Fostering renewable energy with smart specialisation? Insights into European innovation policy

ABSTRACT

The transition to a low-carbon economy is a major challenge confronting policymakers at all government levels. In the European Union (EU), ambitious targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emission are linked to aspirations of fostering green growth at national and regional levels. These aspirations have been manifested in a recent radical policy change through the introduction of the smart specialisation research and innovation strategy (RIS3) for national and regional development. The novelty of the RIS3 compared with previous EU innovation policy is that it aims to develop regional competitiveness based on the harnessing of regional assets rather than focusing on the provision of innovation infrastructure. In this article, the authors employ a mixed-methods research approach both to explore the nature and content of energy-related priority settings in RIS3 strategies in the EU and to address the question of regions’ abilities to foster renewable energy through their place-based strategies. The article contributes to the literature on policy strategies for realising EU energy and emissions targets and the RIS3 aim of developing competitive advantages. The main conclusions are that energy-related priority settings vary substantially within RIS3, and that regional innovation policy ambitions may be hindered by unconducive policy frameworks at national levels.     

Fictive clusters: Crafty strategies in the New Zealand beer industry

ABSTRACT

The authors bring together two theoretical and empirical strands in economic geography – established work on clusters and nascent research on ‘fictive place’ – in order to introduce the concept of ‘fictive clusters’. To explore this concept, they examine the New Zealand craft beer sector, which has evolved from non-existence since the year 2000. This growth has precipitated the rise of a dynamic and innovative cluster at the local scale in Wellington. The fictive cluster is explored through the Wellington case study, and the authors pose various questions for future work based on this discursive geographical device. The construction and complicit reproduction of what they term a ‘fictive cluster’ has been central to the evolving strategies of the involved agents. Through the use of this term, the evolution of Wellington place-based brands that are increasingly territorially specific are seen as building competitive advantage based on constructed histories, environments, and other geographic characteristics.     

A network approach to the production of geographic context using exponential random graph models

ABSTRACT

The notion of context continues to be both an enduring rationale and empirical problem for addressing human agency for geographers. Despite its centrality to geographic scholarship, context has largely been an abstraction in geography with relatively little effort to either clarify what it means or how to formally operationalize it for research purposes. When context has been formally addressed, it has primarily emphasized either impacts on agency at a specific scale through a reliance on a place-based interpretation. This paper takes up the issue of context by developing a multi-scalar theoretical framework that is suited for use with social network-based statistical models called exponential random graph models or ERGMs. The theory of context emphasizes the importance for both geographic and social contexts for agency while also recognizing place specific and larger scale influences. Using network data about World War I, a series of ERGMs are developed to demonstrate the importance of multiple types of contexts to the observed outcomes. The approach used in this paper reinforces the old truism that context matters by demonstrating it empirically. Most importantly, this paper illustrates the value of continued engagement with a wider spectrum of the theories of how and why context matters.     

The difference that space makes. A way to describe the construction of local and regional gender contracts

The role that space and place play in the construction of gender relations on different geographical scales is examined in this article. It is easy to identify national variations in the relation between sexes, and such comparisons are common. In many cases, the nation-state constitutes the level of analysis in gender-oriented studies. Comparative studies within nations are not so numerous. Nevertheless, geographical research has the potential to develop an analytical model capable of identifying the spatial dimension in gender constructions. A place-based approach visualises how local places shape gender relations and contribute to gender identities and understanding of men and women. This article shows how geographical analysis can be used to describe how physical and human geography interplay with economy, politics, religion, culture, etc., in the construction of gender contracts at a local level. Gender contracts are unwritten rules that regulate relations between sexes, and re-create and reform relations as everyday actions within the framework of these local structures. Together these various local contracts construct a regional structure.     

Market-driven organizational lock-in: A case study of a former first mover

ABSTRACT

The article addresses the question of how an innovative firm develops from being a first mover to an innovation laggard and whether this process can be reversed. Informed by the evolutionary perspective and path-dependence theory, the authors explore how a low-tech Norwegian firm in the oil and gas industry has lost its foothold as an innovator. They also employ the concept of organizational architecture as an analytical tool to investigate the agency for breaking organizational paths. Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews, their study revealed that the innovation activity of the case firm is in a state of lock-in following a path-dependence development. Product development in the firm is linked to incremental changes to existing products based on the feedback from the customer, and the process is characterized by knowledge exploitation rather than knowledge exploration. The article adds to the literature on path dependence by identifying how a strong market pull can be a driver for organizational path dependence and lock-in.     

