Description
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area.
Creativity in Economic Development:
Space in an Inferno
Silvia Sacchetti and Roger Sugden
Institute for Economic Development Policy
Discussion Paper Series
Paper Number 2007-02
Creativity in Economic Development: Space in an Inferno
Silvia Sacchetti and Roger Sugden
Abstract
Emphasising power in strategic choice, we consider people in actual and potential
publics kindling their imagination and ideas so as to shape new directions in the
economies in which they have an interest. The paper proposes public creativity
forums, spaces defined by relations aimed at free communication and based upon
shared values, including openness. Artistic activities are highlighted as a viaticum for
people’s creativity, hence for their potential significance in influencing development in
any sector or region. These prospects are positioned in an analysis of transnational
corporations, uneven economic development, choices over globalisation and regional
competitiveness.
Keywords
Creative space, Artistic activities, Strategic choice, Public interests
J.E.L.: Z10, O10, R10, P00
‘The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is
already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together.
There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the
inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is
risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension; seek and learn to recognize
who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure,
give them space’ (Calvino, 1972, 164)
1. Introduction
Previous analysis suggests links between the development of economies and
the stimulation of people’s creativity. Both inter- and intra- country variations in
development (Henderson et al, 2001) are associated with such links. Over recent
years these arguments have often been framed in terms of achieving regional
‘competitiveness’ in a global market economy (Bristow, 2005), for example through
innovation in industries in general (Florida, 2002a) and through the success of
creative (or cultural) industries in particular (Caves, 2000) . In this paper, however,
we examine the links from a different perspective. Having critically considered recent
contributions on the impact of creativity based on accepted notions of
competitiveness and prosperity, we offer a novel perspective that stresses a role for
‘publics’ in creatively shaping processes of economic development.
The association between creativity and innovation suggested by Florida
(2002a) is that places with ‘a high concentration of bohemians … reflect an
underlying set of conditions or milieu which is open and attractive to talented and
creative people of all sorts … and thus create a place-based environment that is
conducive to the birth, growth and development of new and high-technology
industries’ (68). His focus is essentially market orientated, capitalist success, and his
analysis could comfortably fit into commonly made arguments about regional
competitiveness (see also Gordon and McCann (2005) on the geography of
commercial innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship). Likewise could be said of
many economic arguments about creative industries, which supply the ‘goods and
services that we broadly associate with cultural, artistic, or simply entertainment
value. They include book and magazine publishing, the visual arts (painting,
sculpture), the performing arts (theatre, opera, concerts, dance), sound recordings,
cinema and TV films, even fashion, toys and games’ (Caves, 2000, 1). The idea is
that visual and performing arts, indeed cultural activities more generally, are
associated with the production of goods and services that can be traded on markets
to desirable effect for particular localities and for particular sets of people in terms of
wealth, employment opportunities and so on. Consider, for example, Caves (2000)
on the geography of creativity; Neff (2005) on the digital media industry in New York;
Leslie and Rantisi (2006) on urban economic development and the interplay between
‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ factors in Montreal’s design economy.
We would agree that such analysis has interest and relevance, but our focus
is quite distinct. We concentrate on creativity amongst people in general, rather than
Florida’s concern with bohemian groups or indeed a ‘creative class’ (Florida, 2002b),
and rather than certain sorts of industries. Artistic activities are reasoned to be of
significance because of their potential to stimulate creativity across all sectors.
Moreover, our especial focus is not the attainment of competitiveness as commonly
understood. We share the concerns of Bristow (2005) that, despite ‘confusion as to
what the concept actually means and how it can be effectively operationalised’ (286),
competitiveness has become a theory-leading, hegemonic discourse in public policy
circles, especially in so-called developed countries. However we go further,
questioning not only the assumed aims of competitiveness but, more specifically, the
process for choosing those aims and, correspondingly, for choosing the means by
which they are pursued. This is a governance-centric perspective.
Wojcik (2006) argues that ‘economic geographers often talk about corporate
governance, without mentioning the term or referring to corporate governance
research, despite potential benefits from doing so’ (640), but he goes on to assert
that ‘the time is ripe for economic geography research to examine corporate
governance concepts and literature more explicitly’ (640-641). We follow that
assertion. Our analysis is grounded in an appreciation of large firm governance,
albeit extending beyond such organisations and with a distinct emphasis on
governance defined in terms of strategic choice (unlike in Wojcik (2006). Compare
as well, for example, Leslie and Rantisi (2006), who pay no explicit attention to
strategic choice per se and for whom governance of cultural industries refers in
particular to the role of government and the state, markets and hierarchies).
Zeitlin (1974) argues that the power to govern (in other words, to control) a
large corporation equates to the power to make the strategic decisions that
determine its broad direction; these include decisions about its relationships with
other corporations, with governments and with employees, and about its
geographical orientation. More recently, this analysis has been used as a foundation
for the so-called strategic choice framework, deploying a governance lens to view the
activities of transnational corporations, networks and other forms of economic
organisation, and to view regional, national and indeed global economies.
The basis of this framework is a heterodox economic analysis of the theory of
the firm (Cowling and Sugden, 1998a), of the development of economies (Sugden
and Wilson, 2002) and of forms of globalisation of production (Sugden and Wilson,
2005). The analysis focuses most especially on the governance of the transnational
corporation and its impact on contemporary economies (inter alia Hymer (1972) on
uneven development; Cowling and Sugden (1998b) on strategic international trade;
Cowling and Tomlinson (2000) on Japan); hence on learning from the experiences of
successful agglomerations in the likes of the Third Italy so as to nurture multinational
networking in the public interest (see, for example, Cowling and Sugden (1999) on
multinational webs; Sacchetti and Sugden (2003) on network forms; Sacchetti (2004)
on knowledge; Branston et al (2006a) on the public interest).
Whilst the strategic choice framework offers a dynamic institutional
perspective that rejects a particular stress on the neoclassicism at the heart of both
regional science and ‘new economic geography’ (Boschma and Frenken, 2006), its
foundations nevertheless reflect, and can be argued to contribute insight on,
concerns at the core of economic geography. For example, Scott (2004) asserts that
economic geography is especially focused on two areas of study: on the one hand
transnational corporations, globalisation, etc., and on the other hand spatial
agglomeration analysis, rooted in the apparent success of particular regions like the
Third Italy. These are precisely the areas of study providing critical foundations to
the strategic choice approach.
In this paper we use such an approach to consider creativity in economic
development. In doing so we would also stress that our general research
preoccupation is not with disciplinary boundaries, hence not per se with any one
notion of the likes of ‘economics’, ‘geography’ or ‘economic geography’. It is with the
scientific analysis of (aspects of) economies, our working definition of an economy
being: a complex of people whose (interacting) relations, behaviour and actions have
consequences for how production is organised, hence implications for the
satisfaction of (human and other) interests.
1
There can be no doubt that the ideas
relevant to understanding an economy so conceptualised encompass at their core
1
The stress on people’s relations behaviour and actions is rooted in the seminal views of
Marshall (1920) and Robbins (1932), and the focus on production and organisation is in line
with Backhouse (2002). We would also highlight that the definition is relatively open in terms
of what people might seek from an economy, encapsulating material and non-material
dimensions; and it removes Marshall’s centre-stage concern with mankind in favour of
considering human and other interests.
spatial factors, as both determinants and outcomes. They clearly also entail myriad
complex factors, and a consequence of bounded rationality is that our research does
not presume to be all encompassing. Instead, we seek a coherent perspective that
offers significant insight.
The analysis proceeds as follows. Section 2 lays the foundations for our
appreciation of creativity by considering in detail the strategic choice approach to
economic development, competitiveness and globalisation, rooting analysis in
understanding of the transnational corporation. This leads to an examination of the
distinction between private and public interests, hence the possibility of the latter as a
criterion for economic geography to assess realities. It concludes that public interests
tend to be marginalised in people’s typical experiences and, with that in mind,
Section 3 focuses on the kindling of people’s creativity so that they might shape new
strategic directions in the economies in which they have an interest. We advocate
‘public creativity forums’ and explore what that would mean. Section 3.1 discusses a
notion of ‘creative atmosphere’, related to but distinct from Marshall’s (1920) concept
of industrial atmosphere. Section 3.2 considers visual and performing arts, music,
cinema and indeed artistic activities more generally as a viaticum for the stimulation
and expression of people’s creativity, thus a potentially significant influence on
strategic direction across all sectors. Section 4 offers concluding remarks: a
summary, and a suggestion to consider new action research in economic geography.
2. Power and uneven development
The concentration of power and uneven development are in many respects well
recognised in economic geography. For example, Henderson et al (2001) review
analysis of uneven development across and within countries, and its relation to
issues such as trade, investment, technology, urbanisation and income. For them,
‘the most striking fact about the economic geography of the world is the uneven
distribution of activity’ (81), reflected in 54% of world GDP being produced by
countries occupying 10% of the land mass. Similarly Coe and Yeung (2001),
asserting that not only is ‘uneven development … the single most visible structural
outcome of globalisation processes’ (370), it has been studied by radical
geographers since well before globalisation became a key word in the social
sciences in the 1990s. Moreover, they identify two elements to the unevenness,
structural (different impacts across sectors in a given territory) and geographical
(variations across territories), and relate the latter to ‘uneven power relations
underlying most global production chains such that some segments of these chains
have disproportionately greater power and control over other segments’ (371). It is
notable that this recognition of concentrated power applies not only to the power
associated with particular regions, but also to that of particular firms. Consider for
example Fold (2001), highlighting the impacts of large producers in the chocolate
industry in Europe on cocoa production in West Africa, and linking those with the
influences of the structural adjustment programmes stimulated by the World Bank
and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
What has tended to be ignored in these analyses, however, is a consideration
of strategic choice as the source of power, hence as a root cause of uneven
development.
