THE LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL - REGIONAL INDIVIDUALITY OR INTERREGIONALISM

Thinking about economic spaces has always been divided between two mom enta of a dialectic: locality and globality; or regional personality v ersus interregional (international) division of labour. Even in the mo st extreme versions of these pairs (central-place theory, stage of dev elopment theory, dependency theory), considerations pertaining to the other sides were implicity taken into account. This is also true in th e 'new orthodoxies' of 'the new international division of labour' and 'endogenous development of localized productive systems. Both are sing le-mindedly focusing either on locality or on globality, and both invo lve a particular vision of present evolutions within the world capital ist system ('peripheral Fordism' of 'flexible accumulation'). A histor ic overview of this dialectic is presented in this text. Then the pres ent terms of the regional debate are presented, including the new conc epts of governance, industrial districts, networks, etc.