Four views of "regional" in regional environmental change

For a number of reasons, mainly to do with data and computational insuffici ency, a number of analysts are calling for regional models of global enviro nmental change phenomena. This paper presents a typology for conceptualizin g the dynamic relationship between the region being analyzed and the global system in which it is embedded. Regionalism can be convergent, divergent, local, or ambivergent. In addition to positing that regional phenomena can be modelled as a superposition of convergent, divergent, and local processe s, it also shows that different regional specifications of a problem can le ad to radically different analytical strategies, insights, and policy presc riptions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.