Pub Date : 2025-12-17DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100060
Natsuki Kamakura , Kirsten Martinus
Why do pioneering regions or countries lose their lead when industries experience rapid growth? Existing catch-up and home market theories explain latecomer advantages and domestic scale economies, but they overlook how incumbent demand structures can hasten decline. We propose the Insular Home Market Effect (Insular HME), a demand-driven lock-in which channels firms toward niche trajectories misaligned with world standards. Using evidence on Japan’s lithium-ion battery industry from the 1990s to 2025, we trace how high electricity prices, a hybrid vehicle bias and fragmented policy coordination depressed scale learning, encouraged talent outflows and weakened upstream resource security. Findings show that leadership erosion is contingent on state choices that fail to synchronize demand creation, geo-economic strategy and industrial support. The Insular HME converts a home advantage into a specialization trap; our findings advance debates on catch-up, global production networks and green technology transitions.
{"title":"From market leader to follower: Windows of opportunity and insular home market effect in Japan’s lithium-ion battery industry","authors":"Natsuki Kamakura , Kirsten Martinus","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100060","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100060","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Why do pioneering regions or countries lose their lead when industries experience rapid growth? Existing catch-up and home market theories explain latecomer advantages and domestic scale economies, but they overlook how incumbent demand structures can hasten decline. We propose the Insular Home Market Effect (Insular HME), a demand-driven lock-in which channels firms toward niche trajectories misaligned with world standards. Using evidence on Japan’s lithium-ion battery industry from the 1990s to 2025, we trace how high electricity prices, a hybrid vehicle bias and fragmented policy coordination depressed scale learning, encouraged talent outflows and weakened upstream resource security. Findings show that leadership erosion is contingent on state choices that fail to synchronize demand creation, geo-economic strategy and industrial support. The Insular HME converts a home advantage into a specialization trap; our findings advance debates on catch-up, global production networks and green technology transitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100060"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145841600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100059
Olga Sorokina, Julian Schwabe
Within technological transitions of the automotive industry, processing technology for the production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries is a highly relevant but thus far underresearched sector. Given the head-start of Chinese firms in developing industrial structures for battery production, this article examines the perspectives and development pathways of German machinery builders as they attempt to enter markets of EV battery production technology, currently led by Chinese machinery firms.
The article does so by combining concepts of value chain governance, technological upgrading and latecomer capability gaps. It finds that despite their traditional strength in processing technology, German machinery firms tend to occupy only market niches within EV-battery production. Based on a qualitative study, building on 11 expert interviews as main empirical basis, the article argues that the main challenges stem from the differences in the timing of market entry. Chinese machinery suppliers, as early adopters, have already built strong customer relationships and accumulated tacit knowledge about processing technology. This early start provides them sustained competitive advantage and creates high market entry barriers to latecomers. Firm-level upgrading options are sensitive not only to the sector and market timing, but also to the location. In markets where leading suppliers are already well established, latecomer firms may find their upgrading options constrained, whereas in other markets, where supplier-buyer linkages are still in their formative phase, such opportunities remain more accessible.
{"title":"Latecomer upgrading in relational supplier-buyer arrangements: The integration of German machinery firms in Chinese dominated electric vehicle battery production markets","authors":"Olga Sorokina, Julian Schwabe","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100059","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100059","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Within technological transitions of the automotive industry, processing technology for the production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries is a highly relevant but thus far underresearched sector. Given the head-start of Chinese firms in developing industrial structures for battery production, this article examines the perspectives and development pathways of German machinery builders as they attempt to enter markets of EV battery production technology, currently led by Chinese machinery firms.</div><div>The article does so by combining concepts of value chain governance, technological upgrading and latecomer capability gaps. It finds that despite their traditional strength in processing technology, German machinery firms tend to occupy only market niches within EV-battery production. Based on a qualitative study, building on 11 expert interviews as main empirical basis, the article argues that the main challenges stem from the differences in the timing of market entry. Chinese machinery suppliers, as early adopters, have already built strong customer relationships and accumulated tacit knowledge about processing technology. This early start provides them sustained competitive advantage and creates high market entry barriers to latecomers. Firm-level upgrading options are sensitive not only to the sector and market timing, but also to the location. In markets where leading suppliers are already well established, latecomer firms may find their upgrading options constrained, whereas in other markets, where supplier-buyer linkages are still in their formative phase, such opportunities remain more accessible.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100059"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145841601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100058
Christian Brannstrom , Felipe da Silva Freitas , Adryane Gorayeb
Green hydrogen, an emerging energy carrier that may help achieve national and global decarbonization goals, will reshape energy geographies. States are partnering with firms, offering subsidies and other incentives for developing hubs as agglomerations of green hydrogen producers, off-takers, and exporters, while new and incumbent firms are seeking new accumulation opportunities through the production of green hydrogen. Legitimation processes are key to the implementation and dissemination of new technological systems, but they are not well understood in the context of emerging green hydrogen hubs. We analyze the content of legitimization discourses supporting a green hydrogen hub in Ceará state, northeastern Brazil, seeking to determine the emerging space-making processes. We focus on the cognitive dimension of legitimacy through analysis of ∼ 500 news articles published between 2020 and 2023 in two major media outlets reporting on the proposed green hydrogen hub. The findings describe cognitive legitimation discourses on territorial characteristics, global leadership, breaking from the past, urgency, and essential state action. Legitimation mobilized ideas about landscape, territory, place, scale, and development through normative and technical arguments. Application of the cognitive dimension of legitimation advances economic geographies by highlighting how sub-national organizations represent their territories as adding value for investors, how stakeholders mobilize ideas for de-risking new technologies by overstating benefits and obscuring possible risks to producing states, and how elites justify processes leading to new spatial configurations of low-carbon energy systems.
