Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Over the past decade, economic geography has undergone something of a renaissance, expanding its theoretical foundations, methodologies, and empirical reach considerably in the process (see, for example, Lee and Wills, 1997; Bryson et al., 1999; Clark et al., 2000). One of the key elements in this expansion and re-orientation has been what might be called the “institutional turn,” the recognition that the form and evolution of the economic landscape cannot be fully understood without giving due attention to the various social institutions on which economic activity depends and through which it is shaped.This “institutional turn” derives from various sources. In part, it has spiraled out of the widespread adoption by economic geographers of French regulation theory, especially the latter's emphasis on the “mode of social regulation;” the ensemble of rules, customs, norms, conventions, and interventions which mediate and support economic production, accumulation, and consumption. Despite the fact that regulation theory itself fails to provide any detailed conceptual account of the nature and evolution of those social frameworks (beyond some broad discussions of the role of the state), it has nevertheless focused geographers' attention on the nature of the socio-institutional structure as an “essential underpinning of efficient capitalist production” (Storper and Walker, 1989, p. 5).A ... log in or subscribe to read full text