The potential significance of this perspective was indicated in the heterodox
economics literature by Hymer’s (1972) seminal contribution – also well before
globalisation became a popular concern in the social sciences. He recognised
transnational corporations as likely to be especially influential organisations in the
world economy, and contemplated what this would imply by extrapolating from an
appreciation of their place in the historical development of US capitalism. Hymer
argued (ibid, 50):
‘One would expect to find the highest offices of the [transnational]
corporations concentrated in the world’s major cities … These … will be
… major centres of high-level strategic planning. Lesser cities throughout
the world will deal with the day-to-day operations of specific local
problems. These in turn will be arranged in a hierarchical fashion: the
larger and more important ones will contain regional corporate
headquarters, while the smaller ones will be confined to lower level
activities. Since business is usually the core of the city, geographical
specialisation will come to reflect the hierarchy of corporate decision
making, and the occupational distribution of labour in a city or region will
depend upon its function in the international economic system.’
Hymer’s analysis has been criticized in its details because it simplifies a complex
reality, yet it has also been argued on the basis of the empirical evidence that if it is
accepted for the characterisation that it purports to be, then it offers insight (Dicken,
1992; Cowling and Sugden, 1994). Indeed, his analysis has received increased
theoretical and empirical attention over the last decade.
2.1 The strategic choice framework
The focus on corporations and strategy is taken up in Cowling and Sugden
(1998a), grounding analysis in Coase (1937, 1991) but critiquing mainstream
economic theories, including the transactions cost approach that rests on Williamson
(1975). Accommodating debates about differences across corporations with their
‘homes’ in different countries, not least the idea of distinctions between Anglo-US
and Japanese firms (Aoki, 1990), as well as debates about flexible specialisation -
reorganisation by large corporations along lines implied by successful
agglomerations of small firms in, for instance, the Third Italy (Sabel, 1988) - the
strategy perspective reasons that large corporations are characterised by an
essential symmetry: a concentration in the power to make strategic decisions over
the direction of production. Drawing on Zeitlin (1974), the basic idea is as follows
(see also Branston et al, 2006a; Bailey et al, 2006):
• A transnational corporation can be shown to have an explicit and/or implicit
strategy that is more or less coherent;
• This strategy encompasses the aims of the corporation, both what those aims
are and the broad terms for their pursuit;
• The strategy is especially (albeit not all) important in determining the activity that
the corporation undertakes;
• The strategy has determinants, including choices that can be conscious and/or
unconscious;
2
• The power to choose its strategy equates to the power to govern the corporation:
to govern is to have the ability to choose – subject to constraints – both the aims
of the corporation, and the broad terms for their pursuit;
• The power to govern typically lies with a subset of those with an interest in the
corporation’s activities, despite the objections and perhaps resistance of other
interested parties.
3
Sugden and Wilson (2002) apply this perspective to a consideration of the
development of economies. They position Hymer’s (1972) analysis of uneven
development in the context of the agenda supplied by the ‘Washington consensus’
(Williamson, 1990; Rodrik, 1996), which places transnational corporations at its heart
and a version of which has been a strong prevailing influence throughout most
countries of the world since the early 1980s (as illustrated by Fold’s (2001)
2
This perspective has strong ties with Penrose (1952, 818): ‘there is considerable evidence
that … many decisions are reached after a conscious consideration of alternatives, and that
men have a wide range of genuine choices.’
3
The applicability of this perspective across countries and legal jurisdictions is implicitly
addressed in a growing literature on convergence in corporate governance. See for example
Wojcik (2006), examining practice across Europe and finding evidence of convergence to an
Anglo-US model.
aforementioned analysis of the World Bank and IMF backed structural adjustment
programmes in West Africa). Illustrating from South Africa and Nicaragua, and as
with transnational corporations, they reason that insofar as the aims of economic
development for a particular region are chosen, the process is typically characterised
by a concentration of power, with the institutions at the core of the Washington
consensus being especially influential – for example through the World Bank’s (1999)
emphasis on GNP per capita, or the UNDP’s (1997) broader approach based upon
its Human Development Index. This conclusion accords with Nelson Mandela’s
perception that ‘people living in poverty have the least access to power to shape
policies – to shape their future’ (Mandela, 2006, 1).
The strategic choice framework recognises that, for any region, there are
many people with an interest in its economic development, and many who might
have a view on development aims (Branston et al, 2006b), it is just that in current
practice they tend to have little or no effective voice. They would include those who
currently live in the region, as well as those who might live there in the future, not
least potential immigrants. Moreover, the development in and around the region
would likely impact on, and be impacted by, development elsewhere – in other places
in the same country, continent and indeed the world. People in those places might
have interests that are relevant, and possibly experiences which they could
exchange with others, so that together people and regions might all find more
desirable development aims.
Analogous arguments to those about economic development are also made
by Sugden and Wilson (2005) when analysing the conceptualisation of globalisation.
They suggest that models of development correspond to models of globalisation. For
example, the Washington consensus development agenda is associated with a
Washington consensus form of globalisation; the aims of both are identical, and each
implies a parallel set of strategic choices to the other. This reasoning overlaps with
that in Coe and Yeung (2001), who stress that ‘economic globalisation is not some
kind of immutable inevitability, but a set of processes that is socially constructed, and
therefore can be encouraged or resisted by actors/institutions at various scales’
(368). In other words, we might view strategic decisions to pursue a Washington
consensus development agenda as paralleled by strategic decisions to pursue a
Washington consensus form of globalisation.
This perspective can also be extended to a consideration of competitiveness.
Consistent with comments in this paper’s Introduction, competitiveness is a
conveniently flexible and loosely used concept; as Poerksen (1995) said of
‘development’, and as we might observe of ‘globalisation’, ‘competitiveness’ is a
plastic word. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note Bristow’s (2005) observation that
‘the regional competitiveness discourse ignores the possibility that regional prosperity
might be achieved … by the development of community or social enterprises which
meet broader social and environmental … objectives. As a consequence, policies
tend to prioritise rather narrow, private sector originated agendas at the expense of
broader regeneration initiatives’ (295). That is to say, the aims of regional
competitiveness are confined, provided by the private sector agendas that inform,
and are therefore in line with, the Washington consensus development agenda which
seeks, for example, to enable private enterprise and in particular transnational
corporations to freely move goods, services and capital across economies.
4
2.2 The interests of publics
Bristow’s (2005) recognition that private agendas occupy centre-stage can be re-
interpreted as public interests being confined to the margins, causing us to raise the
possibility that the interests of publics might provide a suitable evaluation criterion for
economic geography. This follows Long (1990), who proposes the public interest as
a criterion for research and policy in public administration and political science, and
Branston et al (2006a), who suggest it for much of economics.
According to Dewey’s (1927) seminal work in political and social philosophy,
an action – such as making a strategic choice – might have significant consequences
for two categories of people: private interests, those who are directly engaged in the
action; public interests, those not directly engaged (see also Young, 2002). An action
might be associated with multiple private interests and multiple publics. Each public
is seen to have shared concerns.
Drawing on Dewey (1927), Long (1990) views a public interest as an evolving
consensus, a criterion agreed upon by a public and against which private actions can
be assessed. For him, therefore, the ‘consequences of private parties’ actions create
a public as that public discovers its shared concern with their effects and the need for
their control. The public’s shared concern with consequences is a public interest’
(171). Referring to this, Branston et al (2006a, 195) identify ‘the public interest in a
corporation’s activities in general and in its strategies in particular as the agreed
upon, evolving concerns amongst all of those indirectly and significantly affected by
those activities and strategies (wherever they live, whatever their nationality).’
4
Compare Branston et al (2006b), offering the prospect of a conceptualisation of
competitiveness that is much broader, albeit not arguing that broad approach is currently
pursued in practice.
To illustrate, according to the strategic choice framework, to the extent that
the aims of the typical transnational corporation, and the broad terms for their pursuit,
are chosen, the decision is made by a subset of those with an interest in the
corporation’s activities. That choice by private interests impacts on others, on publics.
Positive outcomes discussed in the literature include effects on technological transfer
and contingent employment growth, commonly argued as potentially desirable
consequences of incoming foreign direct investment with respect to the development
of localities (see, for instance, the appraisal of transnationals’ impacts in Dicken
(2007)). However, even in these cases we would argue that an exclusion issue
remains, and that technological transfer and employment growth induced by
transnationals have their shortcomings (Blomström, 1986; Blomström and Kokko,
2002).
Consider also, for example, the implications for international trade. Cowling
and Sugden (1998b) suggest that ‘free international trade’ implies the freedom of the
private interests governing transnational corporations to manage trade in pursuit of
their own interests, despite the possibly adverse impacts on others. This includes, for
example, managing trade in pursuit of a divide and rule approach to labour. The idea
is that the strategic decision-makers of a transnational corporation might be
concerned to improve their bargaining power with respect to employees, so as to
improve profits. Accordingly, a corporation supplying markets across Europe might
deliberately opt to produce the same goods in various countries, so that if employee
industrial action in one country interrupts supply, that might be compensated by an
increase in supply from elsewhere (on the basis that collective action tends to be
more problematic for employees across rather than within countries). Such strategies
clearly have consequences beyond the private interests making the choice; not least,
the affected employees are a public with an interest in the action.