{"title":"Analyzing legitimacy discourses in an emerging green hydrogen hub in Brazil","authors":"Christian Brannstrom , Felipe da Silva Freitas , Adryane Gorayeb","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100058","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100058","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Green hydrogen, an emerging energy carrier that may help achieve national and global decarbonization goals, will reshape energy geographies. States are partnering with firms, offering subsidies and other incentives for developing hubs as agglomerations of green hydrogen producers, off-takers, and exporters, while new and incumbent firms are seeking new accumulation opportunities through the production of green hydrogen. Legitimation processes are key to the implementation and dissemination of new technological systems, but they are not well understood in the context of emerging green hydrogen hubs. We analyze the content of legitimization discourses supporting a green hydrogen hub in Ceará state, northeastern Brazil, seeking to determine the emerging space-making processes. We focus on the cognitive dimension of legitimacy through analysis of ∼ 500 news articles published between 2020 and 2023 in two major media outlets reporting on the proposed green hydrogen hub. The findings describe cognitive legitimation discourses on territorial characteristics, global leadership, breaking from the past, urgency, and essential state action. Legitimation mobilized ideas about landscape, territory, place, scale, and development through normative and technical arguments. Application of the cognitive dimension of legitimation advances economic geographies by highlighting how sub-national organizations represent their territories as adding value for investors, how stakeholders mobilize ideas for de-risking new technologies by overstating benefits and obscuring possible risks to producing states, and how elites justify processes leading to new spatial configurations of low-carbon energy systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100058"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145841599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-10DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100057
Tim Becker , Sebastian Losacker , Margherita Russo
The shift toward battery electric vehicles (EVs) represents the most profound disruption in the automotive industry in over a century, with far-reaching consequences for European automotive regions. For decades, incremental improvements in internal combustion engine (ICE) technologies have served as the dominant decarbonization pathway, and many regions have built strong innovation systems around these legacy technologies. To assess how European NUTS2 regions are positioned for the transition to electric mobility, we analyze regional technological capabilities using technology-specific relatedness and knowledge complexity to investigate how EV- and ICE-related capabilities affect regional EV innovation. Using patent data from the OECD REGPAT database, we map regional innovation potentials and estimate econometric models to assess how these capability structures affect EV patenting. We find that higher relatedness density to EV technologies is positively associated with EV patenting, while relatedness to ICE improvements also shows a significant but weaker positive association, indicating that ICE capabilities do not necessarily impede EV innovation. However, when ICE-related capabilities substantially outweigh EV-related ones, we observe a negative effect on EV patenting, pointing to emerging lock-in risks. This effect is markedly stronger in low-complexity regions. Interregional co-patenting analysis shows that regions with low complexity and low EV-relatedness are doubly disadvantaged, as they are weakly positioned internally and less integrated into innovation networks. Focusing on four regions of this type, we illustrate how targeted partnerships could unlock untapped potentials. The results inform a policy discussion highlighting the need for place-sensitive innovation strategies addressing both emerging and legacy capability structures.
