Political Economy Approaches To Regional Economic Development
The Political Economy perspective dealt with elsewhere often alerts those who wish to develop their region's overall economic performance to who to look for in the process rather than what to look for. This is because this school of thought tends to emphasize the act that economic arrangement of a region or country are established over time by peel and do not operate "automatically" outside of ver deliberate decisions being made by various players.They also tend to focus on the question "Why are certain regions not developing and what can be done about it?", rather than on the question of "Why are some regions developing? For this reason, as well as the fact they tend to want to preserve local cultural differences rather than push them aside for purely economic gain, this group of theorists are "people watchers". They have honed the instinct for power moves and power players to a fine art, and often can give tips on how to locate the key people to watch and approach in the process of Regional economic development. Their focus tends to be on the clusters of business people rather than on the individual firms, as they are aware of the fact that people tend to both run with their own kind and operate in clusters.
These theorists note that the dynamic changes often shift within and between regions in such a way that the same players always come out on top, and attempt to explain why. Their focus is on the key question "Who (what group) controls the surplus capital in an area, because they are setting the development agenda for the region's economy, and are not likely going to want to relinquish that activity to others very willingly. At least these people make it clear to regional economic developers exactly what they are up against if change is to be brought about in a region.
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