Similar arguments could be made in the analysis of uneven development,
globalisation and regional competitiveness. Following Hymer (1972), concentrations
in the power to govern corporations have significant effects on levels of development,
wealth and poverty; those in poverty in so-called less developed countries have
public interests in the strategic choices of transnationals. Sacchetti (2004), for
instance, applies Hymer’s divide and rule strategy (Hymer 1972) to knowledge
production and diffusion across countries. Referring to the international division of
labour, and critical towards current faith in technological transfer, she argues –
building on Marglin (1974) – that the geographical scattering of different activities,
which follows strategic decisions taken by restricted groups organising activities
transnationally, may jeopardise peoples' knowledge in those localities where
concentration of operational and repetitive tasks occurs. Vicious cycles, as path
dependence theories would explain (Nelson, 1994), might then start to build up,
affecting institutions, for instance in the education system, by shaping strategies in
ways that suit the transnational production system, possibly disregarding the
interests of different publics.
Likewise the analysis of globalisation, concentration of strategic decision-
making power in a Washington consensus stimulated reality implying publics with
interest that are not being met, as reflected in the frustrations and actions of so-called
anti-globalisation movements. These are made up of diverse people and groups,
most of whom are probably not against globalisation in the sense of using new
technologies and opportunities to decrease the territorial barriers between people
(Sugden and Wilson, 2005). They form interested publics, expressing their interests
in protests against the outcomes of current forms of globalisation, and against the
ways in which those outcomes are being pursued.
In principle a fundamental issue might be that public interests are being
deliberately flouted, but even 80 years ago Dewey (1927, 314) identified another
possibility, one that technological changes and the so-called new economy might
make even more pertinent today (evidence of vociferous portions of anti-globalisation
movements notwithstanding):
‘Indirect, extensive, enduring and serious consequences of conjoint and
interacting behaviour call a public into existence having a common
interest in controlling … consequences. But the machine age has so
enormously expanded, multiplied, intensified and complicated the scope
of the indirect consequences … that the resultant public cannot identify
and distinguish itself.’
He sees a special problem with ‘the eclipse of the public’ (304), which ‘seems to be
lost’ (308), ‘amorphous and unarticulated’ (317). For Dewey (ibid, 327), ‘the prime
difficulty’ for acting in the public interest is discovery of ‘the means by which a
scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognise itself as to define and
express its interests.’
3. Creativity, communication and public space
An implication of our analysis of power, uneven development and strategic choice is
that confining the interests of publics to the margins raises fundamental queries
about the exercise of creativity in economic development. More specifically,
excluding actual and potential publics from strategic choice processes would seem to
deny the people who make up those publics the opportunity to develop and use their
imagination and ideas (their creativity) in the shaping and determination of economic
strategy. For example, echoing the words of Bristow (2005), prioritising narrow,
private inputs in the regional competitiveness discourse ignores the possibility that
regional economic prosperity might be achieved by the development of innovative
economic strategies that are stimulated by the imagination and ideas of currently
excluded people, who might also catalyse the targeting of broader and even currently
unimagined aims. This would have no import if the currently excluded people have no
inherent creativity to bring to bear, but that seems most unlikely. Consider, for
instance, the thoughts of Chomsky (1975) on the education of children. He argues
that each person has an intrinsic, unique creativity and that this needs to be nurtured,
hence he advocates education aimed ‘to provide the soil and the freedom required
for the growth of this creative impulse’ (164).
Moreover, an exclusion of publics might be associated with a downward
spiral: people’s creativity is not being exercised, thus not stimulated, explored and
enhanced; therefore their capabilities to exercise imagination are truncated and even
lost; therefore their creativity is not exercised … This might lead to, and be fed by,
perceptions of ‘not counting’. Dewey’s (1927) focus on publics being eclipsed is also
a relevant factor: perhaps a reason for the eclipse is an exclusion which, over time,
becomes self reinforcing, resulting in a public loosing sight of itself, of not even being
aware of its own existence.
Viewed from the opposite direction, however, this analysis implies a challenge
and potential opportunity: people in actual and potential publics might seek to kindle
their imagination and ideas, to exercise their creativity, thereby attempt to seize
opportunities to shape and determine strategic choices influencing the development
of the economies in which they have an interest. Although the precise consequences
that this might have are unclear, we would hypothesise that there would be
opportunities to pursue new avenues of economic prosperity, simply because more
people would be exercising their creativity and would be doing so in search of new
strategies (Sugden and Wilson, 2005).
As for how to enable creative publics, a first step is suggested by Dewey’s
(1927) consideration of the means by which lost publics might find themselves. For
him, ‘the essential need … is the improvement of the methods and conditions of
debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public’ (365). The
necessary continuous, inclusive discourse is argued to be in part an attitude acquired
by nurtured habit, and he stresses knowledge, learning and communication:
‘An obvious requirement is freedom of social inquiry and of distribution of
its conclusions … There can be no public without full publicity in respect
to all consequences which concern it. Whatever obstructs and restricts
publicity, limits and distorts public opinion and checks and distorts
thinking on social affairs. Without freedom of expression, not even
methods of social enquiry can be developed. For tools can be evolved
and perfected only in operation; in application to observing, reporting and
organizing actual subject-matter; and this application cannot occur save
through free and systematic communication’ (ibid, emphasis added, 339-
340).
A related stress on communication is also seen in analysis of the
competence-based view of the knowledge economy (reviewed in the context of
economic geography by Gertler, 2001). For example, Amin and Cohendet (2000, 99)
consider effective knowledge circulation in an organisation as associated with
‘dialogue, discussion, experience-sharing’, and to ‘socialising activities’. In issue are
cognitive phenomena generated through interaction. There is a particular focus on
‘relationships, based on shared norms and conventions’ and on communities of
practice, ‘groups of individuals informally bound together by shared expertise and a
common problem’ (Gertler, 2001, 18). The reference to common problem echoes the
common interest essential to a public, and suggests that the identification of publics
might learn from analysis of communities of practice and the competence-based view
of the knowledge economy more generally.
Accordingly we infer that creative publics might be enabled, in the first
instance, by the construction and nurturing of ‘public creativity forums’, spaces where
people - the members of actual and potential publics – can freely engage with each
other in learning, discussion and debate about the development of the economies in
which they have an interest; where people’s relations are characterised by shared
values of openness, of their essence rejecting any significant influence of private
over public interests, so as to avoid outcomes that are essentially similar to the
current realities of concentrated power in economic development, competitiveness
and globalisation; where people recognise and cultivate a concern with each other’s
ideas and perspectives through reasoned and coherent understanding, so as to
anchor the foundations for the interest of each public in rational argument and
analysis. (Using the terminology of Scott (2006, 3), a public creativity forum can be
viewed as a specific type of ‘creative field’, a notion that ‘can be used to describe any
system of social relationships that shapes or influences human ingenuity and
inventiveness and that is the site of concomitant innovations.’)
We hypothesise that with public creativity forums as a basis, people could
start – with respect for each other and hence for publics – to discuss and talk with
others, to share arguments and mutually influence ideas by increasing – through
communication – the diversity of perspectives and possibilities on the strategic
choices that underpin the development of economies.
3.1 Creative atmosphere
It follows from our analysis thus far that public creativity forums would have an
atmosphere in some ways similar to the ‘industrial atmosphere’ that Marshall (1920)
identified as characteristic of certain places. He refers to people in an agglomerated
industry receiving ‘advantages … from near neighbourhood to one another. The
mysteries of the trade become no mysteries; but are as it were in the air, and children
learn them unconsciously’ (271). For example, ‘if one man starts a new idea, it is
taken up by others and combined with suggestions of their own; and thus it becomes
the source of further new ideas’ (ibid). Public creativity forums would be similarly
spaces where the exercise of imagination and the pursuit of ideas are in the
atmosphere; spaces where ideas flow between people, learning from each other,
shaping each other’s perspectives.
However, a crucial difference is that when analysing industrial atmosphere
Marshall (1920) is not especially concerned with strategic choices in an economy.
Furthermore, whilst he considers place we focus on the more general notion of
creative atmosphere conceived in socio-economic space.
In this respect our argument follows the likes of Lorentzen (2007) (see also,
for example, Agrawal et al (2006), who use empirical evidence on patenting to
consider the significance of social relationships in altering the impact of geographical
proximity on knowledge flows; the discussions of relational proximity in Amin (2000)
and Gertler (2001); and Boschma’s (2005) consideration of proximity concepts more
broadly). Lorentzen refers to an agreement in the literature that knowledge is
developed and exchanged in social spaces, but she criticises the tendency in
research on regional development policy to degenerate this insight into territorial
determinism; analysis tends to focus on place (industrial districts, milieus …) rather
than space, when it is the latter that is most relevant to knowledge flows and
innovation.
The implication we draw from Lorentzen is that creative atmospheres can be
generated and renewed through multi-dimensional spaces. In some circumstances
these might include a special territorial dimension – a public creativity forum rooted in
and developed from a particular region is certainly conceivable - but not necessarily.
More generally forums might develop in different, inter-acting and overlapping scales
– for example in creativity festivals, conferences, meetings, projects (including
university-linked projects) …, both within and across territories, international and
local (see also Dicken et al (2001) on multiple scales in the global economy).
3.2 Artistic activities
It was observed in the Introduction that the subject of creative industries – hence
visual and performing arts, music, cinema and indeed artistic activities more
generally – has become topical in large part because of their potential for contributing
to wealth creation in a competitive market environment. However, an implication of
our analysis is another, quite distinct explanation for a telling impact: because artistic
activities are a viaticum for the stimulation and expression of people’s creativity,
5
they
are a potentially significant stimulant in the construction and development of public
creativity forums. It can even be hypothesised that people’s openness and access to
artistic activities is a crucible for evolving public creativity forums.
