Revisiting path-as-process: agency in a discontinuity-development model

In the literature on regional industrial path development, the path-as-process perspective conceptualizes the emergence, evolution, transformation, and decline of regional industries in the long term. However, critical questions about the role of agency in path development and transformation remain open, partly due to a frequent empirical focus on isolated episodes. This article argues that path development should be seen as a long-term sequence that includes episodes of path development interrupted by occasional episodes of transformation. These transformative episodes are driven by agency within a changing or stable structural context. Such a discontinuity-development model focuses attention on how and why agency patterns change and on which practices agents employ during critical junctures. An empirical vignette on the long-term development of tourism in Eilat, Israel, illustrates how the model can be applied and elucidates methodological challenges for further empirical research.