GLOBALISATION AND REGIONAL STUDIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Keynote presentation to NORSA 2010, the Conference of the Nordic Regional Studies Association

Dr Paul Benneworth, Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente, the Netherlands.

<Contents>

LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................ 2
FOREWORD...................................................................................................................................... 3
THE GLOBAL-LOCAL CATEGORISATION PROBLEM............................................................... 6
APPROACH: BIG QUESTIONS, SMALL EXPERIMENT............................................................... 7
STEP 1: HOWGLOBALISATION CAME TO REGIONAL STUDIES............................................. 9
STEP 2: REGIONS AS LOCAL-DISTANT CONNECTORS......................................................... 12
STEP 3: SLIPPERY GLOBAL-REGIONAL HEURISTICS..............................................................14
STEP 4: ACTOR DOMINANCE AS VARIABLE, NOT GIVEN.................................................... 18
STEP 5: A STRATEGIC ANCHORING EXPERIMENT................................................................. 21
STEP 6: TOWARDS A PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION........................................................ 26
STEP 7: TOWARDS A FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA.............................................................. 29
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES.......................................................................................... 32