This direction of causality accords with Scott (2004, 488): writing of the recent
cultural turn in economic geography, he identifies ‘a growing conviction that not only
were certain earlier generations of geographers and other social scientists incorrect
to regard culture simply as an outcome of underlying economic realities, but that
these realities themselves are in fundamental ways subject to the play of cultural
forces.’ This is also a point long before recognised but since lost:
‘Adam Smith, the master builder of models in both economics and ethics,
was … as thoroughly comfortable drawing his lessons from Hamlet as
from Hume. Like the creator of a patchwork quilt, he dapples in dramas,
dabs in novels, dusts in some poetry and bellows opera. It is not simply
that Smith likes and employs the arts. Rather … Smith finds the arts
essential for the task at hand – understanding and moulding human
conscience (Wight, 2006, 56, emphasis added).
Moreover, in urging the significance of artistic activities for the construction
and nurturing of public creativity forums the intention is not to reduce art to an
5
Support for this assertion might come from artists themselves: inter alia, for Wordsworth
(1802; quoted in Knowles, 1999, 832) ‘poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge’;
for Cartier-Bresson (1952; quoted in Knowles, 1999, 193) ‘photography is the simultaneous
recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise
organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression’; for de Mille (1975; quoted
in Knowles, 1999, 257) ‘the truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music.’
instrument of economic development, which compares starkly with what Sir John
Tulsa (managing director of London’s Barbican Centre) sees as the approach of
Tony Blair’s UK government: ‘what they have insisted is that the arts must fulfil a
social, political, environmental, educational or economic purpose – in other words
they must be an “instrument” for “delivering” other government policies. The impact
on some museums and galleries, according to one observer, is that “scholarship,
collection and curating are out of the window – the new breed of manager/directors is
interested only in cramming into their buildings as many schoolchildren as possible”’
(Tulsa, 2007, 11). On the contrary, although recognising that creative activities can
have ex post consequences, we see neither art nor artists as an ex ante instrument
for achieving any particular goals, instead hypothesising that the stimulation of
people’s creativity in the economic sphere is linked in a holistic sense to the freedom
of artists to express themselves in whatever directions they see fit. In part the
underlying intuition is that the link between economic creativity and artistic
expression is simply that the latter, of its essence, without recourse to plans or
instruments, provides a direct stimulant for activity in other areas, including in
thinking about strategic choices for the development of an economy. In part it is the
sense that only in an environment – a creative atmosphere – of artistic freedom can
people be emancipated to realise the full potential of their creativity in the economic
sphere; any attempt to plan ex ante functional consequences might limit the
achievements of artistic activities, and in the extreme any restraint on artistic freedom
risks the constraining of imagination and analytical powers more generally, including
in the economy.
6
4. Concluding remarks: new directions for economic geography
This paper offers a distinct perspective on the links between the development of
economies and the stimulation of people’s creativity. It emphasises strategic choice
as a source of power, hence as a determinant of uneven development. The ideas are
explored through a consideration of the nature of the transnational corporation, the
development of economies, globalisation and regional competitiveness. Private
interests are observed to occupy centre-stage in the realities people typically
experience, and we suggest the possibility that the interests of publics might provide
an insightful evaluation criterion for economic geography. The marginalisation of
6
Having recognised this, however, we would not suggest that it is necessarily desirable to
free artistic activities from all and any ethical constraints. In particular, it might be argued that
human and other species have inalienable rights.
publics is linked to their not being aware of their own existence, and from this we
identify the prospect of people in actual and potential publics kindling their
imagination and ideas so as to shape new strategic directions in the economies in
which they have an interest.
Specifically, the construction and development of public creativity forums are
advocated as an initial step in a possible alteration in strategic choice processes,
perhaps moving current economic development and globalization processes from a
Washington consensus based focus on narrow interests, hence uneven
development, towards alternatives that break the constraints implied by typical
approaches to regional competitiveness. These public creativity forums are viewed
as spaces defined not in physical terms but according to the embracing of certain
types of relations, namely those aimed at free communication about strategic choices
on the development of economies and based upon shared values: openness; a
rejection of private interests dominating the interests of publics; people’s concern,
through reasoned and coherent understanding, with each other’s ideas and
perspectives. Forums are described as having creative atmospheres in multi-
dimensional spaces; they might develop in varied inter-acting and overlapping scales
both within and across international and local territories. Echoing the words of
Calvino (1972) with which the paper is introduced, they might provide spaces for
people to step outside the economic inferno that most experience as a consequence
of the ignoring of the interest of publics.
The paper identifies visual and performing arts, music, cinema and indeed
artistic activities more generally as a viaticum for the stimulation and expression of
people’s creativity, thus a potentially significant influence on the construction and
development of public creativity forums. This is an emphasis on artistic activities that
differs markedly from the preoccupations of much other literature on creativity,
certainly in economics, where analysis of creative industries tends to concentrate on
a competition amongst peoples to produce outcomes that can be transacted on a
market. In contrast, public creativity forums are concerned with the development and
application of each person’s creativity, whether or not this can be displayed and
realised through goods and services that can be transacted on the market. From this
perspective the significance of artistic activities is their stimulating affects on people,
hence publics, with interests in any sector (‘creative industry’ or otherwise).
We would suggest that this analysis implies a new avenue for public policy: to
provide supporting instruments for the development of public creativity forums.
Included in this there is a clear opportunity for regional policy, for towns and localities
to foster the emergence of forums related to the economies in which their citizens
have an interest.
7
Moreover, because they have mutual learning, discussion and debate at their
heart, another significant catalyst in forum formation and operation would be
research and learning activities.
Information and knowledge would be crucial as both inputs and outputs to
public creativity forums, perhaps suggesting that there is a sense in which any
education system might provide suitable catalytic effects. However, the implications
of Chomsky’s (1975) perspective are that something more particular would be ideal.
We referred earlier to his comments about people’s intrinsic creativity. From that
basis he argues that the purpose of education is not ‘to control’ a person’s ‘growth to
a specific, predetermined end, because any such end must be established by
arbitrary authoritarian means; rather, the purpose of education must be to permit the
growing principle of life to take its own individual course, and to facilitate this process
by sympathy, encouragement, and challenge, and by developing a rich and
differentiated context and environment’ (164). In other words, Chomsky appears to
reject the concentration of power in the governance of people’s creative potential as
a necessary consequence of each person having – and being able to develop – their
own intrinsic creativity. Accordingly, we infer a correspondence between on the one
hand public creativity forums grounded on Chomsky’s analysis and, on the other
hand, education processes that similarly nurture and encourage people’s intrinsic
creativity.
A specific dimension of these education processes would be universities
aimed at providing research and learning activities on such a basis, in particular
without concentration in the power to determine their strategic direction (on which
see Sugden’s (2004) application of the strategic choice framework, rejecting an
approach to the organisation of universities which mimics transnational corporations).
This has implications not only for how each university is governed, but also for how
universities relate to each other and for their regional spread (on which see
7
Policy support at national and supra-national levels might be considered a direct
confrontation to the extant powers of transnational corporations and other organisations, such
as the World Bank and IMF, which are currently so influential in setting agendas for
development, globalisation and competitiveness. Hence it might be especially prone to
undermining from that power, implying that sub-national levels might be deemed particularly
appropriate spheres for policy action.
Andersson et al (2004), discussing Sweden’s policy to decentralise higher
education).
Furthermore, our analysis points to the desirability of new studies in economic
geography. For example, research to show more precisely what would be entailed in
shifting the interests of publics to centre stage, not least in the context of particular
cases. Likewise the detailed effects of such a shift; it is one thing to reason that
concentrated power in strategic decision-making is associated with uneven
development and a constraining of people’s creative capacities (as has been done in
this paper), it is another to present scientific empirical evidence on the hypothesis
that unleashing wider creativity through enabling publics would open new
opportunities to pursue new avenues of economic prosperity. There is also a
pressing need for cooperation across researchers with particular expertise in
economic geography and those with particular knowledge about artistic activities,
with the objective of better understanding the stimulatory effects of such activities in
the economic sphere.
We envisage research on, for example, the economy of particular places
(urban and non-urban) positioned in their broader spatial context, so as to identify
actual and potential publics with interests in the development of the economy; to
study those interests - their formation, expression and influence – in their different,
interacting and overlapping scales; to examine creativity in those publics and,
included in that, consider ways in which that creativity is and might be stimulated
through artistic activities so as to impact on the strategic direction of economic
activity.
Perhaps most significantly, however, we urge researchers in economic
geography to consider engaging in embryonic public creativity spaces, and indeed
contributing to their being conceived; to think about designing and undertaking their
work in active attempts to catalyse the development of such spaces.
8
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank James R Wilson for comments and discussion on
various aspects of the analysis. Thanks also to participants at the Ideas Laboratory of
8
On LIe reIuLIon beLween scIence und socIeLy, und mosL noLubIy on uspecLs oI wIuL susLuIned
InLerucLIon wouId enLuII, see LIe dIscussIon oI regIonuI scIence In Burnes (zooq), wIose
upproucI Ius overIups wILI LIe more generuI unuIysIs oI neLworks In DIcken (zoo1).
the International Festival on Creativity and Economic Development (Gambettola,
Italy, May 2007), where parts of the paper were discussed.
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Creativity in Economic Development:
Space in an Inferno
Silvia Sacchetti and Roger Sugden
Institute for Economic Development Policy
Discussion Paper Series
Paper Number 2007-02
Previous 2006-2007 IEDP Discussion Papers
2006-01 David Bailey and
Keith Cowling
Industrial Policy and Vulnerable Capitalism
2006-02 Davide Parrilli and
Silvia Sacchetti
Linking Learning with Governance in
Networks and Clusters: Key Issues for
Analysis and Policy
2006-03 David Bailey and
Lisa De Propris
EU Regional Policy, Enlargement and
Governance: Issues for the next Reform of
the Structural Funds
2006-04 Keith Cowling, Silvia
Sacchetti, Roger
Sugden and James R.
