Towards the resilient region?: policy activism and peripheral region development

Discussions of local and regional development have recently broadened from a preoccupation with growth to one which captures the notion of resilience. This paper makes two main contributions to these debates. First, the paper critiques static equilibrium-based notions of resilience and instead advances a more dynamic evolutionary approach to explain local and regional resilience. Second, we seek to address the widening gap between resilience thinking and its transfer to practical policy prescription. To do this, we explore the notions of adaptability, adaptive capacity and new path creation in developing local and regional resilience. We then focus upon what this might mean for local and regional strategies and draw on the case study of the Renewable Energy sector in North East England to demonstrate the enduring role of policy intervention in stimulating change and building resilience in peripheral regions

Social Capital, Sense-Making and Recovery from Disaster: Japanese Companies and the March 2011 Earthquake

The earthquake that hit East Japan in March 2011 caused massive damage, yet despite predictions of widespread disruption to global supply chains, production resumed with remarkable speed. We describe how resources from throughout the networks of stricken companies were mobilized and deployed, enabling rapid restoration of production. We use concepts of social capital and sense-making to explain the speed of recovery. Social capital facilitated rapid mobilization and strategies to build shared mental models permitted effective coordination under complex and evolving conditions. Our findings show that the ability to both mobilize and focus resources is crucial to rapid recovery

Tracking Report 2011 Vineyard Vines, USA 1320082541J

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.FLA_2011_VineyardVines_TR_USA_1320082541J.pdf: 34 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Architecting the cyberinfrastructure for National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI)

The NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) is a networked ocean research observatory with arrays of instrumented water column moorings and buoys, profilers, gliders and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) within different open ocean and coastal regions. OOI infrastructure also includes a cabled array of instrumented seafloor platforms and water column moorings on the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. This networked system of instruments, moored and mobile platforms, and arrays will provide ocean scientists, educators and the public the means to collect sustained, time-series data sets that will enable examination of complex, interlinked physical, chemical, biological, and geological processes operating throughout the coastal regions and open ocean. The seven arrays built and deployed during construction support the core set of OOI multidisciplinary scientific instruments that are integrated into a networked software system that will process, distribute, and store all acquired data. The OOI has been built with an expectation of operation for 25 years.Peer Reviewe

10-01 "Climate-Resilient Industrial Development Paths: Design Principles and Alternative Models"

Global climate change is here. According to recent scientific reports, the earth has warmed by nearly half a degree centigrade over the last twenty five years. Even with robust mitigation efforts, the global climate could warm by up to 4 degrees centigrade due to past emissions. Under a business-as-usual, high consumption fossil fuel-based development path, it could warm even more, resulting in catastrophic and life-threatening destruction of earth’s eco-systems. The “climate imperative”—the urgent need to both mitigate and adapt to global climate change—has important implications for economic development paths in general and industry and energy policies in particular. Development models and practice historically have treated climate—and indeed, the natural environment in general—as exogenous. Future development models will need to incorporate both climactic uncertainty and the economic threats and opportunities arising from an evolving global climate regime. Developing countries, which are especially vulnerable to climate instability, will need to design energy and industry policies which aim to achieve not only economic and social objectives but which also enhance climate resilience. This paper explores the broad contours of climate resilient industrial development paths. It defines development as an increase in local capacities for production and innovation and argues that the overarching goal of development is the generation of sustainable livelihoods. It suggests that. to be climate resilient, industry policies should have four key design features: 1) they are pro-active; 2) they promote industrial diversification; 3) they focus on mobilizing investment in environmentally sustainable industries and infrastructure, including low-carbon and renewable energy; 4) they are highly responsive to local geo-physical conditions and are based on principles of adaptive management; and 5) they are designed, implemented and governed via accountable partnerships involving government, business, and community actors. The paper evaluates three development macro-models—neo-liberal, sustainable globalization, and new developmental—against the five design principles and finds that aspects of both climate vulnerability and climate-resilience are embodied in each. The paper concludes that responding to the climate imperative will require not a new synthesized one-size-fits-all model but a multiplicity of economic development paths. The effort to articulate the theory and praxis of such paths has barely begun.