{"title":"Regional capabilities in the European automotive industry: Relatedness, complexity and lock-ins in the transition to electric vehicles","authors":"Tim Becker , Sebastian Losacker , Margherita Russo","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100057","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100057","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The shift toward battery electric vehicles (EVs) represents the most profound disruption in the automotive industry in over a century, with far-reaching consequences for European automotive regions. For decades, incremental improvements in internal combustion engine (ICE) technologies have served as the dominant decarbonization pathway, and many regions have built strong innovation systems around these legacy technologies. To assess how European NUTS2 regions are positioned for the transition to electric mobility, we analyze regional technological capabilities using technology-specific relatedness and knowledge complexity to investigate how EV- and ICE-related capabilities affect regional EV innovation. Using patent data from the OECD REGPAT database, we map regional innovation potentials and estimate econometric models to assess how these capability structures affect EV patenting. We find that higher relatedness density to EV technologies is positively associated with EV patenting, while relatedness to ICE improvements also shows a significant but weaker positive association, indicating that ICE capabilities do not necessarily impede EV innovation. However, when ICE-related capabilities substantially outweigh EV-related ones, we observe a negative effect on EV patenting, pointing to emerging lock-in risks. This effect is markedly stronger in low-complexity regions. Interregional co-patenting analysis shows that regions with low complexity and low EV-relatedness are doubly disadvantaged, as they are weakly positioned internally and less integrated into innovation networks. Focusing on four regions of this type, we illustrate how targeted partnerships could unlock untapped potentials. The results inform a policy discussion highlighting the need for place-sensitive innovation strategies addressing both emerging and legacy capability structures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100057"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145760843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100053
Daniel Wagner , Jakob Hoffmann , Johannes Glückler
In 2019, the German government introduced a new policy to spur field-spanning innovation synergies in the bioeconomy. The so-called ‘Innovation Space’ defines a funding umbrella around a specific bioeconomy subfield and delegates authority of decision-making on new grants and members to the initially funded consortium. In this paper, we explore the extent to which one Innovation Space focusing on bio-based textiles experienced knowledge cross-fertilization between distinct projects. We propose a typology of boundary-spanning knowledge relationships and apply a mixed relational methods approach to empirically assess the potential for knowledge cross-fertilization and, hence, policy-induced collaboration in the textile bioeconomy. Despite its recent emergence, we find incidence of boundary-spanning learning relations across projects and sectors (science–industry) since inception of the Innovation Space. Members with permanent or temporary geographical co-location, and those receiving referrals from colleagues, were more likely to engage in knowledge exchange than other members. Project managers were involved in two-thirds of boundary-spanning, whereas similar relationships between only technical members were rare. Additionally, analysis of network robustness shows that learning across project boundaries was vulnerable to already low membership fluctuation. The findings suggest that Innovation Spaces are a policy instrument that fosters knowledge cross-fertilization beyond the confines of bounded projects.
{"title":"Boundary-spanning by design? Policy-induced innovation collaboration in the German bioeconomy","authors":"Daniel Wagner , Jakob Hoffmann , Johannes Glückler","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100053","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100053","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In 2019, the German government introduced a new policy to spur field-spanning innovation synergies in the bioeconomy. The so-called ‘Innovation Space’ defines a funding umbrella around a specific bioeconomy subfield and delegates authority of decision-making on new grants and members to the initially funded consortium. In this paper, we explore the extent to which one Innovation Space focusing on bio-based textiles experienced knowledge cross-fertilization between distinct projects. We propose a typology of boundary-spanning knowledge relationships and apply a mixed relational methods approach to empirically assess the potential for knowledge cross-fertilization and, hence, policy-induced collaboration in the textile bioeconomy. Despite its recent emergence, we find incidence of boundary-spanning learning relations across projects and sectors (science–industry) since inception of the Innovation Space. Members with permanent or temporary geographical co-location, and those receiving referrals from colleagues, were more likely to engage in knowledge exchange than other members. Project managers were involved in two-thirds of boundary-spanning, whereas similar relationships between only technical members were rare. Additionally, analysis of network robustness shows that learning across project boundaries was vulnerable to already low membership fluctuation. The findings suggest that Innovation Spaces are a policy instrument that fosters knowledge cross-fertilization beyond the confines of bounded projects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100053"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145683848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100051
Elisa Giuliani
{"title":"Erratum to “Making it right: Socio-environmental conditionalities in regional industrial policies” [Progress in Economic Geography 2 (2024) 100007]","authors":"Elisa Giuliani","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100051","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100051","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100051"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145736830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100052
Franziska Czernik , Sebastian Fastenrath , Amelie Bernzen
Food Waste (FW) has been identified as an increasingly urgent global problem, above all due to the associated economic, social and ethical consequences and high environmental costs. The circular economy (CE) concept is widely discussed as an approach to rethinking resource use and minimising waste and energy. Only recently have geographers begun advancing this field, calling for a deeper understanding of how, where, and why circular economies emerge and thrive across various spatial scales. Informed by the geography of sustainability transitions literature, this paper employs a systematic literature review of 52 papers published between 2018 and 2024 to address two aims: First, we provide critical reflections into understandings of CE for the FW sector. We then explore the question in how far contextual and spatial aspects have been considered in the literature on implementing and maintaining CE of FW. We focus on the issue in urban settings as an increasingly important sink of food as urbanisation increases on a global scale. The findings reveal a narrow and largely uncritical understanding of the CE, often framed as technological or managerial fixes rather than systemic transformations. Potential negative consequences, such as the commodification of food waste and the reinforcement of existing inequalities, are rarely considered. The literature also overemphasises public sector actors and often overlooks the contributions of social enterprises, start-ups and community initiatives. Moreover, we find a distinct focus on the material flow of FW through urban spaces, while the role of actor relationships and networks for the CE, including urban-rural linkages, are largely absent from current debates.