Wilson
The United Nations and Democratic
Globalisation: A Reconnaissance of the
Issues
2006-05 David Bailey, Alex De
Ruyter and Noel
Kavanagh
Lisbon, Sapir and Industrial Policy:
Evaluating the “Irish Success Story”
2006-06 David Bailey and Seiji
Kobayashi
Life After Longbridge? Crisis and
Restructuring in the West Midlands Auto
Cluster
2006-07 Lauretta Rubini Development and Health: “Relational
Learning” as a tool for Democratisation
2006-08 David Bailey and Roger
Sugden
Kdka, Restructuring and the Potential
for a ‘New’ Industrial Policy in Japan
2007-01 Mario Davide Parrilli A Tripartite Innovation Framework for Small
Firms in Developing Countries:
Key Issues for Analysis and Policy
doc_308580727.pdf
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area.
Creativity in Economic Development:
Space in an Inferno
Silvia Sacchetti and Roger Sugden
Institute for Economic Development Policy
Discussion Paper Series
Paper Number 2007-02
Creativity in Economic Development: Space in an Inferno
Silvia Sacchetti and Roger Sugden
Abstract
Emphasising power in strategic choice, we consider people in actual and potential
publics kindling their imagination and ideas so as to shape new directions in the
economies in which they have an interest. The paper proposes public creativity
forums, spaces defined by relations aimed at free communication and based upon
shared values, including openness. Artistic activities are highlighted as a viaticum for
people’s creativity, hence for their potential significance in influencing development in
any sector or region. These prospects are positioned in an analysis of transnational
corporations, uneven economic development, choices over globalisation and regional
competitiveness.
Keywords
Creative space, Artistic activities, Strategic choice, Public interests
J.E.L.: Z10, O10, R10, P00
‘The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is
already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together.
There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the
inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is
risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension; seek and learn to recognize
who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure,
give them space’ (Calvino, 1972, 164)
1. Introduction
Previous analysis suggests links between the development of economies and
the stimulation of people’s creativity. Both inter- and intra- country variations in
development (Henderson et al, 2001) are associated with such links. Over recent
years these arguments have often been framed in terms of achieving regional
‘competitiveness’ in a global market economy (Bristow, 2005), for example through
innovation in industries in general (Florida, 2002a) and through the success of
creative (or cultural) industries in particular (Caves, 2000) . In this paper, however,
we examine the links from a different perspective. Having critically considered recent
contributions on the impact of creativity based on accepted notions of
competitiveness and prosperity, we offer a novel perspective that stresses a role for
‘publics’ in creatively shaping processes of economic development.
The association between creativity and innovation suggested by Florida
(2002a) is that places with ‘a high concentration of bohemians … reflect an
underlying set of conditions or milieu which is open and attractive to talented and
creative people of all sorts … and thus create a place-based environment that is
conducive to the birth, growth and development of new and high-technology
industries’ (68). His focus is essentially market orientated, capitalist success, and his
analysis could comfortably fit into commonly made arguments about regional
competitiveness (see also Gordon and McCann (2005) on the geography of
commercial innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship). Likewise could be said of
many economic arguments about creative industries, which supply the ‘goods and
services that we broadly associate with cultural, artistic, or simply entertainment
value. They include book and magazine publishing, the visual arts (painting,
sculpture), the performing arts (theatre, opera, concerts, dance), sound recordings,
cinema and TV films, even fashion, toys and games’ (Caves, 2000, 1). The idea is
that visual and performing arts, indeed cultural activities more generally, are
associated with the production of goods and services that can be traded on markets
to desirable effect for particular localities and for particular sets of people in terms of
wealth, employment opportunities and so on. Consider, for example, Caves (2000)
on the geography of creativity; Neff (2005) on the digital media industry in New York;
Leslie and Rantisi (2006) on urban economic development and the interplay between
‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ factors in Montreal’s design economy.
We would agree that such analysis has interest and relevance, but our focus
is quite distinct. We concentrate on creativity amongst people in general, rather than
Florida’s concern with bohemian groups or indeed a ‘creative class’ (Florida, 2002b),
and rather than certain sorts of industries. Artistic activities are reasoned to be of
significance because of their potential to stimulate creativity across all sectors.
Moreover, our especial focus is not the attainment of competitiveness as commonly
understood. We share the concerns of Bristow (2005) that, despite ‘confusion as to
what the concept actually means and how it can be effectively operationalised’ (286),
competitiveness has become a theory-leading, hegemonic discourse in public policy
circles, especially in so-called developed countries. However we go further,
questioning not only the assumed aims of competitiveness but, more specifically, the
process for choosing those aims and, correspondingly, for choosing the means by
which they are pursued. This is a governance-centric perspective.
Wojcik (2006) argues that ‘economic geographers often talk about corporate
governance, without mentioning the term or referring to corporate governance
research, despite potential benefits from doing so’ (640), but he goes on to assert
that ‘the time is ripe for economic geography research to examine corporate
governance concepts and literature more explicitly’ (640-641). We follow that
assertion. Our analysis is grounded in an appreciation of large firm governance,
albeit extending beyond such organisations and with a distinct emphasis on
governance defined in terms of strategic choice (unlike in Wojcik (2006). Compare
as well, for example, Leslie and Rantisi (2006), who pay no explicit attention to
strategic choice per se and for whom governance of cultural industries refers in
particular to the role of government and the state, markets and hierarchies).
Zeitlin (1974) argues that the power to govern (in other words, to control) a
large corporation equates to the power to make the strategic decisions that
determine its broad direction; these include decisions about its relationships with
other corporations, with governments and with employees, and about its
geographical orientation. More recently, this analysis has been used as a foundation
for the so-called strategic choice framework, deploying a governance lens to view the
activities of transnational corporations, networks and other forms of economic
organisation, and to view regional, national and indeed global economies.
The basis of this framework is a heterodox economic analysis of the theory of
the firm (Cowling and Sugden, 1998a), of the development of economies (Sugden
and Wilson, 2002) and of forms of globalisation of production (Sugden and Wilson,
2005). The analysis focuses most especially on the governance of the transnational
corporation and its impact on contemporary economies (inter alia Hymer (1972) on
uneven development; Cowling and Sugden (1998b) on strategic international trade;
Cowling and Tomlinson (2000) on Japan); hence on learning from the experiences of
successful agglomerations in the likes of the Third Italy so as to nurture multinational
networking in the public interest (see, for example, Cowling and Sugden (1999) on
multinational webs; Sacchetti and Sugden (2003) on network forms; Sacchetti (2004)
on knowledge; Branston et al (2006a) on the public interest).
Whilst the strategic choice framework offers a dynamic institutional
perspective that rejects a particular stress on the neoclassicism at the heart of both
regional science and ‘new economic geography’ (Boschma and Frenken, 2006), its
foundations nevertheless reflect, and can be argued to contribute insight on,
concerns at the core of economic geography. For example, Scott (2004) asserts that
economic geography is especially focused on two areas of study: on the one hand
transnational corporations, globalisation, etc., and on the other hand spatial
agglomeration analysis, rooted in the apparent success of particular regions like the
Third Italy. These are precisely the areas of study providing critical foundations to
the strategic choice approach.
In this paper we use such an approach to consider creativity in economic
development. In doing so we would also stress that our general research
preoccupation is not with disciplinary boundaries, hence not per se with any one
notion of the likes of ‘economics’, ‘geography’ or ‘economic geography’. It is with the
scientific analysis of (aspects of) economies, our working definition of an economy
being: a complex of people whose (interacting) relations, behaviour and actions have
consequences for how production is organised, hence implications for the
satisfaction of (human and other) interests.
1
There can be no doubt that the ideas
relevant to understanding an economy so conceptualised encompass at their core
1
The stress on people’s relations behaviour and actions is rooted in the seminal views of
Marshall (1920) and Robbins (1932), and the focus on production and organisation is in line
with Backhouse (2002). We would also highlight that the definition is relatively open in terms
of what people might seek from an economy, encapsulating material and non-material
dimensions; and it removes Marshall’s centre-stage concern with mankind in favour of
considering human and other interests.
spatial factors, as both determinants and outcomes. They clearly also entail myriad
complex factors, and a consequence of bounded rationality is that our research does
not presume to be all encompassing. Instead, we seek a coherent perspective that
offers significant insight.
The analysis proceeds as follows. Section 2 lays the foundations for our
appreciation of creativity by considering in detail the strategic choice approach to
economic development, competitiveness and globalisation, rooting analysis in
understanding of the transnational corporation. This leads to an examination of the
distinction between private and public interests, hence the possibility of the latter as a
criterion for economic geography to assess realities. It concludes that public interests
tend to be marginalised in people’s typical experiences and, with that in mind,
Section 3 focuses on the kindling of people’s creativity so that they might shape new
strategic directions in the economies in which they have an interest. We advocate
‘public creativity forums’ and explore what that would mean. Section 3.1 discusses a
notion of ‘creative atmosphere’, related to but distinct from Marshall’s (1920) concept
of industrial atmosphere. Section 3.2 considers visual and performing arts, music,
cinema and indeed artistic activities more generally as a viaticum for the stimulation
and expression of people’s creativity, thus a potentially significant influence on
strategic direction across all sectors. Section 4 offers concluding remarks: a
summary, and a suggestion to consider new action research in economic geography.
