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

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Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1119-1138
Number of pages20
JournalEuropean Planning Studies
Volume31
Issue number6
Early online date11 Apr 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

  • 507026 Economic geography
  • 507014 Regional development

Keywords

  • Evolutionary economic geography
  • Path development
  • Path transformation
  • Agency
  • Institutional work
  • Tourism
  • WIND
  • agency
  • CLUSTER EVOLUTION
  • tourism
  • EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC-GEOGRAPHY
  • DEPENDENCE
  • REGION
  • INSTITUTIONS
  • POLICY
  • institutional work
  • EILAT
  • CREATION
  • path transformation
  • ACTORS
  • path development

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