Volume 52, Issue 1

Recently a group of large developing countries started to emerge as important drivers of regional, and in some cases even global, change. “Anchor countries” are the largest economies of their respective home regions. Their rise implies a power shift in different spheres of economy and politics and brings about new patterns in the organization of global space. We analyse this shift with regard to the global economic order and to global security policy. Furthermore, we explore how the enhanced economic and military relevance of anchor countries is reflected in global governance institutions.

The fast growing anchor countries have become key players in mitigating global environmental change. China is a very particular anchor country. The size, scope and quality of the environmental degradation associated with its dramatic economic growth is much larger than that of all the other anchor countries. Despite being regarded as an all-embracing emerging superpower, China is a very heterogeneous country regarding its economic, social and environmental structure. Regional differences require an effective response. However, China’s environmental governance system is characterized by a number of weaknesses, which impede the implementation of targets and objectives set by policies and laws. The most significant weakness refers to the insufficient institutional framework for horizontal and vertical policy coordination. Good environmental governance requires measures that address these deficiencies. Furthermore, the diffusion of public information on the costs of environmental degradation and the rule of law have to be promoted as complementary measures.

The India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum, was established in 2003, as a political alliance of three likeminded, democratic, developing countries in order to counterbalance the traditional North-South power asymmetry. The vision of the political leaders, however, goes beyond a lose political union, and aspires South-South cooperation in trade, science and technology. The paper explores what the available evidence suggests regarding the possible depth and outreach of the project.

Over the last 30 years, changes in the East and Southeast Asian region have been fast and deep. China is the growth engine of a new regional production system which in turn has provoked changes in many other parts of the world. For its own fast growth, China has relied heavily on importing intermediate products from neighbouring countries, but this is changing with China now producing more of its own inputs and occupying also the more skill intensive parts of the value chain. Some countries in the region trade relatively little with China, but the trade itself may undermine long-term growth prospects. The paper analyses these trade impacts, distinguishing between groups of countries and products. It shows that China’s growth augments opportunities for some but pulls others into a race to the bottom.

Cluster promotion on the test bed. A critical analysis. Efforts to encourage the development of industrial clusters have proliferated all over the world, despite of growing criticism especially by academic scholars with regard to inconsistencies of the cluster concept that affect its practical applicability. This article further substantiates the critical view by pointing out in systematic ways how all elements of the entire “value chain of cluster promotion”, which comprises five components from conceptual foundations to proactive clustering support, provide targets that impair prospects of substantial effectiveness. In addition to reviewing the scientific debate that has mainly focused on conceptual weaknesses, we present findings of our own empirical work on two selected automotive cluster initatives (in Austria and Germany) that reveal that net effects induced by cluster promotion are rather small. Conclusions relate to implications for regional economic promotion.

Formation and interactive structure of regional technology clusters. The example of nanotechnology in Saarland and Berlin-Brandenburg. The article shows that the structure and the dynamics of spatial business concentrations are determined by the way they emerge. In detail, two types of spatial concentrations will be distinguished: Start-up-clusters that can be traced back to spin-offs out of one incubator and unrelated spatial concentrations owing their existence to learning processes, relocations and independent firm foundations. In its empirical part the study is focused on emerging spatial concentrations in the field of nanotechnology in the Saarland and in Berlin-Brandenburg.

Chance and economies of agglomeration during cluster emergence. Concepts like the window of locational opportunity, the core-periphery-model and stochastic approaches consider the emergence of regional clusters as a process of firm formation by chance and subsequent economies of agglomeration. This paper compares the different notions of chance and economies of agglomeration used by these concepts in view of the emergence of clusters. It argues that an ex ante perspective should be applied to analyse the emergence of firm formations and economies of agglomerations. The paper concludes with statements regarding firm formation and economies of agglomeration during cluster emergence.

Mind the Gap: Regional cluster policies between science, politics and practice from a public choice perspective. Since the 1990s, the cluster concept’s ongoing popularity with politicians and economic development practitioners has largely bypassed scientific research which is still struggling to come to grips with theory and empirics of clusters. Based on an interview survey of ten case studies of regional cluster policies at the state and sub-state level in Western Germany, this paper investigates the contribution of scientific cluster research to the current practice of cluster promotion. It is found that following political and bureaucratic rationalities, conceptualisation and implementation of cluster policies largely ignore theoretical insights and make only incomplete use of scientific methods available for proper cluster identification. This has important implications for both practice and research, and highlights that economic geographers should overcome their reluctance to engage with policy and employ their core competencies to make their voices heard in the arena of policy and practice.

