The role of networking in the new political economy of regional development

During the last 25 years there have been some fundamental changes to the international political economy. The decline of Fordism, globalization and technical innovations have altered the ways in which firms operate and interact with each other and other economic agents. Corporate strategy and organization and public policy have all been affected. Of particular relevance has been the development of a new form of governance viz. networking. Although often seen as a new phenomenon, it has in fact a long history going all the way back to Marshall. What is new however, are attempts by development agencies to capture the advantages presented by these externalities as a deliberate objective of regional development policy. This paper examines the case of Wales in some detail and concludes that although such a policy does work with the grain of modern political economy, it is only really scratching the surface of the problem and in fact contains an inherent contradiction in terms of market behaviour.