dimensions of social innovation (SI) in five scientific disciplines

Dimensions of social Purpose (or finalité) Transformation of social Role of special agencies Place and space – path- How to bypass the tension
innovation of the SI initiative relations – organizational (leadership, creative dependence and spatial between norms and reality?
Discipline aspects individuals) embeddedness

Management sciences Improve coherence of the Create a climate for the The innovative individual Recognition of ‘path- Tangible objectives. Normalize
and organization organization in achieving exchange of information ‘Agents’ are nurtured by dependence’ through relationships between the work
theory its objectives (work ethics, and ideas.‘Horizontalize’ the the organization the enterprise and and executive staff. Dynamic
profitability, ecological decision and communication organizational culture learning processes
Approaches covering impacts) systems
links between Tension between ‘Societalization’ of a firm’s
economy, society Integrate social and Human relations on the mainstream and ethical relationships with its
and environment ecological objectives to work place. Quality of entrepreneurship environment
the corporate agenda work and social relations (represented by the tensions
between professional Role of information and its
Fine and creative Social innovation Open cognitive processes. Special attention towards associations) reception by the creative
arts (in a broader sense) – Communication between initiatives of individual Historical inspiration of community. Discovery of
processes of creative individuals. Role of interper- creativity the contemporary social solutions and constraints.
communication – sonal activities and relations innovation (prominent Interactive revision and
sociocultural examples and experiences) refinement of suggested
emancipation solutions
Important influence of … through multi-level
Spatial development Satisfaction of human … in agreement with More focus on the role of the historical reproduction governance and creation of
approaches needs… changes in the governance the community and its of institutional capital networks of cooperation
(Integrated Area relationships social agents between agents of the
Development) Bypass bureaucratic community
rigidities Simplification of the structures
Governance and Effective, transparent Dehierarchization – Civil society movements. – regular evaluation of
network communication Ombudspersons reorganizations
public administration (even democratic)

administration

Source:Authors’ research

Table 18.2 The intrinsically social character of social innovation – spatiality

Dimensions of social “Finalité de l’initiative” – Transformation of social relations Role of special agencies Place and space Path-dependency and
spatial embeddedness
innovation … Purpose of the “initiative”

(or: shedding light on)

… in relation to “Dimensions

of social innovation”

“Finalité de l’ The social economy pillar The potential innovation in … individuals as initiative Initiatives can be place- History of the initiative,
initiative” – Purpose of social innovation: social relations (governance, leaders, creators, artists, bound, confined to local the relationship between
of the “initiative” satisfy unmet or empowerment, networks of network coordinators; spaces, or related to a its resource and place base
unsatisfactorily unmet needs cooperation and their lobbyist, gurus … groups wider spatiality – or a and its ambitions –
Transformation of (social economy, Franklin, spatialities) has an impact as ensembles of the previous combination of several includes the social
social relations Mumford, CSR, sustainable on the content and reach (Schumpeter, Mumford, of these reproduction of ethics in
dev. agendas) of the initiative social entreprise, sociology ‘place’ and ‘space’ (local
Role of special as an art …) development models and
agencies analysis, institutional
Individual and collective sociology and
mobilizers, platform economics, IAD)
builders and manifesto
Role of ‘scale’ (size) of The sociology pillar of designers (analysis of social Consolidation and Spatially articulated
initiative determines aspects social innovation: movements, socio-political
of social relations that matter transformation of social mobilization transformation of social path-dependency of
(corporate organization, relations to make them
community governance, more cooperative and Special leaderships relations can be place-bound, governance systems,
global network) communicative [referring (individual, collective)
to a purpose or ‘finalité’] have been empirically confined to local spaces, or community develop-
observed as key factors in
social innovation initiatives related to a wider spatiality ment networks, etc.
and processes
– or a combination of several (political history,

of these. Governance systems devolution and

(state, civil society …) and regionalization analysis,

their spatially articulated geographical scale

interactions (relational theory)

geography)

Identification of spontaneous According to the relevant Spatial dynamics, place Leadership is socially
and functional leaderships social relations and their reproduction foster or reproduced versus
‘fitting’ the initiative. dynamics, particular types discourage particular leadership fits commu-
Potential tensions between of agencies can be catalysed leaderships (community nity needs (collaborative
both (mobilizing versus development, networking planning, stakeholder
collective management) dynamics in spatial involvement …)
relationships)

(continued)

