Call for Papers - NGM 2019 in Trondheim, Norway (June 16-19, 2019), for a paper session Regional development paths and critical junctures

Session organisers:

Dr Markus Grillitsch, Department of Human Geography & CIRLCE - Center for Innovation Research and Competence in a Learning Economy, Lund University;

Dr Nadir Kinossian, Department of Regional Geography of Europe, the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL)

This session will explore possible linkages between the current debates in (1) regional path development studies, and (2) critical junctures and window of opportunity studies. Structural factors such as industrial composition, the size of the economy, or the level of infrastructure can only partly explain regional development paths. Changes in politics, policy, and institutions can be explained by analysing the behaviour of actors. If we presuppose that the establishment of a new regional development path is an outcome of a critical juncture in economic or institutional development, we could use the critical juncture literature to explain the mechanism of such change.

This session invites contributions that i) disentangle the effects of structure and agency on regional economic change; ii) link institutional change and regional development, and iii) focus on the micro-level processes, agents and their networks.

Contributing to this line of inquiry, this session invites papers that address the following questions:

• To what extent, under which conditions, and how can agency contribute to regional growth paths beyond what could be expected due to structural preconditions?
• How can critical junctures and window of opportunity models be used to analyse regional path development?
• Which processes within and beyond firms underpin regional growth paths?
• What are the causal factors explaining new path development in (different types of) regions?
• How do different regional industrial paths interplay and shape regional growth paths?
• What is the role of policy in shaping regional growth paths?

Please send an abstract of around 300 words to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Deadline for abstract submission: December 15, 2018

Notification: January 15, 2019

More information from the conference web site: https://www.ntnu.edu/geography/ngm-2019