THE LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL - REGIONAL INDIVIDUALITY OR INTERREGIONALISM

Thinking about economic spaces has always been divided between two momenta of a dialectic: locality and globality; or regional personality versus interregional (international) division of labour. Even in the most extreme versions of these pairs (central-place theory, stage of development theory, dependency theory), considerations pertaining to the other sides were implicity taken into account. This is also true in the 'new orthodoxies' of 'the new international division of labour' and 'endogenous development of localized productive systems. Both are single-mindedly focusing either on locality or on globality, and both involve a particular vision of present evolutions within the world capitalist system ('peripheral Fordism' of 'flexible accumulation'). A historic overview of this dialectic is presented in this text. Then the present terms of the regional debate are presented, including the new concepts of governance, industrial districts, networks, etc.