@article{10755ce32e9c4772b40844d07b599a94,
title = "A tale of sky and desert: Translation and imaginaries in transnational windows of institutional opportunity",
abstract = "Institutional change in regional economies is affected by multiscalar developments such as alignment with the EU and its markets. In countries in the EU{\textquoteright}s Eastern and Southern neighborhood, processes of alignment and mutual market liberalization shape the supranational conditions for regional development but do so in variegated ways. Policy alignment consists of changes in the supranational institutional context that are translated into diverse changes in the regional institutional context. Building on literature on institutional entrepreneurship, cultural political economy, and actor-network theory, the paper argues that EU alignment opens a transnational window of institutional opportunity for agents to shape regional development through the translation of institutional change both between different spatial scales and between different components of institutional contexts. In this contested process, institutional entrepreneurs draw on imaginaries, narratives, and visions, and actively shape them. The empirical case of tourism in Israel's Southern Negev illustrates the impact of the country's integration into the EU{\textquoteright}s external aviation policy on the tourism sector as well as the strategies of institutional entrepreneurs to use this transnational window of institutional opportunity to promote diverse patterns of institutional change based on multiple imaginaries.",
keywords = "DISCOURSE, ECONOMIC-GEOGRAPHY, EILAT, EU alignment, EUROPEAN NEIGHBORHOOD POLICY, European neighborhood, Imaginaries, Institutional change, Institutional entrepreneurship, Israel, LEADERSHIP, PATH CREATION, POLITICAL-ECONOMY, SOCIAL SKILL, SOCIOLOGY, SPATIAL IMAGINARIES, Tourism",
author = "Maximilian Benner",
note = "Funding Information: Research for this paper began while the author was employed at Heidelberg University. The author is grateful to Johannes Gl{\"u}ckler, Christian Albornoz, Michael Handke, Jakob Hoffmann, and Robert Panitz as well as Vassilis Monastiriotis for valuable comments during various research colloquia where the paper was presented. Some of the results of the research reported in this paper were presented at the online 2021 ERSA conference, and the author is grateful for comments from the audience, in particular from Markus Grillitsch and Josephine Rekers. The author is further grateful to Henry Wai-chung Yeung and Huiwen Gong, as well as the Editor, Julie MacLeavy, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. Open-access funding by the University of Vienna is gratefully acknowledged. Of course, all remaining errors and omissions are the author{\textquoteright}s. Funding Information: Research for this paper began while the author was employed at Heidelberg University. The author is grateful to Johannes Gl{\"u}ckler, Christian Albornoz, Michael Handke, Jakob Hoffmann, and Robert Panitz as well as Vassilis Monastiriotis for valuable comments during various research colloquia where the paper was presented. Some of the results of the research reported in this paper were presented at the online 2021 ERSA conference, and the author is grateful for comments from the audience, in particular from Markus Grillitsch and Josephine Rekers. The author is further grateful to Henry Wai-chung Yeung and Huiwen Gong, as well as the Editor, Julie MacLeavy, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. Open-access funding by the University of Vienna is gratefully acknowledged. Of course, all remaining errors and omissions are the author's. Funding Information: Stargazing tourism was supported by Mitzpe Ramon being declared a dark-sky nature reserve after an initiative by the national Nature and Parks Authority and by the municipality replacing the street lighting system to limit light pollution. In this sense, the growth of stargazing tourism in Mitzpe Ramon 10 10 offers an example for institutional entrepreneurship through collaboration and mobilization driven by a variety of agents such as the Nature and Parks Authority, the municipality, and entrepreneurs offering stargazing tours. These activities drew on an imaginary of the desert as an otherworldly place at maximum distance from urban life: Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Author(s)",
year = "2022",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.12.019",
language = "English",
volume = "128",
pages = "181--191",
journal = "Geoforum",
issn = "0016-7185",
}