2. Power and uneven development
The concentration of power and uneven development are in many respects well
recognised in economic geography. For example, Henderson et al (2001) review
analysis of uneven development across and within countries, and its relation to
issues such as trade, investment, technology, urbanisation and income. For them,
‘the most striking fact about the economic geography of the world is the uneven
distribution of activity’ (81), reflected in 54% of world GDP being produced by
countries occupying 10% of the land mass. Similarly Coe and Yeung (2001),
asserting that not only is ‘uneven development … the single most visible structural
outcome of globalisation processes’ (370), it has been studied by radical
geographers since well before globalisation became a key word in the social
sciences in the 1990s. Moreover, they identify two elements to the unevenness,
structural (different impacts across sectors in a given territory) and geographical
(variations across territories), and relate the latter to ‘uneven power relations
underlying most global production chains such that some segments of these chains
have disproportionately greater power and control over other segments’ (371). It is
notable that this recognition of concentrated power applies not only to the power
associated with particular regions, but also to that of particular firms. Consider for
example Fold (2001), highlighting the impacts of large producers in the chocolate
industry in Europe on cocoa production in West Africa, and linking those with the
influences of the structural adjustment programmes stimulated by the World Bank
and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
What has tended to be ignored in these analyses, however, is a consideration
of strategic choice as the source of power, hence as a root cause of uneven
development.
The potential significance of this perspective was indicated in the heterodox
economics literature by Hymer’s (1972) seminal contribution – also well before
globalisation became a popular concern in the social sciences. He recognised
transnational corporations as likely to be especially influential organisations in the
world economy, and contemplated what this would imply by extrapolating from an
appreciation of their place in the historical development of US capitalism. Hymer
argued (ibid, 50):
‘One would expect to find the highest offices of the [transnational]
corporations concentrated in the world’s major cities … These … will be
… major centres of high-level strategic planning. Lesser cities throughout
the world will deal with the day-to-day operations of specific local
problems. These in turn will be arranged in a hierarchical fashion: the
larger and more important ones will contain regional corporate
headquarters, while the smaller ones will be confined to lower level
activities. Since business is usually the core of the city, geographical
specialisation will come to reflect the hierarchy of corporate decision
making, and the occupational distribution of labour in a city or region will
depend upon its function in the international economic system.’
Hymer’s analysis has been criticized in its details because it simplifies a complex
reality, yet it has also been argued on the basis of the empirical evidence that if it is
accepted for the characterisation that it purports to be, then it offers insight (Dicken,
1992; Cowling and Sugden, 1994). Indeed, his analysis has received increased
theoretical and empirical attention over the last decade.
2.1 The strategic choice framework
The focus on corporations and strategy is taken up in Cowling and Sugden
(1998a), grounding analysis in Coase (1937, 1991) but critiquing mainstream
economic theories, including the transactions cost approach that rests on Williamson
(1975). Accommodating debates about differences across corporations with their
‘homes’ in different countries, not least the idea of distinctions between Anglo-US
and Japanese firms (Aoki, 1990), as well as debates about flexible specialisation -
reorganisation by large corporations along lines implied by successful
agglomerations of small firms in, for instance, the Third Italy (Sabel, 1988) - the
strategy perspective reasons that large corporations are characterised by an
essential symmetry: a concentration in the power to make strategic decisions over
the direction of production. Drawing on Zeitlin (1974), the basic idea is as follows
(see also Branston et al, 2006a; Bailey et al, 2006):
• A transnational corporation can be shown to have an explicit and/or implicit
strategy that is more or less coherent;
• This strategy encompasses the aims of the corporation, both what those aims
are and the broad terms for their pursuit;
• The strategy is especially (albeit not all) important in determining the activity that
the corporation undertakes;
• The strategy has determinants, including choices that can be conscious and/or
unconscious;
2
• The power to choose its strategy equates to the power to govern the corporation:
to govern is to have the ability to choose – subject to constraints – both the aims
of the corporation, and the broad terms for their pursuit;
• The power to govern typically lies with a subset of those with an interest in the
corporation’s activities, despite the objections and perhaps resistance of other
interested parties.
3
Sugden and Wilson (2002) apply this perspective to a consideration of the
development of economies. They position Hymer’s (1972) analysis of uneven
development in the context of the agenda supplied by the ‘Washington consensus’
(Williamson, 1990; Rodrik, 1996), which places transnational corporations at its heart
and a version of which has been a strong prevailing influence throughout most
countries of the world since the early 1980s (as illustrated by Fold’s (2001)
2
This perspective has strong ties with Penrose (1952, 818): ‘there is considerable evidence
that … many decisions are reached after a conscious consideration of alternatives, and that
men have a wide range of genuine choices.’
3
The applicability of this perspective across countries and legal jurisdictions is implicitly
addressed in a growing literature on convergence in corporate governance. See for example
Wojcik (2006), examining practice across Europe and finding evidence of convergence to an
Anglo-US model.
aforementioned analysis of the World Bank and IMF backed structural adjustment
programmes in West Africa). Illustrating from South Africa and Nicaragua, and as
with transnational corporations, they reason that insofar as the aims of economic
development for a particular region are chosen, the process is typically characterised
by a concentration of power, with the institutions at the core of the Washington
consensus being especially influential – for example through the World Bank’s (1999)
emphasis on GNP per capita, or the UNDP’s (1997) broader approach based upon
its Human Development Index. This conclusion accords with Nelson Mandela’s
perception that ‘people living in poverty have the least access to power to shape
policies – to shape their future’ (Mandela, 2006, 1).
The strategic choice framework recognises that, for any region, there are
many people with an interest in its economic development, and many who might
have a view on development aims (Branston et al, 2006b), it is just that in current
practice they tend to have little or no effective voice. They would include those who
currently live in the region, as well as those who might live there in the future, not
least potential immigrants. Moreover, the development in and around the region
would likely impact on, and be impacted by, development elsewhere – in other places
in the same country, continent and indeed the world. People in those places might
have interests that are relevant, and possibly experiences which they could
exchange with others, so that together people and regions might all find more
desirable development aims.
Analogous arguments to those about economic development are also made
by Sugden and Wilson (2005) when analysing the conceptualisation of globalisation.
They suggest that models of development correspond to models of globalisation. For
example, the Washington consensus development agenda is associated with a
Washington consensus form of globalisation; the aims of both are identical, and each
implies a parallel set of strategic choices to the other. This reasoning overlaps with
that in Coe and Yeung (2001), who stress that ‘economic globalisation is not some
kind of immutable inevitability, but a set of processes that is socially constructed, and
therefore can be encouraged or resisted by actors/institutions at various scales’
(368). In other words, we might view strategic decisions to pursue a Washington
consensus development agenda as paralleled by strategic decisions to pursue a
Washington consensus form of globalisation.
This perspective can also be extended to a consideration of competitiveness.
Consistent with comments in this paper’s Introduction, competitiveness is a
conveniently flexible and loosely used concept; as Poerksen (1995) said of
‘development’, and as we might observe of ‘globalisation’, ‘competitiveness’ is a
plastic word. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note Bristow’s (2005) observation that
‘the regional competitiveness discourse ignores the possibility that regional prosperity
might be achieved … by the development of community or social enterprises which
meet broader social and environmental … objectives. As a consequence, policies
tend to prioritise rather narrow, private sector originated agendas at the expense of
broader regeneration initiatives’ (295). That is to say, the aims of regional
competitiveness are confined, provided by the private sector agendas that inform,
and are therefore in line with, the Washington consensus development agenda which
seeks, for example, to enable private enterprise and in particular transnational
corporations to freely move goods, services and capital across economies.
4
2.2 The interests of publics
Bristow’s (2005) recognition that private agendas occupy centre-stage can be re-
interpreted as public interests being confined to the margins, causing us to raise the
possibility that the interests of publics might provide a suitable evaluation criterion for
economic geography. This follows Long (1990), who proposes the public interest as
a criterion for research and policy in public administration and political science, and
Branston et al (2006a), who suggest it for much of economics.
According to Dewey’s (1927) seminal work in political and social philosophy,
an action – such as making a strategic choice – might have significant consequences
for two categories of people: private interests, those who are directly engaged in the
action; public interests, those not directly engaged (see also Young, 2002). An action
might be associated with multiple private interests and multiple publics. Each public
is seen to have shared concerns.
Drawing on Dewey (1927), Long (1990) views a public interest as an evolving
consensus, a criterion agreed upon by a public and against which private actions can
be assessed. For him, therefore, the ‘consequences of private parties’ actions create
a public as that public discovers its shared concern with their effects and the need for
their control. The public’s shared concern with consequences is a public interest’
(171). Referring to this, Branston et al (2006a, 195) identify ‘the public interest in a
corporation’s activities in general and in its strategies in particular as the agreed
upon, evolving concerns amongst all of those indirectly and significantly affected by
those activities and strategies (wherever they live, whatever their nationality).’
4
Compare Branston et al (2006b), offering the prospect of a conceptualisation of
competitiveness that is much broader, albeit not arguing that broad approach is currently
pursued in practice.
To illustrate, according to the strategic choice framework, to the extent that
the aims of the typical transnational corporation, and the broad terms for their pursuit,
are chosen, the decision is made by a subset of those with an interest in the
corporation’s activities. That choice by private interests impacts on others, on publics.
Positive outcomes discussed in the literature include effects on technological transfer
and contingent employment growth, commonly argued as potentially desirable
consequences of incoming foreign direct investment with respect to the development
of localities (see, for instance, the appraisal of transnationals’ impacts in Dicken
(2007)). However, even in these cases we would argue that an exclusion issue
remains, and that technological transfer and employment growth induced by
transnationals have their shortcomings (Blomström, 1986; Blomström and Kokko,
2002).
Consider also, for example, the implications for international trade. Cowling
and Sugden (1998b) suggest that ‘free international trade’ implies the freedom of the
private interests governing transnational corporations to manage trade in pursuit of
their own interests, despite the possibly adverse impacts on others. This includes, for
example, managing trade in pursuit of a divide and rule approach to labour. The idea
is that the strategic decision-makers of a transnational corporation might be
concerned to improve their bargaining power with respect to employees, so as to
improve profits. Accordingly, a corporation supplying markets across Europe might
deliberately opt to produce the same goods in various countries, so that if employee
industrial action in one country interrupts supply, that might be compensated by an
increase in supply from elsewhere (on the basis that collective action tends to be
more problematic for employees across rather than within countries). Such strategies
clearly have consequences beyond the private interests making the choice; not least,
the affected employees are a public with an interest in the action.