论全球化与地区发展之间的辩证关系--被动嵌入

全球化是当今世界发展的重要趋势之一。地理学家基本上都承认这种趋势正在对地区发展产生深刻的影响,但对具体影响还缺少比较一致的看法。在过去的10多年中,国外经济地理学者主要借用社会经济学的思想和概念来为全球化下地区的作用来辩护。本文继承了这种学术思路,利用“嵌入”的思想建立了“被动嵌入”模型,来反映外资与地方制度环境之间的相互作用关系。“被动嵌入”模型表明,全球化是依赖于地方制度环境的一个过程,离开地区谈全球化是一种“理想主义”。另一方面,地区如何在全球化浪潮中获得益处取决于自身的知识创新与制度创新。     

Chained to Development? Livelihoods and global value chains in the coffee-producing Toraja region of Indonesia

ABSTRACT

A popular rural development strategy in recent years has been through the adoption of what has been widely called a ‘value chain approach’, where improved linkages between small producers in underdeveloped rural communities and ‘lead firms’ constitute the foundations for development interventions. Whilst the global value-chain framework can deliver insights into the broad structural processes shaping livelihood possibilities, the adoption of value chains as a development strategy tends to disregard the complexity of smallholder livelihoods that shape poverty alleviation pathways in different contexts. The relationships between global value chains, development interventions, and rural livelihoods are explored in this article through a case study of smallholder coffee farming in the Toraja region of Indonesia. In this case, value-chain interventions in the coffee sector are unlikely to significantly contribute to improved rural welfare due to the diversified reality of local livelihoods, the nuances of how coffee production is embedded within Torajan culture and economy, and excellent prevailing market opportunities. The livelihood framework, therefore, provides an important corrective for the sometimes excessive optimism presented by advocates of a value-chain approach to rural development.     

A system perspective on innovation in the Norwegian dairy industry

Regional innovation systems (RIS) have made a considerable contribution on the one hand to a scientific understanding of how innovation occurs and on the other hand as a political tool for stimulation of regional development. The aim of the article is to illuminate this theoretical approach by discussing the role of regional innovation systems in promoting innovation in the dairy (meieri) industry in Norway, and further, by discussing regional consequences of the development of regional innovation systems. The main conclusion is that it is hard to find regional innovation systems within the dairy industry in Norway; the mainstream milk sector is nationally oriented. Within farm processing and a few ‘countercurrent’ dairy firms, however, a stronger relation to regional networks emerges. Development of regional innovation systems is a kind of endogenous development that presupposes there are local and regional resources available, which often is not the case. Hence, a one-sided commitment to regional innovation systems will result in regional disparities in economic growth. Varied strategies for innovation and for regional development can compensate for these disparities.     

Issues in Energy Economics Led by Emerging Linkages between the Natural Gas and Power Sectors

Fuel prices in 2006 continued at record levels, with uranium continuing upward unabated and coal, SO₂ emission allowances, and natural gas all softening. This softening did not continue for natural gas, however, whose prices rose, fell and rose again, first following weather influences and, by the second quarter of 2007, continuing at high levels without any support from fundamentals. This article reviews these trends and describes the remarkable increases in fuel expenses for power generation. By the end of 2005, natural gas claimed 55% of annual power sector fuel expenses, even though it was used for only 19% of electric generation. Although natural gas is enormously important to the power sector, the sector also is an important driver of the natural gas market—growing to over 28% of the market even as total use has declined. The article proceeds to discuss globalization, natural gas price risk, and technology developments. Forces of globalization are poised to affect the energy markets in new ways—new in not being only about oil. Of particular interest in the growth of intermodal traffic and its a little-understood impacts on rail traffic patterns and transportation costs, and expected rapidly expanding LNG imports toward the end of the decade. Two aspects of natural gas price risk are discussed: how understanding the use of gas in the power sector helps define price ceilings and floors for natural gas, and how the recent increase in the natural gas production after years of record drilling could alter the supply–demand balance for the better. The article cautions, however, that escalation in natural gas finding and development costs is countering the more positive developments that emerged during 2006. Regarding technology, the exploitation of unconventional natural gas was one highlight. So too was the queuing up of coal-fired power plants for the post-2010 period, a phenomenon that has come under great pressure with many consequences including increased pressures in the natural gas market. The most significant illustration of these forces was the early 2007 suspension of development plans by a large power company, well before the Supreme Court’s ruling on CO₂ as a tailpipe pollutant and President Bush’s call for global goals on CO₂ emissions.

