Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence, Policy Distance: The Case for Rigour and Policy Relevance in Critical Regional Studies

Abstract

Many articles in this and other journals over the last decade have considered such topics as flexible specialization, resurgent regions, world cities, co-operative competition and social capital. In this edition of Debates and Surveys , Ann Markusen argues that much of this recent regional analysis has increasingly retreated into a mode of discourse in which concepts lack substantive clarity. She also suggests that such fuzzy conceptualization makes it difficult for students and practitioners to operationalize and/or to subject this body of work to scrutiny by applying real world evidence. Descriptive characterizations of 'processes' are believed to have replaced the application of behavioural and structural causality, compounding these conceptual problems. With methodologies underdeveloped, the case study or anecdote approach to analysis is often used to illustrate theoretical contentions, while the results of more comprehensive tests and instances which do not uphold the theory are frequently ignored. Comparing with some of the classic texts which addressed the problems of regions and so were located in a concern with real world policy and political engagement, the article contends that these recent tendencies are symptomatic of a body of scholarship that is increasingly abstract. To illustrate the argument, the paper reviews three core areas of work; flexible specialization and its re-agglomeration hypothesis; world cities; and 'cooperative competition' in industrial districts à la Silicon Valley. Ann Markusen makes a claim for an adherence to social science norms of conceptual coherence, causal theory (with both behavioural and structural components) and subjection of theory to the rigours of evidence, where the latter may encompass qualitative as well as quantitative techniques. Greater commitment to entering the policy debate and to making results accessible and informative to real world political activists and planners, it is argued, would substantially strengthen this body of research and its usefulness. This is obviously a provocative piece which we hope will spark off a debate on the definition and application of fuzzy concepts in regional analysis. Comments and replies are welcome.