From regional to global and back again? A future agenda for regional evolution and (de)globalised production networks in regional studies

Abstract

This paper builds common grounds for a future research agenda in the regional studies of evolutionary economic geography and global production networks. I put forward two ‘troubling themes’ of (geo)politics and heightened risks as the most disruptive forces in today’s increasingly fragmented global economy and argue for their significance in regional studies throughout the post-pandemic 2020s. Massive global change through the reconfiguration of and strategic (de/re)coupling with global production networks will engender new path formation in regional transformation. In this analytical move from the global ‘back again’ to the regional, there are common questions on epistemology (causal explanations) and substantive issues (network/regional resilience, institutions/the state, inequalities/uneven development and new forms of regional policies) for both communities of researchers.