No 2024/19 Varieties of extra-regional relations and local agency

A Framework for tailored regional development work

Abstract

Recent studies provide insights about local agency in regional development. While acknowledging non-local actors and drivers, these studies have not systematically discussed the link between extra-regional relations and local agency. This paper first discusses three key arguments in the literature on extra-regional relations covering context-specific dependencies, strategic coupling, and open innovation. It then proposes a theoretically informed typology linking extra-regional relations and local agency. The typology considers whether local actors can influence the extra-regional relation, and whether global actors are engaged locally. The discussion shows that the resulting four types relations enable or constrain local agency in different ways, which call for tailored regional development work to build local agency and widen regional opportunity spaces.