Agency, structure, institutions, discourse (ASID) in urban and regional development

Figures & data

Table 1. DEMOLOGOS themes addressed in ASID meta-framework.

Themes	ASID synthesis paper
Scale/Place	Very important for agency, structure, institution, and discourse. Spatial ‘models’ differentiated at various scales are relevant here, witness the Variegated Capitalism (Theodore, Peck & Brenner, 2005) and Services papers (Martinelli, 2005). Institutions and discourses are scale- and place-specific and -sensitive. Structural dynamics involve articulated spatial scales and can only be changed through institutional transformation and collective action.
Democracy and authoritarianism	Collective behaviour and reproduction of social forces are politically significant for the State as an institutional ensemble as well as for various institutions (firms, schools, household, peer communities, etc.) that are regarded as ‘private’. Critical here is the link with institutional transformation and empowerment (human capability development) in development (Novy, Lengauer & Trippl, 2009).
Crisis and crisis mechanisms	Crisis is an over-determined moment for decisive intervention, a necessarily contingent moment when life cannot go on as before and choices must be made. Its origins and the scope for intensification are many and varied and explained quite differently in different theories. The ASID heuristic offers no particular substantive theory of crisis mechanisms, crisis-tendencies, or crisis resolution
Development & development views	The ASID model is especially appropriate here because it shows the importance of economic imaginaries, identities, and subjectivities in shaping development views as well as the path-dependent, multi-scalar constraints on realizing such views. It problematizes the meaning of development in structural, institutional, and strategic terms.
Competition. Competitiveness versus equality. Inclusion versus exclusion	Competition relates mostly to the profit-oriented, market-mediated capitalist economy but takes other forms in other institutional orders. It reinforces structural contradictions and crisis-tendencies in capitalist societies as competitive pressures influence economic conduct and the stability of institutions. The two oppositions concern extra-economic as well as economic aspects of socio-economic development. They are sometimes depicted in dilemmatic terms (competition policy OR cohesion policy) or as sources of disequilibrium (where one-sided treatment can provoke crisis). But ‘progressive competitiveness’ strategies could secure both competitiveness and social welfare – either because one delivers taxes for the other and/or because welfare facilitates trust and cooperation.
Articulation of subsystems (complexity)	Complexity requires choosing a suitable analytical entry-point for one’s research. Empirically ASID focuses on key agents and institutions from functional subsystems, institutional orders, and social fields that are central to socio-economic development in a given case. One aim of the research is to identify the spatio-temporal fixes and institutionalized compromises that help to stabilize a complex formation. Periodization and sensitivity to the complexity of socio-spatial relations are required.

Table

Theoretical inputs ASID foci	Agency	Structure	Institutions	Discourse
a. Strategic economic agency in ‘local’ development	Structure and agency (Mintzberg) INST: multi-rationality agency	GHS: Society as an organism … power structures in economy	INST: Institutionalization Network theory	CPE: Disciplining codes (accountability, efficiency, effectiveness).
b. Local–regional socio-economic organization and strategic agency	DEV, ERD: Entrepreneurs as innovators – Diversity of agents and inter-agent cooperation	SRA: Structures are strategically selective in form, content, operation Archer (2000) morphogenetic cycle	GHS: Articulation between institutional dynamics at various spatial scales INST: Institutionalization Network theory	ERD: Innovation and modernization discourse ↔ Local and regional identity
c. National–regional administrative-political regulation	GHS: State behaviour – Strategic approaches to State behaviour State theory	RA: State as key site of institutionalization	HGM: Regionalization GHS: Articulation between institutional dynamics at various spatial scales RA: Regulatory role of State and State institutions	Gramsci: Role of representation and discourse in institutionalization
d. Reproduction systems: Service providers	SERV: Typical agencies functionally oriented – service relation ST: Structure and agent as a duality – strong self-reproducing dynamics of providers	PEE: All structures are environment SRA: Morphogenetic cycle: from structure to social interaction, back to modified structure and servicing agency SERV: Service relation as control relation?
e. Global (corporate) market-economy agents and institutions	Marx: Relations of production, world market IMP: Integration of economics and politics	WS: Structure as systems – historical emergence and structure of the capitalist world economy	INST: Global governance, link with hegemonic discourse, Washington consensus and NPM doctrine	D/CPE: Discourse and discursive technologies
f. International cum national politico-administrative regulation	VC: Leading theory to calibrate this focus SRA: Actions are treated as structurally-geared, context building and structuring	SRA: ASID table		CPE: economic imaginaries, roles of genres and genre chains
g. Counter-hegemonic and socially innovative agencies and movements	HGM: Class struggle PEE: New alliances around environmental questions	Marx: Class struggle WS: Agency as anti-systemic movement	D: Empowerment, alternative organization	D/CPE: Counter-hegemonic and alternative development discourse
h. ‘Eccentric’ and ‘leadership’ individual agency interfering with conjunctural dynamics	Social innovation literature Veblen: Non-behaviourist psychology Instinct-habit psychology Analysis of personal motivations		INST: Voluntarist institution building, using personal power networks	Personal identity, image etc. building …

Legend of references to survey papers on DEMOLOGOS website: INST, Institutionalism; GHS, German Historical School; D/CPE, Discourse; Cultural Political Economy; SRA, Strategic-Relational Approach; DEV, Development theories; ERD, Endogenous Regional Development; RA, Regulationist Approach; HGM,  Historical Geographical Materialism; SERV, Services; IMP, Theories of Imperialism; PEE, Political Economy of the Environment; VC, Varieties of Capitalism. A comprehensive list of all survey papers along with the respective annexures is available at http://demologos.ncl.ac.uk/wp/wp1/disc.php

Theodore, N., Peck, J., & Brenner, N. (2005). Comparing capitalisms: Theorizing the persistence of institutional variation (DEMOLOGOS Working Paper). Retrieved March 2, 2016 from http://demologos.ncl.ac.uk/wp/wp1/papers/capi.pdf

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Martinelli, F. (2005). Services and post-industrialist society (DEMOLOGOS Working Paper). Retrieved May 9, 2016 from http://demologos.ncl.ac.uk/wp/wp1/papers/spis.pdf

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Novy, A., Lengauer, L., & Trippl, M. (2009). Development (DEMOLOGOS Thematic Synthesis Paper 6). Retrieved May10, 2016 from http://demologos.ncl.ac.uk/wp/wp2/papers/TSP6.pdf

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Archer, M. S. (2000). Being human: The problem of agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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