{"title":"Contextualising circular economies – Insights from the urban food waste literature","authors":"Franziska Czernik , Sebastian Fastenrath , Amelie Bernzen","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100052","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100052","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Food Waste (FW) has been identified as an increasingly urgent global problem, above all due to the associated economic, social and ethical consequences and high environmental costs. The circular economy (CE) concept is widely discussed as an approach to rethinking resource use and minimising waste and energy. Only recently have geographers begun advancing this field, calling for a deeper understanding of how, where, and why circular economies emerge and thrive across various spatial scales. Informed by the geography of sustainability transitions literature, this paper employs a systematic literature review of 52 papers published between 2018 and 2024 to address two aims: First, we provide critical reflections into understandings of CE for the FW sector. We then explore the question in how far contextual and spatial aspects have been considered in the literature on implementing and maintaining CE of FW. We focus on the issue in urban settings as an increasingly important sink of food as urbanisation increases on a global scale. The findings reveal a narrow and largely uncritical understanding of the CE, often framed as technological or managerial fixes rather than systemic transformations. Potential negative consequences, such as the commodification of food waste and the reinforcement of existing inequalities, are rarely considered. The literature also overemphasises public sector actors and often overlooks the contributions of social enterprises, start-ups and community initiatives. Moreover, we find a distinct focus on the material flow of FW through urban spaces, while the role of actor relationships and networks for the CE, including urban-rural linkages, are largely absent from current debates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100052"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145683782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-28DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100054
Lindsay Whitfield , Tobias Wuttke
This article examines how Chinese firms BYD and CATL achieved technological catch-up and became global leaders in electric vehicles and EV batteries, disrupting the automotive industry. The global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) approaches struggle to explain how latecomer firms not only join global networks but also transform into lead firms themselves. The article addresses this gap by integrating insights from the economics of innovation literature and putting firm-level technological effort at the centre of analysis. It develops and applies a technological catch-up matrix that captures firm-level effort across five dimensions: proprietary knowledge, organizational capabilities, capital investment, market demand, and local supporting nexus. The article finds that BYD and CATL’s success is based on their early investments in lithium-ion battery technology for EVs beginning in the mid-2000s, preceding and actively shaping government industrial policies rather than merely responding to them. Both firms leveraged existing capabilities from China’s consumer electronics battery sector while building automotive-specific knowledge and capabilities through strategic partnerships with incumbents and recruitment of foreign expertise. The article’s comparative analysis of BYD and CATL with other Chinese EV and EV battery firms demonstrates that while government industrial policies were necessary, firm-level technological effort was equally crucial for achieving market leadership. The article contributes to understanding latecomer industrialization by showing how firms escape subordinated positions in global production networks through systematic technological effort, challenging explanations that attribute China’s EV success exclusively to government intervention.