Globalization, grapes and gender: Women's work in traditional and agro-export production in northern Chile

Recent changes in the global political economy have had dramatic effects on the lives of women as they are incorporated into globalization processes, such as the expansion of agribusiness, in often marginal and unstable ways. However, it is vital to consider how these globalization processes are mediated by women in ways that reflect local geo-historical contexts. This paper explores the expansion of the fruit export sector, land tenure, community organization and female employment in agriculture in northern Chile. Agro-export production has marginalized but not destroyed the small-scale farming sector and large-scale export farms co-exist with small-scale domestically-orientated farms. Female labour has been very important in the success of fresh fruit exports and many rural women negotiate both waged work in the fruit export economy and unwaged work on family farms. The paper explores the women's perceptions of agricultural work and how these relate to their identities as unpaid workers on the family farm and as waged workers in the agro-export sector. The paper thus attempts to explore the multiplicity of ways that women experience rapid changes in the agrarian sector and how these changes relate to the maintenance of more 'traditional'practices and identities.     

Behind the scenes: the evolving urban networks of film production in China

ABSTRACT

Urban networks in the modern economy have become a focus of research in geography and other related disciplines. However, the network of the motion picture industry has remained an underdeveloped topic in the relevant literature. Drawing on data from film production projects, this paper presents a pilot study of the changing inter-city networks that are created by the motion picture industry in mainland China over the past 15 years. Combining the perspectives of both the urban network and economic geography literature, this study not only advances the research on urban networks by offering new insights into the project-based, inter-firm cooperation networks of an important cultural industry sector but also enriches our knowledge of the functioning of local clusters and trans-local networks in new economic activities. In addition, the paper also contributes to our understanding of the evolution of modern urban networks in a transitional economic system.     

经济全球化变革下的世界经济地理与中国角色

经济全球化浪潮下的世界经济地理格局和中国角色演变一直以来都是学术界关注的热点问题,然而当前学界偏重从国家经济模式和国际贸易角度来解释这种格局的变化,而较为缺乏基于生产组织视角的经济地理解释。因此,本文从经济地理视角出发,解析经济全球化浪潮下世界经济地理格局变动与中国角色的演变。本文揭示了在三次全球化浪潮的冲击下,世界经济地理格局从“核心—边缘”到“链式重构”再到“网络不均衡”的演变过程,以及经济全球化的驱动力如何从“贸易全球化”转变为“生产全球化”,继而朝“多元全球化”演进。本文还论述了中国如何通过战略耦合模式的动态调整实现从经济全球化的参与者到变革者的转变。本文认为这种角色转变,改变了西方发达经济体对后发经济体的预设发展路径,以及经典的产业梯度转移理论所预测的空间秩序,为全球化格局的变动带来新的重构动力与可能。最后,本文结合此次新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情全球爆发带来的影响对未来经济全球化发展存在的可能路径进行分析,并从经济地理学视角为中国未来经济全球化发展道路选择提供了参考建议。     

BACKGROUND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GRADUATE STUDY IN GEOGRAPHY

Research on the diffusion of innovation has been dominated for many years by an approach to scientific reasoning developed most thoroughly and influentially by Hägerstrand. Recently there has been a shift away from this approach. However, this shift has not been previously noted in the literature. After presenting the characteristics of the two perspectives in terms of the instrumentalist and realist conceptions of science, this article provides some evidence for the shift and identifies several key issues for future research.     

Configuring floating production networks: A case study of a new offshore wind technology across two oil and gas economies

ABSTRACT

The authors employ the global production network (GPN) approach to analyse the development of the renewable energy sector. Through a case study of the development of a Hywind floating offshore wind project (Hywind) across two oil and gas economies, namely Norway and Scotland, the paper sheds light on the key drivers and role of core GPN actors. Methodologically, the authors investigate the process from both ‘inside-out’ and ‘outside-in’ perspectives, referring to the efforts of firms expanding into overseas markets and the efforts of host countries to attract investment from outside their territories. The analysis shows how the configuration of extractive production networks is shaped by the interactions between the network development practices of firms and the market development strategies of host states. The authors conclude that the distinct materiality of floating wind power technology shapes the territorial configuration of the production network by enabling its spatial extension across a range of locations. By contrast, existing research on other extractive sectors has emphasized the spatially constraining effects of materiality (Bridge 2008).     

