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• Conceives of technology legitimation as a trans -regional process of strategic coupling. • Presents a cross-regional 'distended' case study of a floating wind power (FWP) technology. • Shows that the FWP technology was gradually legitimated in a pragmatic sense over three phases. Building upon recent work in sustainability transitions studies and economic geography, this paper is concerned with the process of legitimation by which emerging technologies are aligned with broader societal rules and norms. Challenging the assumption of earlier research that legitimation occurs within regional and national borders, the paper views legitimation as set of transregional processes whereby the actors behind emerging technologies seek support from different regional and national organizations on an international basis. Inspired by the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, the paper argues that technology legitimation can be understood as a trans -regional process of strategic coupling between the strategic needs of the industrial actors advancing new technologies and the efforts of national and regional organizations to promote their territories as leading nodes in emerging production networks. Empirically, the paper adopts a micro-level focus on the legitimation of a particular renewable energy technology: the Hywind floating wind power (FWP) technology, developed by the Norwegian energy firm, Equinor. The paper shows that the FWP technology was gradually legitimated in a pragmatic sense over the three stages of Hywind. The demonstration phase generated a temporary and conditional form of legitimacy at an intra-national scale, while the next phase, Hywind Scotland, generated a stronger and more durable form of legitimacy as the world's first floating wind farm. This led to the internalisation of legitimacy from outside into the Norwegian energy regime (absorption) in the third stage of Hywind Tampen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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• Paper highlights the role of wider extra-regional factors in regional path creation. • Develops an analytical framework based on the interplay between four factors. • Adopts an international comparative approach, covering Germany, the UK and Norway. • Outlines the qualitative characteristics of the paths created. • Emphasises the role of national states in the strategic coupling process. The question of how regions and nations develop new sources of industrial growth is of recurring interest in economic geography and planning studies. From an evolutionary economic geography (EEG) perspective, new growth paths emerge out of existing economic activities and their associated assets and conditions. In response to the micro-economic and endogenous focus of much EEG research, this paper utilises a broader evolutionary perspective on path creation which stresses the dynamic interplay between four sets of factors: regional assets; key economic and organisational actors; mechanisms of path creation; and multi-scalar institutional environments and policy initiatives. Reflecting the importance of extra-regional networks and institutions, this framework is also informed by the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, which highlights the process of strategic coupling between firms and regions and its political and institutional mediation by state institutions at different spatial scales. We deploy this framework to investigate regional path creation in the context of renewable energy technologies, focusing specifically on the offshore wind industry. We adopt a comparative cross-national approach, examining the evolution of offshore wind in Germany, the UK and Norway. Of the three cases, Germany has developed the most deep-rooted and holistic path to date, characterised by leading roles in both deployment and manufacturing. By contrast, path creation in the UK and Norway has evolved in more partial and selective ways. The UK's growth path is developing in a relatively shallow manner, based largely upon deployment and 'outside in' investment, whilst Norway's path is emerging in an exogenous, 'inside-out' fashion around a fairly confined set of actors and deployment and supply functions. In conclusion, the paper emphasises the important role of national states in orchestrating the strategic coupling of regional and national assets to particular mechanisms of path creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how economic landscapes evolve and adapt over time has attracted recurring interest in economic geography and regional development studies. This has been reinforced by the emergence of a more explicit evolutionary economic geography (EEG) in recent years, emphasising the role of inherited capabilities and experiences in shaping local and regional development trajectories. Yet the underlying process of adaptation in terms of how different actors respond to economic change has been subjected to little critical scrutiny, particularly from a broader social agency perspective. In response, this paper is concerned with how labour as a social actor adapts to economic change. Its key contribution is to re-deploy the notion of regional branching from its association with firms and technologies to assess how workers move into new economic activities. Such labour branching assumes both voluntary and involuntary forms, and this paper concentrates on the latter by assessing workers’ responses to redundancy. The concept of involuntary labour branching is expanded and socialised beyond the established plant closure literature through an engagement with research on livelihoods and economic practices. This is reflected in the incorporation of three case studies from the global North and South: Longbridge, UK; Nowa Huta, Poland; and Luanshya, Zambia. The degree of industry and skill relatedness generally proved limited across the cases compared to the emphasis on technological or skill relatedness in the industrial branching literature, reflecting the fact that redundancy was linked to the broader decline of pre-displacement and related industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of rural governance have been attracting growing interest in recent years as rural analysts turn their attention to the institutional transformations that are taking place in and around the local state. This paper is concerned with the relationships between new governance agencies and rural communities. It follows recent contributions to the rural studies literature by adopting a ‘governmentality’ perspective which views the current emphasis on community involvement and empowerment as part of a broader neo-liberal strategy of ‘governing through community’. In the paper, I address a particular gap in the governmentality literature by examining how the underlying shift towards community action and local involvement is mediated and implemented by local and regional agencies in the Scottish Highlands, focusing specifically on the relationship between local enterprise companies and local communities. As such, the paper explores the tension between the concern with local participation and the reliance upon a set of managerial ‘technologies’ such as targeting and financial controls which reflect a need to ensure that local agencies are accountable to (central) government. The paper argues that while local state agencies must be analysed within wider circuits of power, local agencies and community groups retain some capacity to influence processes of rural governance. In conclusion, I suggest that the governmentality approach provides some critical insights for re-interpreting and analysing rural governance as a particular field of research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]