{"title":"China’s technological catch-up and leapfrogging in electric vehicles: A firm-level study of BYD and CATL","authors":"Lindsay Whitfield , Tobias Wuttke","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100054","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100054","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article examines how Chinese firms BYD and CATL achieved technological catch-up and became global leaders in electric vehicles and EV batteries, disrupting the automotive industry. The global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) approaches struggle to explain how latecomer firms not only join global networks but also transform into lead firms themselves. The article addresses this gap by integrating insights from the economics of innovation literature and putting firm-level technological effort at the centre of analysis. It develops and applies a technological catch-up matrix that captures firm-level effort across five dimensions: proprietary knowledge, organizational capabilities, capital investment, market demand, and local supporting nexus. The article finds that BYD and CATL’s success is based on their early investments in lithium-ion battery technology for EVs beginning in the mid-2000s, preceding and actively shaping government industrial policies rather than merely responding to them. Both firms leveraged existing capabilities from China’s consumer electronics battery sector while building automotive-specific knowledge and capabilities through strategic partnerships with incumbents and recruitment of foreign expertise. The article’s comparative analysis of BYD and CATL with other Chinese EV and EV battery firms demonstrates that while government industrial policies were necessary, firm-level technological effort was equally crucial for achieving market leadership. The article contributes to understanding latecomer industrialization by showing how firms escape subordinated positions in global production networks through systematic technological effort, challenging explanations that attribute China’s EV success exclusively to government intervention.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100054"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145885551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-20DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100050
Nicklas Riekötter
This paper seeks to advance the emerging field of ideational economic geography by employing Frankfurt School critical theory, particularly Adorno's negative dialectics, to move beyond the dichotomy between critical realist and constructivist approaches. Current debates position imaginaries either as 'real' causal forces (critical realism) or as socially constructed meanings (constructivism), creating an apparent choice that limits analytical possibilities for understanding how sustainability imaginaries both express genuine ecological needs and contain them within existing social relations. The framework developed in this paper reconceptualizes ideational elements as inherently contradictory mediations between materiality and the process of ideation, transcending this divide through dialectical analysis that reveals how contradictions are constitutive rather than merely disruptive. This paper further suggests methodological strategies that focus on ruptures and failures as privileged moments for revealing these contradictions and their transformative potential.
{"title":"Contradiction as Method - A Critical-Theoretical Approach to Ideational Economic Geography","authors":"Nicklas Riekötter","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100050","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100050","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper seeks to advance the emerging field of ideational economic geography by employing Frankfurt School critical theory, particularly Adorno's negative dialectics, to move beyond the dichotomy between critical realist and constructivist approaches. Current debates position imaginaries either as 'real' causal forces (critical realism) or as socially constructed meanings (constructivism), creating an apparent choice that limits analytical possibilities for understanding how sustainability imaginaries both express genuine ecological needs and contain them within existing social relations. The framework developed in this paper reconceptualizes ideational elements as inherently contradictory mediations between materiality and the process of ideation, transcending this divide through dialectical analysis that reveals how contradictions are constitutive rather than merely disruptive. This paper further suggests methodological strategies that focus on ruptures and failures as privileged moments for revealing these contradictions and their transformative potential.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100050"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145360996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-11DOI: 10.1016/j.peg.2025.100049
Suyash Jolly , Björn Asheim , Maximilian Benner , Giuseppe Calignano , Will Eadson , Huiwen Gong , Trond Nilsen
The Economic Geography literature and beyond has witnessed a growing interest in developing new green regional industrial paths and an increased emphasis on future-oriented green and just regional industrial path development. In this article, we raise new and critical questions about the notion of green and just regional industrial path development regarding who eventually benefits from it and whether the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalized actors are met. From this base, we provide an overview of two burgeoning research themes in this area: (1) the politics and agency of regional future-making narratives and practices and (2) developing new policy capabilities to build transformative resilience and navigate toward socially desirable futures. Finally, the article concludes with future research opportunities related to these promising themes and uncovers the complexities linked to future-oriented green and just regional industrial path development.
{"title":"Future-oriented green and just regional industrial path development: Towards a critical examination","authors":"Suyash Jolly , Björn Asheim , Maximilian Benner , Giuseppe Calignano , Will Eadson , Huiwen Gong , Trond Nilsen","doi":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100049","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.peg.2025.100049","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Economic Geography literature and beyond has witnessed a growing interest in developing new green regional industrial paths and an increased emphasis on future-oriented green and just regional industrial path development. In this article, we raise new and critical questions about the notion of green and just regional industrial path development regarding who eventually benefits from it and whether the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalized actors are met. From this base, we provide an overview of two burgeoning research themes in this area: (1) the politics and agency of regional future-making narratives and practices and (2) developing new policy capabilities to build transformative resilience and navigate toward socially desirable futures. Finally, the article concludes with future research opportunities related to these promising themes and uncovers the complexities linked to future-oriented green and just regional industrial path development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101047,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Economic Geography","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100049"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145324210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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