The politics of greening unceded lands in the settler city

ABSTRACT

Urban greening is a buzz term in urban policy and research settings in Australia and elsewhere. In a context of settler colonial urbanism, like Australia, a first fact becomes clear: urban greening is always being practiced on unceded Indigenous lands. Recognising this requires some honest reckoning with how this latest urban policy response perpetuates dispossessory settler-colonial structures. In this paper, we listen to the place-based ontologies of the peoples and lands from where we write to inform understanding the city as an always already Indigenous place – a sovereign Aboriginal City. In so doing, the paper tries to practice a way of creating more truthful and response-able urban knowledge practices. We analyse three distinct areas of scholarly research that are present in the contemporary literature: urban greening and green infrastructure; urban political ecology; and more-than-human cities. When placed in relationship of learning with the sovereign Aboriginal City, our analysis finds that these scholarly domains of urban greening work to re-organise colonial power relations. The paper considers what work the practice and scholarship of ‘urban greening’ might need to do in order to become response-able and learn to learn with Indigenous sovereignties and ontologies.     

Aadel Brun Tschudi Annual Lecture 2017 – efficiency and equity in development geography,the SDGs and the Sendai Framework

ABSTRACT

What can contemporary geographical research learn from Aadel Brun Tschudi? As a pioneer of development geography, Tschudi emphasised efficiency, equity and the responsibility of geographers to be active in society. While her contributions to development geography were made in the context of nation-building efforts in the mid–late 20th century, the globalising process of the early 21st century raise similar concerns for identity, emergent hierarchies of power and socio-environmental transformation. Using Tschudi’s cardinal principles of equity and efficiency, the paper identifies four action arenas and exemplifies these through interventions aimed at reducing risk and addressing unmet development challenges: (1) high efficiency, low equity (private sector led), (2) low efficiency, low equity (humanitarian sector led), (3) low efficiency, high equity (spontaneous local action), and (4) high efficiency, high equity (collaborative action). The analysis draws out the different ways in which the aspirations and policy communities that own the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 are interacting now and how far these interactions are able to deliver efficiency and equity for the poor in low- and middle-income countries, which is Tschudi’s primary concern.     

Reflecting on Role Play in Geographic Education: The Case of the Banana War

Abstract

Debates over the nature and extent of globalization raise many issues to be addressed in a geographic education. In this paper, I briefly review case method instruction and role-play as teaching strategies suitable for material on globalization and other geographic subject matter, and then sketch an overview of an undergraduate geography role-play that treats themes of globalization and agricultural trade. The role-play revolves around a real-world trade dispute, referred to as the Banana War, that was waged between the United States and the European Union during much of the 1990s over who could sell how many bananas to Europe. I conclude the paper by reflecting on the contributions of, limitations to and possibilities for case method instruction and role-play in geographic education.     

欧洲经济地理学区域创新政策研究进展

区域创新政策对创新驱动增长和经济结构转型升级至关重要。20世纪90年代以来,基于对新古典主义经济学“空间中性”的创新政策的反思,欧洲经济地理学提出“基于空间”的区域创新政策,至今已被欧盟委员会和经济合作与发展组织等组织所采用。本文对这一时期欧洲经济地理学区域创新政策的发展背景、主要任务、理论基础和政策建议等方面进行梳理,研究发现：第一,欧洲经济地理学区域创新政策的主流框架有3个,分别是区域创新系统、精明专业化和可持续转型地理理论;第二,3个框架各有侧重,区域创新系统侧重解决系统失灵问题,精明专业化聚焦优先发展领域的选择问题,可持续转型地理理论则强调转型失灵问题;第三,针对上述问题,3个框架均给出“基于空间”的区域创新政策建议,其中,区域创新系统和精明专业化是基于区域资源禀赋差异的视角,可持续转型地理理论则从技术的空间粘性角度出发。最后,提出中国经济地理学未来区域创新政策研究的几个重点研究方向。     

Resource Struggles and the Politics of Place in North Lampung, Indonesia

This paper considers the difficulties inherent in countering the negative effects of globalisation in Indonesia through an enhanced recognition of place-based cultural communities, which are seen to offer an alternative and more progressive path towards development. Focusing on the local history of resource struggles involving Javanese migrants and local people in North Lampung, the paper examines the ways that different groups of migrants and local Lampung people have dealt with changing resource control mechanisms in the context of the local transmigration ( Translok ) programme and large-scale agro-industrial development in the region. Whilst elites have been able to develop their personal wealth by capitalising on political and economic uncertainty, poor people from both groups have had to contend with conflict and increasing livelihood vulnerability that, if anything, has been intensified through the reassertion of place-based cultures of resource control. In challenging populist narratives of resistance to transmigration that pit migrants against "indigenous" local people, the paper identifies the class-related ambivalences towards development and structures of authority that cut across community and locality in the Translok zone