Similar arguments could be made in the analysis of uneven development,
globalisation and regional competitiveness. Following Hymer (1972), concentrations
in the power to govern corporations have significant effects on levels of development,
wealth and poverty; those in poverty in so-called less developed countries have
public interests in the strategic choices of transnationals. Sacchetti (2004), for
instance, applies Hymer’s divide and rule strategy (Hymer 1972) to knowledge
production and diffusion across countries. Referring to the international division of
labour, and critical towards current faith in technological transfer, she argues –
building on Marglin (1974) – that the geographical scattering of different activities,
which follows strategic decisions taken by restricted groups organising activities
transnationally, may jeopardise peoples' knowledge in those localities where
concentration of operational and repetitive tasks occurs. Vicious cycles, as path
dependence theories would explain (Nelson, 1994), might then start to build up,
affecting institutions, for instance in the education system, by shaping strategies in
ways that suit the transnational production system, possibly disregarding the
interests of different publics.
Likewise the analysis of globalisation, concentration of strategic decision-
making power in a Washington consensus stimulated reality implying publics with
interest that are not being met, as reflected in the frustrations and actions of so-called
anti-globalisation movements. These are made up of diverse people and groups,
most of whom are probably not against globalisation in the sense of using new
technologies and opportunities to decrease the territorial barriers between people
(Sugden and Wilson, 2005). They form interested publics, expressing their interests
in protests against the outcomes of current forms of globalisation, and against the
ways in which those outcomes are being pursued.
In principle a fundamental issue might be that public interests are being
deliberately flouted, but even 80 years ago Dewey (1927, 314) identified another
possibility, one that technological changes and the so-called new economy might
make even more pertinent today (evidence of vociferous portions of anti-globalisation
movements notwithstanding):
‘Indirect, extensive, enduring and serious consequences of conjoint and
interacting behaviour call a public into existence having a common
interest in controlling … consequences. But the machine age has so
enormously expanded, multiplied, intensified and complicated the scope
of the indirect consequences … that the resultant public cannot identify
and distinguish itself.’
He sees a special problem with ‘the eclipse of the public’ (304), which ‘seems to be
lost’ (308), ‘amorphous and unarticulated’ (317). For Dewey (ibid, 327), ‘the prime
difficulty’ for acting in the public interest is discovery of ‘the means by which a
scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognise itself as to define and
express its interests.’
3. Creativity, communication and public space
An implication of our analysis of power, uneven development and strategic choice is
that confining the interests of publics to the margins raises fundamental queries
about the exercise of creativity in economic development. More specifically,
excluding actual and potential publics from strategic choice processes would seem to
deny the people who make up those publics the opportunity to develop and use their
imagination and ideas (their creativity) in the shaping and determination of economic
strategy. For example, echoing the words of Bristow (2005), prioritising narrow,
private inputs in the regional competitiveness discourse ignores the possibility that
regional economic prosperity might be achieved by the development of innovative
economic strategies that are stimulated by the imagination and ideas of currently
excluded people, who might also catalyse the targeting of broader and even currently
unimagined aims. This would have no import if the currently excluded people have no
inherent creativity to bring to bear, but that seems most unlikely. Consider, for
instance, the thoughts of Chomsky (1975) on the education of children. He argues
that each person has an intrinsic, unique creativity and that this needs to be nurtured,
hence he advocates education aimed ‘to provide the soil and the freedom required
for the growth of this creative impulse’ (164).
Moreover, an exclusion of publics might be associated with a downward
spiral: people’s creativity is not being exercised, thus not stimulated, explored and
enhanced; therefore their capabilities to exercise imagination are truncated and even
lost; therefore their creativity is not exercised … This might lead to, and be fed by,
perceptions of ‘not counting’. Dewey’s (1927) focus on publics being eclipsed is also
a relevant factor: perhaps a reason for the eclipse is an exclusion which, over time,
becomes self reinforcing, resulting in a public loosing sight of itself, of not even being
aware of its own existence.
Viewed from the opposite direction, however, this analysis implies a challenge
and potential opportunity: people in actual and potential publics might seek to kindle
their imagination and ideas, to exercise their creativity, thereby attempt to seize
opportunities to shape and determine strategic choices influencing the development
of the economies in which they have an interest. Although the precise consequences
that this might have are unclear, we would hypothesise that there would be
opportunities to pursue new avenues of economic prosperity, simply because more
people would be exercising their creativity and would be doing so in search of new
strategies (Sugden and Wilson, 2005).
As for how to enable creative publics, a first step is suggested by Dewey’s
(1927) consideration of the means by which lost publics might find themselves. For
him, ‘the essential need … is the improvement of the methods and conditions of
debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public’ (365). The
necessary continuous, inclusive discourse is argued to be in part an attitude acquired
by nurtured habit, and he stresses knowledge, learning and communication:
‘An obvious requirement is freedom of social inquiry and of distribution of
its conclusions … There can be no public without full publicity in respect
to all consequences which concern it. Whatever obstructs and restricts
publicity, limits and distorts public opinion and checks and distorts
thinking on social affairs. Without freedom of expression, not even
methods of social enquiry can be developed. For tools can be evolved
and perfected only in operation; in application to observing, reporting and
organizing actual subject-matter; and this application cannot occur save
through free and systematic communication’ (ibid, emphasis added, 339-
340).
A related stress on communication is also seen in analysis of the
competence-based view of the knowledge economy (reviewed in the context of
economic geography by Gertler, 2001). For example, Amin and Cohendet (2000, 99)
consider effective knowledge circulation in an organisation as associated with
‘dialogue, discussion, experience-sharing’, and to ‘socialising activities’. In issue are
cognitive phenomena generated through interaction. There is a particular focus on
‘relationships, based on shared norms and conventions’ and on communities of
practice, ‘groups of individuals informally bound together by shared expertise and a
common problem’ (Gertler, 2001, 18). The reference to common problem echoes the
common interest essential to a public, and suggests that the identification of publics
might learn from analysis of communities of practice and the competence-based view
of the knowledge economy more generally.
Accordingly we infer that creative publics might be enabled, in the first
instance, by the construction and nurturing of ‘public creativity forums’, spaces where
people - the members of actual and potential publics – can freely engage with each
other in learning, discussion and debate about the development of the economies in
which they have an interest; where people’s relations are characterised by shared
values of openness, of their essence rejecting any significant influence of private
over public interests, so as to avoid outcomes that are essentially similar to the
current realities of concentrated power in economic development, competitiveness
and globalisation; where people recognise and cultivate a concern with each other’s
ideas and perspectives through reasoned and coherent understanding, so as to
anchor the foundations for the interest of each public in rational argument and
analysis. (Using the terminology of Scott (2006, 3), a public creativity forum can be
viewed as a specific type of ‘creative field’, a notion that ‘can be used to describe any
system of social relationships that shapes or influences human ingenuity and
inventiveness and that is the site of concomitant innovations.’)
We hypothesise that with public creativity forums as a basis, people could
start – with respect for each other and hence for publics – to discuss and talk with
others, to share arguments and mutually influence ideas by increasing – through
communication – the diversity of perspectives and possibilities on the strategic
choices that underpin the development of economies.
3.1 Creative atmosphere
It follows from our analysis thus far that public creativity forums would have an
atmosphere in some ways similar to the ‘industrial atmosphere’ that Marshall (1920)
identified as characteristic of certain places. He refers to people in an agglomerated
industry receiving ‘advantages … from near neighbourhood to one another. The
mysteries of the trade become no mysteries; but are as it were in the air, and children
learn them unconsciously’ (271). For example, ‘if one man starts a new idea, it is
taken up by others and combined with suggestions of their own; and thus it becomes
the source of further new ideas’ (ibid). Public creativity forums would be similarly
spaces where the exercise of imagination and the pursuit of ideas are in the
atmosphere; spaces where ideas flow between people, learning from each other,
shaping each other’s perspectives.
However, a crucial difference is that when analysing industrial atmosphere
Marshall (1920) is not especially concerned with strategic choices in an economy.
Furthermore, whilst he considers place we focus on the more general notion of
creative atmosphere conceived in socio-economic space.
In this respect our argument follows the likes of Lorentzen (2007) (see also,
for example, Agrawal et al (2006), who use empirical evidence on patenting to
consider the significance of social relationships in altering the impact of geographical
proximity on knowledge flows; the discussions of relational proximity in Amin (2000)
and Gertler (2001); and Boschma’s (2005) consideration of proximity concepts more
broadly). Lorentzen refers to an agreement in the literature that knowledge is
developed and exchanged in social spaces, but she criticises the tendency in
research on regional development policy to degenerate this insight into territorial
determinism; analysis tends to focus on place (industrial districts, milieus …) rather
than space, when it is the latter that is most relevant to knowledge flows and
innovation.
The implication we draw from Lorentzen is that creative atmospheres can be
generated and renewed through multi-dimensional spaces. In some circumstances
these might include a special territorial dimension – a public creativity forum rooted in
and developed from a particular region is certainly conceivable - but not necessarily.
More generally forums might develop in different, inter-acting and overlapping scales
– for example in creativity festivals, conferences, meetings, projects (including
university-linked projects) …, both within and across territories, international and
local (see also Dicken et al (2001) on multiple scales in the global economy).
