IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v33y2001i5p823-844.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regulating Regional Spaces: State Agencies and the Production of Governance in the Scottish Highlands

Author

Listed:
  • Danny MacKinnon

    (Department of Geography and Environment and European Urban and Regional Research Centre, University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Road, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, Scotland)

Abstract

In recent years, regulationist research has increasingly focused on questions of subnational governance and regulation. Whilst there has been a shift towards new forms of local governance across the United Kingdom, in this paper I contend that the interaction between new mechanisms of (national) regulation and preexisting local conditions has produced considerable spatial variation in the precise forms of governance that have emerged at the local level. Following Peck, I suggest that this can be seen in terms of the interaction of distinct institutional ‘layers’. This insight is developed by adapting Offe's notion of ‘institutional filters’ to emphasise the role of regional agencies in mediating and ‘filtering’ the effects of wider (national) regulatory mechanisms. In the second half of the paper, I apply these ideas to a particular regional case study, assessing how the national-level shift towards neoliberalism has shaped the practice of economic governance in the Scottish Highlands in the 1990s. As mid-level metaphors, ideas of institutional ‘layers’ and ‘filters’ help to open up a space for the consideration of agency and strategy at regional level, thereby addressing what has been termed the ‘regulationist enigma’, defined in terms of the need to avoid ‘reading off’ regional transformations from the posited logic of broader macrostructural shifts.

Suggested Citation

  • Danny MacKinnon, 2001. "Regulating Regional Spaces: State Agencies and the Production of Governance in the Scottish Highlands," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(5), pages 823-844, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:33:y:2001:i:5:p:823-844
    DOI: 10.1068/a3346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a3346
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a3346?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ranald Richardson & Andrew Gillespie, 1996. "Advanced communications and employment creation in rural and peripheral regions: a case study of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 30(1), pages 91-110.
    2. J Murdoch, 1995. "Actor-Networks and the Evolution of Economic Forms: Combining Description and Explanation in Theories of Regulation, Flexible Specialization, and Networks," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 27(5), pages 731-757, May.
    3. J Peck & M Jones, 1995. "Training and Enterprise Councils: Schumpeterian Workfare State, or What?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 27(9), pages 1361-1396, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jason Hackworth, 2003. "Public Housing and the Rescaling of Regulation in the USA," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(3), pages 531-549, March.
    2. Sally Randles & Peter Dicken, 2004. "‘Scale’ and the Instituted Construction of the Urban: Contrasting the Cases of Manchester and Lyon," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(11), pages 2011-2032, November.
    3. Deborah G Martin & Steven R Holloway, 2005. "Organizing Diversity: Scales of Demographic Change and Neighborhood Organizing in St Paul, MN," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(6), pages 1091-1112, June.
    4. Crispian Fuller & Robert J Bennett & Mark Ramsden, 2003. "Organised for Inward Investment? Development Agencies, Local Government, and Firms in the Inward Investment Process," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(11), pages 2025-2051, November.
    5. Monios, Jason, 2019. "Geographies of governance in the freight transport sector: The British case," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 295-308.
    6. Gordon MacLeod, 2013. "New Urbanism/Smart Growth in the Scottish Highlands: Mobile Policies and Post-politics in Local Development Planning," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(11), pages 2196-2221, August.
    7. Proinnsias Breathnach, 2014. "Creating City-region Governance Structures in a Dysfunctional Polity: The Case of Ireland’s National Spatial Strategy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2267-2284, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kevin G Ward, 2000. "State Licence, Local Settlements, and the Politics of ‘Branding’ the City," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 18(3), pages 285-300, June.
    2. Bill Pritchard, 2000. "The Transnational Corporate Networks of Breakfast Cereals in Asia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(5), pages 789-804, May.
    3. Mark Purcell & J. Christopher Brown, 2005. "Against the local trap: scale and the study of environment and development," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 5(4), pages 279-297, October.
    4. J Holloway, 1998. "‘Undercurrent Affairs’: Radical Environmentalism and Alternative News," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 30(7), pages 1197-1217, July.
    5. Andrew Beer & Rebecca Bentley & Emma Baker & Kate Mason & Shelley Mallett & Anne Kavanagh & Tony LaMontagne, 2016. "Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change: Precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(8), pages 1542-1558, June.
    6. J Peck, 1999. "New Labourers? Making a New Deal for the ‘Workless Class’," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 17(3), pages 345-372, June.
    7. Dwijen Rangnekar & John Wilkinson, 2011. "(New) Borders of Consumption," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(9), pages 2007-2011, September.
    8. Gillian Bristow & Max Munday & Peter Gripaios, 2000. "Call Centre Growth and Location: Corporate Strategy and the Spatial Division of Labour," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(3), pages 519-538, March.
    9. Hanf, J. & Belaya, V., 2009. "The „Dark“ and the „Bright“ Sides of Power in Supply Chain Networks," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 44, March.
    10. S C Cobb, 1999. "The Role of Corporate, Professional, and Personal Networks in the Provision of Offshore Financial Services," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(10), pages 1877-1892, October.
    11. M R Jones, 1997. "Spatial Selectivity of the State? The Regulationist Enigma and Local Struggles over Economic Governance," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(5), pages 831-864, May.
    12. Harminder Battu & John Finch, 1998. "Integrating knowledge effects into university impact studies. A case study of Aberdeen University," Working Papers 98-08, Department of Economics, University of Aberdeen.
    13. A Hughes, 1999. "Constructing Competitive Spaces: On the Corporate Practice of British Retailer—Supplier Relationships," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(5), pages 819-839, May.
    14. WANG, James Jixian & YAU, Selina, 2018. "Case studies on transport infrastructure projects in belt and road initiative: An actor network theory perspective," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 213-223.
    15. Bob Jessop, 2001. "Institutional Re(turns) and the Strategic – Relational Approach," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(7), pages 1213-1235, July.
    16. Mimi Sheller & John Urry, 2006. "The New Mobilities Paradigm," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(2), pages 207-226, February.
    17. S Pinch & N Henry, 1999. "Discursive Aspects of Technological Innovation: The Case of the British Motor-Sport Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(4), pages 665-682, April.
    18. James R. Faulconbridge, 2007. "London's and New York's Advertising and Law Clusters and their Networks of Learning: Relational Analyses with a Politics of Scale?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(9), pages 1635-1656, August.
    19. Matt Bradshaw, 2001. "Multiple Proximities: Culture and Geography in the Transport Logistics of Newsprint Manufactured in Australia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(10), pages 1717-1739, October.
    20. Jane Tooke, 2001. "Reforming Adult Education: Struggles over the British State Strategy of Learndirect," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(9), pages 1665-1679, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:33:y:2001:i:5:p:823-844. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.