A Workable Framework or a Fuzzy Concept? The Regional Resilience Approach to the Evolution and Adaptability of Regional Economies

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring a conceptual framework of analyzing the evolutionary processes of regional economies by reconciling the notion of regional resilience and the concepts prevailing in the disciplines of evolutionary economics and geography. The resilience framework appears to offer a promising outlet with which combination of the seemingly contradictory conceptions is made possible. It can address why some regions manage to adapt to external shocks, renew themselves, or lock out themselves, while others are more locked in decline. In addition, it can also explain how the spatial organization of economic production, distribution, and consumption is transformed over time. Then, regional economic resilience, together with its accompanying vehicle of panarchy, emerges as a workable framework of explaining regional differenti- ation in regional economic performance and trajectories. Despite the risk of being a fuzzy concept, the resilience conception can be properly operationalized to provide policy principles of regional economic innovation adjusted to region-specific contexts.