Entrepreneurial spaces, hegemony, and state strategy: the political shaping of privatism in lowland Scotland

Throughout the mid-1990s, considerable misgivings have emerged about the va lue of regulation theory for concrete research. Whilst acknowledging much o f this critique, I seek to operationalize some recent interpretations of th e 'geography of regulation' and regulation-theoretic state theory towards a n analysis of the governance of economic development in Lowland Scotland. I argue that, when suitably contextualized, these approaches help to foregro und some complex issues of scale, particularly the interactions between nat ional, regional, and local levels, as well as to highlight the integral pol itics which surround the governance of urban and regional spaces. In substa ntive terms, this paper focuses on the decision to replace the Scottish Dev elopment Agency with the Scottish Enterprise Network. The latter was herald ed by the Conservative government as a new private-sector-led hegemon withi n Lowland Scotland's emerging form of 'entrepreneurial' governance. However , the discussion below demonstrates two key factors. First, that the format ion of such 'local enterprise' was a highly politicized endeavour; one whic h needs to be understood within the context of the broader dynamics of a (t hen) centralizing British state. And, second, a key net effect of the new s tructure is that the informal networks and partnerships which characterized the mode of governance in the 1980s under the hegemony of the Scottish Dev elopment Agency have been jeopardized in and through the 'turf wars' which have accompanied the post-1991 institutional milieu. This political shaping of privatism within one of the United Kingdom's more institutionally endow ed and relatively autonomous spaces thereby provides some lessons for a New Labour government committed towards reconfiguring the contours of regional economic development in the regions and nations of the United Kingdom.