Table 18.2 (Cont’d) An SI initiative (or a set of Both places and the spatial Agencies can have a Place and space dynamics … However, their path
Place and space initiatives) is often place- relations in which they are significant impact on are key to SI processes, and dependency and spatial
oriented, addressing embedded are socially place-making, moving as ‘incubator sites’ and embeddedness does not
Path-dependency and challenges and needs of intrinsic.The potential of boundaries, building ‘incubator networks’ of necessarily catalyse SI in
spatial embeddedness their population(s) and places to socially innovate bridges between spatially SI initiatives … a desired or forecasted
communities (community depends significantly on the fragmented social capitals way
development and its wider transformative power of (neighbourhood
spatial structure) social relations (regulation development, social Path-dependency and
approach, scalar politics, capital analysis) spatial embeddedness are
Strong and lasting SI scalar geography, relational key to understanding the
initiatives can affect the geography, political ecology) Significant leadership can Places with a strong societal roots and the
direction of the development affect the course of history, path-dependency and resources (or lack) of SI
paths of places and their Transformations in society if the ‘historical and political spatial embeddedness will initiatives, processes and
wider social relations.They (e.g. regime changes), conjuncture’ allows for it have a strong tendency to their sustainability as
lead to innovation in change socio-political movements (political science, regime ‘persist’; whereas socially well as reception by
culture, institutions … for institutional change, theory) and culturally more society and its
(institutional sociology) ‘open’ governance with fragmented and less robust communities
public arenas for discussing places may leave less
development change (social opening for change
transformations) dynamics

Source:Authors’ research

Spaces and places of social S PAC ES OF SOC IA L IN N OVATION
innovation
To analyse the relationship between space
Many of the types of social innovation men- and SI we use the conceptual and theoretical
tioned in the previous section as collective anchor points set out in Table 18.2.The cate-
action (politico-ideological perspective) or gories in the table are sufficiently suggestive as
analytical categories (scientific perspective) to spatial outcomes of SI: space (spatial forms,
are about ‘(re)moving boundaries’: overcom- scales and scalar articulations such as bounda-
ing social and political boundaries, recon- ries, reconfigurations, networks …), place
figuring identities, reconstructing social (local identity rebuilding, defragmentation of
relationships, (re)building community identity, urban space …) and space–place interactions.
re-appropriating (public) space through social But space–place strategies and dynamics often
mobilization and social political action. But belong to the heart of the social innovation
the removal of boundaries can also be taken strategies and processes themselves. Let us
literally, i.e. the elimination or displacement of look at two types of spatial social innovation
spatial confines. Examples can be observed in or social innovation that are intrinsically (but
business administration of cooperative firms not exclusively) space-based.
that have gone international, and in corporate
social responsibility that has become a world- Integrated area development
wide cultural discourse and has affected the
practice in local, regional and global business Social innovation opens new perspectives for
networks. The alter-economies such as co- local and regional development (Moulaert
operative, solidarity and sustainable economy and Nussbaumer, 2005), by stressing the use
take place at different spatial scales, for exam- and organization of space as a new opportu-
ple, through networking, building local insti- nity-set for change initiatives, by democratiz-
tutions, multi-scalar empowerment of ing territorial governance dynamics and by
governance, etc.The story of the pipelines in linking local and regional bottom-up devel-
Nigeria, for instance, is about the struggle to opment agendas to the multi-scalar social
overcome exclusion. The highly volatile and relations that should enhance them. In terms
accident-prone infrastructure of oil and gas of neighbourhood cooperation, inhabitants,
distribution cuts through hundreds of com- organizations, movements, diverse public and
munities particularly in the Niger Delta, and private agents, etc. come together and create
has been causing social, economic and envi- opportunities to communicate with each
ronmental degradation in the region. After a other to build up a neighbourhood develop-
long period of suffering, the communities ment strategy. This often happens spontane-
actively began to establish gender- and envi- ously through actions initiated to overcome
ronment-based alliances and developed net- severe problems of deprivation. Thus, neigh-
works with local, national and international bourhood development agencies with an
NGOs for the enforcement of proper envi- area-based development agenda should learn
ronmental standards, improvement of regula- interactively how they can build in the spatial
tory frameworks, ensure public participation, dimensions, for example, by integrating hous-
and invoke social, economic and political will ing functions with public space, reorganizing
at all spatial scales (Ogwu, 2009). The Niger space in order to accommodate a diversity of
Delta experience provides a good illustration social relations, establishing a park hosting dif-
of how spatial scales are interconnected. ferent functions and actively involving people
Resistance from local populations feeds soli- coming from inside and outside the neigh-
darity movements built up at higher spatial bourhood in socio-political networking.
scales and is in turn empowered by them.
The spatial perspective of social innovation
particularly allows explaining the relationships

