Institutional context and place‐based policy: The case of Coventry & Warwickshire

Abstract

A key problem of downscaling or transferring policies across regions is embedding these policies into a place for them to unleash the full potential of regional economies. This paper elaborates on the analytical framework of “institutional context” to bridge the gap between rich theorizations and poor empirical capture of institutions in studies of regional development. The institutional context is constituted by three pillars—regulations, organizations, and institutions—as well as by the interrelations between these pillars. Applied to the British region of Coventry and Warwickshire, a qualitative analysis of expert interviews finds institutional patterns of short‐termism, moderate levels of social capital and an embryonic relational infrastructure to constrain the place‐based strategy for industrial diversification. This regional case illustrates the more general challenge for regional policy in the UK of devising place‐based strategies under conditions of continuous rescaling of regional governance and the implementation of a new National Industrial Strategy. In conclusion, the analysis suggests a shift from “nodal” to “linking” policies that support cross‐network connections and help grow a regional field for collective action to cross‐fertilize knowledge and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging industries.

How Small and Medium Sized Firms Walk the Path to Hybridity

“…In order to stimulate regional collaboration, policy-makers need to shift their focus from nodal to "linking policies" [86] that raise mutual awareness among potential partners, promote an understanding of the gains from cooperation, and facilitate the emergence of a relational infrastructure that generates the trust necessary to overcome barriers to collaboration. In the case of our study region, regional actors, such as the Chamber of Commerce and Industry or the regional development agency, take important roles in building such a relational infrastructure.…”

Retheorizing industrial–institutional coevolution: a multidimensional perspective

“…Still, although behaviour needs to be distinguished from institutions, both are related because institutions not practiced can vanish in the long term and codifications of rules that are ignored by agents can hardly qualify as institutions (Hodgson, 2006; see also Bathelt & Glückler, 2014;. The link between institutions, formal rules and policies, and informal conventions (Dupuy et al, 1989;Hodgson, 2006;North, 1990;Salais & Storper, 1992) is marked by contingency (Bathelt & Glückler, 2003, 2014 as different relationships between formal rules or policies and practiced institutions including reinforcement, substitution, circumvention, competition, coherence, compatibility, or complementarity can ensue (Bathelt & Glückler, 2014;Boyer, 2005;Glückler, 2020;Glückler et al, 2020;Glückler & Lenz, 2016;Zukauskaite et al, 2017). These contingent relationships bring with them contested processes of rule or policy implementation and related institutional leeway that accounts for the actual, partial, modified, or lacking transformation of rules and policies into institutions (Hall & Thelen, 2009; see also Streeck & Thelen, 2005).…”

“…The idea that evolutionary processes do not refer to industrial patterns only but to institutions quite naturally leads to a perspective of analysing the interrelationships between industrial and institutional dynamics. As Gong and Hassink (2019) stress, looking at how industries and institutions coevolve provides a basis for contextualization and complements research on the institutional context of regional economies (e.g., Bathelt & Glückler, 2014;Glückler, 2020) with an evolutionary perspective. However, the concept of coevolution has so far unfolded limited relevance for empirical research .…”