Research progress and prospects of digital restructuring of global-local interactions

Abstract

Global-local interaction is an important research topic in economic geography. In recent years, the rapid development of digitalization in various countries and regions has profoundly affected the global production and trade networks. However, there is a lack of systematic theoretical discussion on digitalization and global-local interaction studies. The objective of this study is to conceptually rethink the role of digitalization in reshaping global-local interactions from a dynamic and relational perspective. To do this, the study first systematically reviewed the digital turn in economic geography and discussed the rethinking of digitalization. It is found that the understanding of digitalization is gradually moving beyond the limits of isolated, static, and passive technocentric approaches and towards a more dynamic, relational, and open perspective. Second, the study combined the "digital turn" with the "relational turn" in relational economic geography, which constructs theoretical bridges between digitalization and global-local studies. Third, this study provided a basic understanding for sorting out the evolution of the research frameworks, that is, from the global value chain (GVC) to the global production network (GPN) and then to the digital ecosystem (DE). We argued that digitalization has been deeply involved in shaping the global economic landscape, restructuring global-local production relations, and reconstructing regional development. Based on this recognition, we discussed the primary performance of digitalization on the restructuring of global-local interaction from three aspects: enterprise relationship, spatial effect and interaction mechanism. Finally, grounded in the practice of China's urban and regional digital economy development, the possible theoretical innovations and prospects for future research on digitalization and global-local interaction in the Chinese context were proposed. The study pointed out that we can integrate the regional practices of China's digital development with more in-depth research from the perspectives of the platform ecosystems, spatial effects, location analysis, local development models, and so on in future research.

Research progress on digital governance in the context of the digital economy at home and abroad—visualization analysis based on citespace

“…The team led by Professor Hu Weiwei (2023) believes that the digital rural governance community aims to stimulate the enthusiasm of various entities to participate through endogenous cultivation, promote the restructuring of rural full-factor governance structure in a holistic collaborative manner, and shorten the urban-rural digital divide through the construction of information platforms [7]. The team led by Professor Wang Mingfeng and Professor Kuang Aiping (2023) believes that the promotion of digital governance in urban and rural areas is closely related to current local practices in China, and requires specific analysis of specific issues [8].…”