221

FRANK MOULAERT AND ABID MEHMOOD

between the satisfaction of human needs on and its main objective is to promote coop-
the one hand and social empowerment on eration among European MF bodies active
the other hand through the reproduction of in developing countries, by enabling com-
community social relations, in the form of munication, exchange knowledge, advance
‘Integrated Area Development’ (IAD) good practice and enhance policy issues with
(Moulaert et al., 2000; Moulaert et al., 2010). European institutions and governments
The IAD framework seeks to create oppor- (http://www.e-mfp.eu/about-e-mfp). Part
tunities to socially redress ‘disintegrated areas’ of the strategy of the federations such as
(Moulaert and Leontidou, 1995) by bringing ProsperA and e-MFP is to have social per-
together different types of actors and their formance recognized in the microfinance
aspirations, solutions for the threats to sus- mainstream. As for social innovation in gen-
tainable development (economic, ecological, eral, there may be a price to be paid to the
socio-cultural and political), restoring links Quantum Mammon here, namely concerning
with other areas in the city and rebuilding a the nature of the objective criteria by which
neighbourhood and community identity. To social performance should be measured (op.
this purpose it helps to valorize the diversity of cit: 44–45).
historical social, institutional, artistic cultures
and traditions as resources for community- Alternative supply chains are another spa-
based development. And it is essential to tialized social innovation, e.g. the geography
transform governance relations from a local of the value-added chains as applied in
or bottom-up to a bottom-linked architec- regional and international fair trade. As to
ture, in which different governance scales the regional, we refer to the direct delivery of
(e.g. neighbourhood, city, region, national agricultural products from farm to consumer
and international) empower each other. (e.g. farmer markets and cooperatives), which
reduces the share of the distribution sector
Spatial networking as SI (often big supermarket chains) in the value-
added buildup between crop and consump-
Different types of spatial social innovation fall tion, with a fairer share going to local farmers
under this label: networking of social innova- and a better control on the health content of
tion agents operating in different places; the produce (Knox and Mayer, 2008).
establishing communication and governance Internationally speaking then, the recalibra-
modes allowing for democratic decision- tion of value-added chains to the benefit of
making within multi-site and multi-place the income of producers is probably even
networks; up-scaling of governance of locally more crucial in countries of the global South.
initiated initiatives with the purpose of As in the Northern regional sustainability
empowering them and improving their and fair-trade perspective, the agricultural
politico-institutional leverage. The latter is, sector is again the main focus both in the
for example, what happened through the analysis of and recommendations for policy
networking of Micro Finance Institutions change in international trade. Here a con-
(MFI) in the ProsperA network that was cre- frontation with existing WTO regulations
ated “to promote the culture and practice of and ongoing liberalization of markets is una-
social performance by reinforcing the voidable. These (de)regulatory dynamics
capacities of MFIs and local networks” continue to diffuse industrialization of the
(Antohi, 2009: 44). In Europe the European global South despite the fact that, in the last
Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) formalized two decades the growth of manufacturing as
in 2006 comprises about a hundred organi- percentage of GDP in developing countries
zations and individuals active in microfinance has not helped in reducing their income gap
with the developed world (Arrighi et al.,
222 2003). Even within the agriculture sector,

S PAC ES OF SOC IA L IN N OVATION

extreme trade protection strategies result in related to the modes by which the networks
mutual dependency between the elements of that connect and reproduce them are formed
the value-added chains (Stevens, 2001). An and governed.Are they bottom-up organiza-
interesting case of how the financial instabil- tional initiatives? Have they grown from the
ity can be countered by means of social convergence of initiatives in different places
economy is found in the example of business suffering comparable conditions of aliena-
incubation initiatives in Brazil. After large- tion and exploitation? What has been the
scale job losses in the wake of the 1980s’ eco- role of critiques of international organiza-
nomic crisis, the solidarity economy practices tions – also from inside, in designing alterna-
were gradually articulated with public policy tives for international trade and bottom-linked
and supported by different types of institu- transnational governance? Far from suggest-
tions, including universities, by the establish- ing that social innovation analysis should
ment of incubators. Not only has this led to a overrule methodology in the fields already
new theory and practice strand but also to addressing these issues, the message is that SI,
the formation of social technologies acquired in its different complementary meanings and
through the sociology of knowledge of theoretical orientations, can help to analyse in
historical experiences (Dubeux, 2011). a sociologically coherent way spatially embed-
ded agencies of social change with multi-
Conclusion scalar processes that either determine or
steer them (Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2008,
Over the last twenty years research on the ch. 6). In this way SI research, relational
meaning of SI has advanced significantly. geography and scalar politics analysis could
Several scientific disciplines have taken the engage into a methodological enriching
concept on board, because it helps to under- interaction.
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Silverman, M. (ed.) (2004) Community-based Moulaert, F., Martinelli, F., Gonzalez, S. and
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225

19

Forging post-development partnerships
Possibilities for local and
regional development

