New local economic development paradigms? Paper presented to

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New local economic development paradigms?Paper
presented to Where are we now?, 6th Seminar in
ESRC Seminar Series Local economic development
in an age of resource scarcity, Liverpool, 17th
December 2008

• Paul Benneworth, Lars Coenen, Fernando Dias
  Lopez
• KITE, Newcastle University, Netherlands
  Organisation for Scientific Applied Research

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Outline of presentation

• Hook the scalar question
• Climate change big, local strategies small
• Local development paradigms
• A multi-scalar perspective (big small)
• Local niches driving regime/ landscape change
• What makes local strategies eye-catching?
• Upscaling niche change?
• Reflections for local/ regional development policy

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Acknowledgements

• Co-authors
• TNO Built Environment and Geosciences
• ESRC Seminar organisers
• RCUK (Fellowship on Territorial Governance of
  Innovation)

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Think global, act local?

• Background to seminar series group of
  ex-editorial board of Local Economy
• Idea of series
• to rethink from the bottom-up what a radical
  local economic development policy would look like
  given the new environmental constraints
• 1980s radical alternative to (early)
  neo-liberal/ Thatcherite deregulation
• 2000s Same principles, different environment

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The curious conundrum of vanishing initiatives.

• Current invisibility of resource scarcity/
  environmental catastrophe
• Nothing pithy e.g. 3m unemployed
• Global structures dwarf local agency
• The search for global responses little infill
• Plethora of highly interesting experiments
• Everything possible, from LETS?ØC building
• Failure to bring about wide-scale change
• Why have successes not been upscaled?

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The scalar challenge of the new environmental
politics

• Upscaling increasing depth, breadth, scope
• Depth intensity of local activity
• Breadth geographical spread of idea
• Scope number of actors involved/ committed
• LA21 as serious attempt to create local infill
• Global structure lacking national support
• More than pure global/ local challenge
• Multi-level nature of new scalar challenge

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Local policies multiple levels

• Illustrate via rise of local innovation
  paradigm
• Emerged in 1980s competitiveness angst
• Early 1990s, European experiments
• Art. 10 ? RITTS/ RIS ? Objective funds
• Lisbon declaration innovation pan-EU aim
• Visible targets (eg 3 GERD/ GDP, 50 HE)
• National reporting requirements
• Prerequisite for local strategies
• New local paradigm using multi-level support

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A multi-level policy perspective

• Interplay between different levels important
• Local niche the space for experimentation
• Meso regime national societal system
• Macro landscape of norms, values, trends
• Local objects can shape landscapes if they
  are taken up by higher actors (eg DG REGIO)
• Local experiments drive system change
• RTP (1992) 7 regions ? model for local policy
• Use of local/ international experts network
  building

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The multi-level perspective (II)
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Policy shifting processes
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Key elements of a successful local?global
policy shift

• Success
• A local policy seen to have worked in context
• Allure
• Something magical about the approach
• Higher level support
• Helps higher level agents solve their problems
• Transfer agents
• Mechanisms for transferring ideas approaches
• How could this work for a new paradigm?

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The response life-cycle

• Conceptualise societal shifts as four phases
• Denial problem does not exist
• Lethargy problem is too big to address
• Innovation a search for solutions to problem
• Implementation rolling out solutions
• Feedback loops between the phases
• Not a simple/ linear shift
• Changing evidence changes pathways
• Changing political weather changes pathways

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Four phases of transition
System Indicators


Stabilization

Breakthrough

Take off

Predevelopment

Time
Source Rotmans, Kemp et al (2000)
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Multi-level processes within a transition process
Policy shifting processes in multi-level
innovation governance arrangements
Source after Ressico, 2006 Benneworth, 2007
OECD/ NUTEK, 2007 OECD 2008 Sotarauta
Kautonen, 2007.
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Local innovation triggering higher level system
shifts
Source Bosch Rotmans (2007)
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Revisiting the scalar challenge

• New policy approach changes across levels
• Local policies supported by higher changes
• Co-evolution of societal systems to new point
• Interweaving of local changes in new systems
• Transition not a simple/ linear process
• Actors pulling in different directions
• Many different niches competing
• How to identify accentuate desirable ones?

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Scalar challenge as blockage

• Climate change locked-in to denial/ lethargy?
• Problems not locally observable
• Do not fit with big picture of scientific
  evidence
• Scientific evidence vs political arguments?
• Multi-scale hole in the problem?
• Highly complex problem -
• Certainty at 1 level - uncertainty at next level?
• Lack of transfer between levels?

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Locally locked-in policy
Policy shifting processes in multi-level
innovation governance arrangements
Source after Ressico, 2006 Benneworth, 2007
OECD/ NUTEK, 2007 OECD 2008 Sotarauta
Kautonen, 2007.
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Wicked issues breaking lock-in!

• Which are the most successful local actions?
• What are next steps to unselfconsciousness?
• What is the canon of eye-catching approaches?
• Who will fund more detailed experiments?
• Linking local actions with higher level shifts
• What kinds of initiatives have higher appeal?
• in the credit crunch and New Keynsian age
• How can the challenges acquire a human face?
• Which enemy must we mobilise against...?