Economic Geography: Industrial Restructuring

Abstract

The concept of restructuring rose to prominence in economic geography in the 1980s and refers to radical qualitative rather than simply incremental, quantitative change and innovation in product, process, and organizational forms in economies and economic geographies. It can also refer to changes in territorial economies at a range of spatial scales. Restructuring is endemic to capitalist economies and their practices. As a consequence, especially with the expansion of capitalism into the former state-socialist economies of Central and Eastern Europe and China, restructuring remains an important concept in understanding economies and their geographies. It also remains important to policy makers and politicians seeking to steer economic change and development in particular ways, both in terms of territorial development and ecological sustainability, not least in recognizing the limits to their capacity to bend the strategies of capital in the directions that they consider desirable. Finally, we can note that while the theoretical space exists in which to consider more radical forms of restructuring and moves from capitalism to other modes of political and economic organization, in practice, there is little practical exploration of this space – although that is not to say that capitalist forms of restructuring are not contested by a variety of social actors.