Local clusters are widely discussed in the economic and geographic literature. After a short overview on the mathematical literature, this paper presents a theoretical model of cluster formation that allows to deduce advice for policy intervention. The model is mathematically and numerically analysed and different policy measures are examined. It is shown that the timing of policy measures is important and that for different measures different time windows of opportunity exist.

Relational aspects of regional economic support and cluster policy. The recent debate about the application and interpretation of cluster concepts is characterized by increasing skepticism. The literature has particularly criticized the fact that policy formulation is often only vaguely related to the academic discussion and evidence regarding clusters. Part of this confusion can be traced back to the fuzziness of the original cluster concept developed by Michael Porter which claims to be applicable to the competitiveness of both national industry bundles and inter-linked regional industry networks. As a consequence, policies which are declared as cluster policies can be quite heterogeneous. In this paper, we argue for a closer link between cluster conception and cluster policy. It is shown that an understanding of clusters as multidimensional industry configurations is advantageous in developing and advancing a relational cluster policy. A multidimensional cluster approach, which highlights the role of agency in economic interaction, focuses on the action space of cluster agents, and goes beyond the regional and national scale. It avoids simplifications and deterministic interpretations that can result from using aggregated data or from treating regions as if they were agents. Instead, the approach recognizes that external relations of cluster actors are core in understanding and explaining the success of clusters. We will emphasize this by laying out elements of a relational cluster policy.

Since the 1990s spatial economic policy increasingly tries to encourage the development of innovative firms especially in selected locations like technology parks. Spatial proximity in these locations should lead to the development of competitive clusters. The technology park Berlin-Adlershof is one example for this new approach of spatial economic policy; today it is - according to the number of employees - one of the largest technology parks in Europe. This paper discusses to what extent spatial economic policy has contributed to the development of an interlinked cluster. First elements of spatial economic policy will be evaluated according to the network and cluster approaches. Then general considerations of cluster development will be confronted with the development path of Berlin-Adlershof. Finally the extent of network formation will be discussed. The economic dynamic in Berlin-Adlershof shows that a proximity-oriented approach of spatial economic policy has been successful. Spatial proximity has encouraged the development of networks between the units, but up to now networks between science and business are not very strong

In order to better understand the competitiveness of companies and with this their surrounding regions, economic geographers focus on competencies in manufacturing companies. This paper discusses the major and minor driving forces, preconditions and constraints for transferring tasks from headquarters to the foreign plant. Subsidiaries of international automotive supply companies in Poland are used as case studies, offering insights into different types of competencies assigned from headquarters to the subsidiary

For many actors in developing countries the integration into a global value chain is the only possibility to gain access to western markets. The Moroccan actors quickly adapted to international standards and made the Atlas Mountains a well known destination for trekkers. This process of organizational learning however did not stick with the actors inside the chain, it spread over to other actors in the region and this at first seemed to be a desirable effect as it provoked regional development. But soon it turned out that it also increased competition and hence weakened the position of the Moroccan actors compared with the European lead firms who where well protected by efficient barriers to their activities. The paper argues that organizational learning does not necessarily lead to a process of upgrading when the market is restricted and no sufficient barriers to protect this knowledge are possible. Knowledge then will become a ubiquitous asset and the achieved enhancement on the regional scale will lead to entrepreneurial losses for the single actor

Globalization, monetarization and sustainability. Observations on actual trends in economy, society and environment of Samoa. Samoa so far has had an intact subsistence-production based on an economy and society in balance with the ecological system. Theoretically founded on the grounds of the entropy-law and methodologically implemented by a set of tested sustainabilityindicators this paper maintains the thesis that the integration of the Samoan economy with recently high GDP-growth rates has led the system to an abrupt increase of entropy, driving back subsistence production, transforming land tenure to individualisation, threatening decentralisation and polluting the environment