J.K. Gibson-Graham

Post-development as ontological practise development differently. Thus post-
politics development thinking does not attempt to
represent the world “as it is”, but the world
A post-development approach to world- “as it could be”. In this sense it breaks from
making has arisen from a critique of the idea the commitment to epistemological realism
that development,especially economic devel- that underpins so much mainstream and rad-
opment, is yoked to capitalist growth. This ical social analysis. Accepting the inevitable
approach extends the long tradition of cri- performativity of language – its power to
tique that has accompanied the hegemonic create the effects that it names (Butler 1993,
rise of a mainstream development project 2; Law and Urry 2004) – post-development
focused on the ‘problem’ of less developed thinking attempts to perform new worlds by
regions of the world (Escobar 1995;McGregor generating new and experimental discourses
2009). The deconstructive project of post- and practices of development.
development thinking unhinges notions of
development from the European experience Boaventura de Sousa Santos outlines what
of industrial growth and capitalist expansion, is at stake when we reject the intellectual
decentres conceptions of economy and de- landscape that has been colonized, as he sees
essentializes economic logics as the motor of it,by the hegemonic monocultures of modern
history, loosens the discursive grip of unilin- science and high culture, linear time, hierar-
ear trajectories on narratives of change, and chical classification systems,scalar spatial fram-
undermines the hierarchical valuation of cul- ings and capitalist growth dynamics (2004:
tures, practices and places. In essence, this 238–239). Freed from these systems of think-
project has proposed a complete unravelling ing, the positivity of “development” and
of the unexamined certainties of modernist “developed” or “leading” regions is not set
social science as applied to social and eco- against the negativity of“under-development”
nomic development. and “less developed” or “lagging” regions.
Instead we are able to appreciate how develop-
The post-development agenda is not, mental thinking has produced a sociology of
however, anti-development. As we see it, absences – “non-existent” places, regions and
the challenge of post-development is not to nations where any vestige of (self-defined)
give up on development, but to imagine and development has been “disqualified and

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F OR G I N G P OST-D EV E LOPMEN T PARTN ER S H IPS

rendered invisible, unintelligible, or irreversi- out is to discourage it – to fight prosperity,
bly discardable” (2004: 238). As a counter to not poverty. But development can still be
this evacuated landscape, post-development inclusive, even for people who start their
thinking works to reinstate and create multiple lives distant from dense economic activity.
and different knowledges, temporalities, forms For growth to be rapid and shared, govern-
of recognition (as opposed to classification), ments must promote economic integration,
trans-scale relationships and dynamics of pro- the pivotal concept, as this report argues, in
ductivity. By establishing ecologies of differ- the policy debates on urbanization, territo-
ence at the centre of world being, we can take rial development, and regional integration.
an ontological and political leap and begin to Instead, all three debates overemphasize
imagine and enact a wide range of possibilities place-based interventions (World Bank 2009:
for local and regional development. http://go.worldbank.org/RBDWKOYC90
accessed 9 November 2009).
One way to illustrate the difference a post-
development approach makes is to contrast it We are familiar with the sectoral transfor-
with the latest in high modernist thinking mations needed for economic growth – the
on regional development as represented in changes in work and organization as agrarian
the World Development Report entitled economies become industrialized and serv-
Reshaping Economic Geography (World Bank ice oriented.This report discusses the spatial
2009). In this document places are located on transformations that must also happen
a developmental continuum determined by for countries to develop. Higher densities,
their distance (to markets), density (of market shorter distances, and lower divisions will
activity) and divisions (preventing freedom of remain essential for economic success in the
trade and migration). Development is con- foreseeable future. They should be encour-
ceived as inherently uneven, unidirectional aged. With them will come unbalanced
and capitalist (though not needing to be growth. When accompanied by policies for
named as such, because economists have integration calibrated to the economic geog-
rendered non-capitalist economic activity raphy of nations, these changes will also bring
non-credible or non-existent): inclusive development – sooner, not much
later (World Bank 2009: 32),
Growing cities, ever more mobile
people, and increasingly specialized What is so remarkable about this report is
products are integral to development. its pragmatic “acceptance” that economic
These changes have been most notice- growth is uneven and its refusal to inquire
able in North America, Western into the causes and consequences of this
Europe, and Northeast Asia. But coun- unevenness for places on the “lagging” end
tries in East and South Asia and Eastern of the development continuum (Rigg et al.
Europe are now experiencing changes 2009). Here we see the normative vision of
that are similar in their scope and Chicago School economics laid out with
speed. World Development Report celebratory naiveté – complete with a unidi-
2009:Reshaping Economic Geography rectional and singular trajectory of develop-
concludes that such transformations ment that will enrol all places into one
will remain essential for economic integrated system modelled on advanced
success in other parts of the developing capitalist economies. The report and its rec-
world and should be encouraged. ommendations will, no doubt, reverberate
through all the international institutions that
(World Bank 2009: xix) the World Bank is connected to, influencing
policy and practice on the ground (Mitchell
This report has a different message: economic 2005). Its performative effect will be to
growth will be unbalanced.To try to spread it perpetuate a vision of the world in which

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