3.2 Artistic activities
It was observed in the Introduction that the subject of creative industries – hence
visual and performing arts, music, cinema and indeed artistic activities more
generally – has become topical in large part because of their potential for contributing
to wealth creation in a competitive market environment. However, an implication of
our analysis is another, quite distinct explanation for a telling impact: because artistic
activities are a viaticum for the stimulation and expression of people’s creativity,
5
they
are a potentially significant stimulant in the construction and development of public
creativity forums. It can even be hypothesised that people’s openness and access to
artistic activities is a crucible for evolving public creativity forums.
This direction of causality accords with Scott (2004, 488): writing of the recent
cultural turn in economic geography, he identifies ‘a growing conviction that not only
were certain earlier generations of geographers and other social scientists incorrect
to regard culture simply as an outcome of underlying economic realities, but that
these realities themselves are in fundamental ways subject to the play of cultural
forces.’ This is also a point long before recognised but since lost:
‘Adam Smith, the master builder of models in both economics and ethics,
was … as thoroughly comfortable drawing his lessons from Hamlet as
from Hume. Like the creator of a patchwork quilt, he dapples in dramas,
dabs in novels, dusts in some poetry and bellows opera. It is not simply
that Smith likes and employs the arts. Rather … Smith finds the arts
essential for the task at hand – understanding and moulding human
conscience (Wight, 2006, 56, emphasis added).
Moreover, in urging the significance of artistic activities for the construction
and nurturing of public creativity forums the intention is not to reduce art to an
5
Support for this assertion might come from artists themselves: inter alia, for Wordsworth
(1802; quoted in Knowles, 1999, 832) ‘poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge’;
for Cartier-Bresson (1952; quoted in Knowles, 1999, 193) ‘photography is the simultaneous
recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise
organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression’; for de Mille (1975; quoted
in Knowles, 1999, 257) ‘the truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music.’
instrument of economic development, which compares starkly with what Sir John
Tulsa (managing director of London’s Barbican Centre) sees as the approach of
Tony Blair’s UK government: ‘what they have insisted is that the arts must fulfil a
social, political, environmental, educational or economic purpose – in other words
they must be an “instrument” for “delivering” other government policies. The impact
on some museums and galleries, according to one observer, is that “scholarship,
collection and curating are out of the window – the new breed of manager/directors is
interested only in cramming into their buildings as many schoolchildren as possible”’
(Tulsa, 2007, 11). On the contrary, although recognising that creative activities can
have ex post consequences, we see neither art nor artists as an ex ante instrument
for achieving any particular goals, instead hypothesising that the stimulation of
people’s creativity in the economic sphere is linked in a holistic sense to the freedom
of artists to express themselves in whatever directions they see fit. In part the
underlying intuition is that the link between economic creativity and artistic
expression is simply that the latter, of its essence, without recourse to plans or
instruments, provides a direct stimulant for activity in other areas, including in
thinking about strategic choices for the development of an economy. In part it is the
sense that only in an environment – a creative atmosphere – of artistic freedom can
people be emancipated to realise the full potential of their creativity in the economic
sphere; any attempt to plan ex ante functional consequences might limit the
achievements of artistic activities, and in the extreme any restraint on artistic freedom
risks the constraining of imagination and analytical powers more generally, including
in the economy.
6
4. Concluding remarks: new directions for economic geography
This paper offers a distinct perspective on the links between the development of
economies and the stimulation of people’s creativity. It emphasises strategic choice
as a source of power, hence as a determinant of uneven development. The ideas are
explored through a consideration of the nature of the transnational corporation, the
development of economies, globalisation and regional competitiveness. Private
interests are observed to occupy centre-stage in the realities people typically
experience, and we suggest the possibility that the interests of publics might provide
an insightful evaluation criterion for economic geography. The marginalisation of
6
Having recognised this, however, we would not suggest that it is necessarily desirable to
free artistic activities from all and any ethical constraints. In particular, it might be argued that
human and other species have inalienable rights.
publics is linked to their not being aware of their own existence, and from this we
identify the prospect of people in actual and potential publics kindling their
imagination and ideas so as to shape new strategic directions in the economies in
which they have an interest.
Specifically, the construction and development of public creativity forums are
advocated as an initial step in a possible alteration in strategic choice processes,
perhaps moving current economic development and globalization processes from a
Washington consensus based focus on narrow interests, hence uneven
development, towards alternatives that break the constraints implied by typical
approaches to regional competitiveness. These public creativity forums are viewed
as spaces defined not in physical terms but according to the embracing of certain
types of relations, namely those aimed at free communication about strategic choices
on the development of economies and based upon shared values: openness; a
rejection of private interests dominating the interests of publics; people’s concern,
through reasoned and coherent understanding, with each other’s ideas and
perspectives. Forums are described as having creative atmospheres in multi-
dimensional spaces; they might develop in varied inter-acting and overlapping scales
both within and across international and local territories. Echoing the words of
Calvino (1972) with which the paper is introduced, they might provide spaces for
people to step outside the economic inferno that most experience as a consequence
of the ignoring of the interest of publics.
The paper identifies visual and performing arts, music, cinema and indeed
artistic activities more generally as a viaticum for the stimulation and expression of
people’s creativity, thus a potentially significant influence on the construction and
development of public creativity forums. This is an emphasis on artistic activities that
differs markedly from the preoccupations of much other literature on creativity,
certainly in economics, where analysis of creative industries tends to concentrate on
a competition amongst peoples to produce outcomes that can be transacted on a
market. In contrast, public creativity forums are concerned with the development and
application of each person’s creativity, whether or not this can be displayed and
realised through goods and services that can be transacted on the market. From this
perspective the significance of artistic activities is their stimulating affects on people,
hence publics, with interests in any sector (‘creative industry’ or otherwise).
We would suggest that this analysis implies a new avenue for public policy: to
provide supporting instruments for the development of public creativity forums.
Included in this there is a clear opportunity for regional policy, for towns and localities
to foster the emergence of forums related to the economies in which their citizens
have an interest.
7
Moreover, because they have mutual learning, discussion and debate at their
heart, another significant catalyst in forum formation and operation would be
research and learning activities.
Information and knowledge would be crucial as both inputs and outputs to
public creativity forums, perhaps suggesting that there is a sense in which any
education system might provide suitable catalytic effects. However, the implications
of Chomsky’s (1975) perspective are that something more particular would be ideal.
We referred earlier to his comments about people’s intrinsic creativity. From that
basis he argues that the purpose of education is not ‘to control’ a person’s ‘growth to
a specific, predetermined end, because any such end must be established by
arbitrary authoritarian means; rather, the purpose of education must be to permit the
growing principle of life to take its own individual course, and to facilitate this process
by sympathy, encouragement, and challenge, and by developing a rich and
differentiated context and environment’ (164). In other words, Chomsky appears to
reject the concentration of power in the governance of people’s creative potential as
a necessary consequence of each person having – and being able to develop – their
own intrinsic creativity. Accordingly, we infer a correspondence between on the one
hand public creativity forums grounded on Chomsky’s analysis and, on the other
hand, education processes that similarly nurture and encourage people’s intrinsic
creativity.
A specific dimension of these education processes would be universities
aimed at providing research and learning activities on such a basis, in particular
without concentration in the power to determine their strategic direction (on which
see Sugden’s (2004) application of the strategic choice framework, rejecting an
approach to the organisation of universities which mimics transnational corporations).
This has implications not only for how each university is governed, but also for how
universities relate to each other and for their regional spread (on which see
7
Policy support at national and supra-national levels might be considered a direct
confrontation to the extant powers of transnational corporations and other organisations, such
as the World Bank and IMF, which are currently so influential in setting agendas for
development, globalisation and competitiveness. Hence it might be especially prone to
undermining from that power, implying that sub-national levels might be deemed particularly
appropriate spheres for policy action.
Andersson et al (2004), discussing Sweden’s policy to decentralise higher
education).
Furthermore, our analysis points to the desirability of new studies in economic
geography. For example, research to show more precisely what would be entailed in
shifting the interests of publics to centre stage, not least in the context of particular
cases. Likewise the detailed effects of such a shift; it is one thing to reason that
concentrated power in strategic decision-making is associated with uneven
development and a constraining of people’s creative capacities (as has been done in
this paper), it is another to present scientific empirical evidence on the hypothesis
that unleashing wider creativity through enabling publics would open new
opportunities to pursue new avenues of economic prosperity. There is also a
pressing need for cooperation across researchers with particular expertise in
economic geography and those with particular knowledge about artistic activities,
with the objective of better understanding the stimulatory effects of such activities in
the economic sphere.
We envisage research on, for example, the economy of particular places
(urban and non-urban) positioned in their broader spatial context, so as to identify
actual and potential publics with interests in the development of the economy; to
study those interests - their formation, expression and influence – in their different,
interacting and overlapping scales; to examine creativity in those publics and,
included in that, consider ways in which that creativity is and might be stimulated
through artistic activities so as to impact on the strategic direction of economic
activity.
Perhaps most significantly, however, we urge researchers in economic
geography to consider engaging in embryonic public creativity spaces, and indeed
contributing to their being conceived; to think about designing and undertaking their
work in active attempts to catalyse the development of such spaces.
8
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank James R Wilson for comments and discussion on
various aspects of the analysis. Thanks also to participants at the Ideas Laboratory of
8
On LIe reIuLIon beLween scIence und socIeLy, und mosL noLubIy on uspecLs oI wIuL susLuIned
InLerucLIon wouId enLuII, see LIe dIscussIon oI regIonuI scIence In Burnes (zooq), wIose
upproucI Ius overIups wILI LIe more generuI unuIysIs oI neLworks In DIcken (zoo1).
the International Festival on Creativity and Economic Development (Gambettola,
Italy, May 2007), where parts of the paper were discussed.
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Creativity in Economic Development:
Space in an Inferno
Silvia Sacchetti and Roger Sugden
Institute for Economic Development Policy
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