The learning region in an age of austerity: capitalizing on knowledge, entrepreneurialism, and reflexive capitalism

Abstract

A recent round of academic analyses (e.g., Castells, M., 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Blackwell, Oxford) are emphasizing the effective production and translation of knowledge as a critical factor in establishing a sustainable post-Fordist regime. A notable inference of these accounts is that such productions and translations appear to be gravitating towards certain regions. In an emerging regional political economy, illustrious regions in Western Europe and the United States are being hailed as exemplars in terms of convening economic reflexivity, capitalizing on knowledge, and socializing risk. In turn, those less illustrious regions are being summoned to activate interactive learning, reflexive knowledge networks, innovation, and social capital. The author reviews and critically assesses this new regionalist thought in economic geography. He then draws on this to analyze Lowland Scotland's ongoing policy endeavor to establish a new form of 'reflexive capitalism'. In undertaking this he make two claims. First, much of the new regionalist thinking has paid insufficient attention to the intricate social relations between the recent regional renaissance and the restructuring of the state. Second, many of the policy innovations associated with the new regionalism should be seen as running parallel alongside a deeper political effort to 'manage' the erosion of the Keynesian welfarist institutional settlement. In a concluding section drawing on the work of Ulrich Beck, he argues that these emerging social geographies of reflexive capitalism require to be highlighted to the extent that they constitute an important sociopolitical backdrop with which to locate the more specific imprint of risk in economic development.