Place-based industrial strategy and economic trajectory: advancing agency-based approaches

Abstract

Agency-based approaches represent a fundamental advance in how researchers and policymakers can address questions of place-based industrial strategy, including issues of governance, leadership, new technology and regional assets. However, these approaches can be advanced further by recognizing the centrality of discourse in regional change. This paper does this by synthesizing two conceptual frameworks: Grillitsch and Sotarauta’s trinity of change agency and Moulaert et al.’s framework of Agency Structure Institutions Discourse (ASID). Deploying two Australian case studies to shed light on drivers of change at the local scale, this paper demonstrates that discourse is a necessary component of transformative regional processes. Furthermore, it contends that successful transformation is presupposed by the extent to which local discourse overlaps with local opportunity spaces and forms of agency. Successful place-based industrial strategies need to mobilize these multiple elements of regional change in order to maximize their potential for success.