Debates and Surveys 871 lines from Peck ’ s otherwise impressive book

ion in much of recent geographical writing that simply be bad concepts. Or, they may be addressed to diVerent audiences, meaning something distinctly particularly shortchanges the role of the state in shaping territorial development. LOVERING, 1998, in a comdiVerent in each forum. The fuzziness in this case could be accidental or it could be deliberate. Political pelling critique, demonstrates how the recent economic history of Wales has been rewritten with the help of organizers often look for umbrella concepts that can pull strange bedfellows together ± s̀ustainability’ might what he calls `woolly theory’ , excising the extremely important role of public sector spending and presuming be an example. Or, someone wishing to obscure a 872 Debates and Surveys hegemonic or power relationship might choose to use niques of deconstructionism, constructionism, ethnomethodology and narrative from the ® ne arts and a rhetoric of inclusion ± `market’ is a case in point, and c̀ommunity’ is a word which is sometimes used in philosophy. These are often provocative ± take, for instance, Schoenberger’s fascinating accounts of this fashion (LYNCH and MARKUSEN, 1994). Such fuzziness may be useful for someone writing from a Lockheed and Xerox’s spatial strategies in her new book, The Cultural Crisis of the Firm (1997). However, dissident or relatively powerless position as well. In Dunlap’s analysis of the writing diYculties of MIT and authors of qualitative accounts often fail to make the case that the particular case study is representative or Berkeley graduate students from developing countries, she found that fear of political reprisal or rejection that the ® ndings from it are generalizable. Schoenberger’s two firm studies, for instance, suggest diametrically often led to obfuscation and elliptical conceptualization (DUNLAP, 1990). diVerent outcomes from spatial separation of ® rm operations ± functional in the case of Lockheed, dysIt is not my intention here to engage in a debate on epistemology and the sociology of knowledge. The functional in the case of Xerox. Her conclusion that Lockheed needed to segregate its missiles and space issues touched on tangentially above could be more satisfactorily debated with tools from social theory and division spatially from its aircraft division to succeed prompts one to wonder why another successful partiphilosophy. My point is to show the links between fuzzy concepts and theory, the wane of concern for cipant in both markets, Boeing, apparently did not. Of course, statistical studies which claim representativeness evidence and an increasing distance between intellectual work and policy. are often also riddled with ambiguities of various kinds, but these are generally more transparent and thus more likely to prompt written comment and The slippage in standards of evidence and method critique. Often the quality of case studies is hampered by Perhaps one reason why regional scholars have found it easier to promulgate fuzzy concepts is that the narrowness or b̀linkers’ imposed on the subject by the researcher or by unwarranted selectivity in choice of literature has become increasingly permissive about the quality of, and the necessity to, include evidence in data or interviewees. Scott’s early work on Orange County, for instance, focused on showcasing entreprenpublished research. The term t̀heorist’ is often applied to those who deal mainly in abstractions and abjure eurial electronics firms missed entirely the strong connections between them and the nearby Los Angeles empirical veri® cation, rather than to those who take up knotty problems, hypothesize about their nature military industrial complex and their continued deep dependence on government military contracts and causality, and marshal evidence in support of their views. It is common to hear scholars refer to a divide (SCOTT, 1986; MALECKI , 1987, MARKUSEN et al., 1991). Schoenberger’s powerful account of the struggle between the quantitative people and the theorists, as if those who use data for evidence have no theory and within Lockheed between the aircraft and the missile programme managers omits the parallel and antecedent those who d̀o’ theory have no use for evidence. Evidence, broadly speaking, is fundamental to the struggle within the ® rm’s dominant client, the Air Force, between the pro-pilot, pro-bomber advocates credibility of contending theories of regional development, and yet our standards of evidence seem to have and those who saw unmanned ICBMs as the superior nuclear delivery platform (MARKUSEN et al., 1991). slipped dramatically in the past decade. Many published pieces would bene® t from a map or a table of summary Case studies are diYcult for others to replicate, a timehonoured method of checking the quality of evidence, statistics setting the topic in context. Granted, researchers must contend with inadequate secondary data simply because they are so time-intensive and require on-site interviews. Below, I use the Silicon Valley sources and time and ® nancial constraints on datagenerating original research. But excellent quantitative case, where my colleagues have done ® eld research complementary to Saxenian’s, to illustrate some of accounts are eminently possible in many crucial regional development and policy areas ± I showcase these issues in case study research. The connections between the proliferation of fuzzy several below. Furthermore, new quantitative regional comparative techniques, such as Isserman, Beaumont concepts and devaluation of evidence in regional development scholarship are several. Ill-de® ned conand Rephann’s quasi-experimental methods (ISSERMAN and BEAUMONT, 1989; ISSERMAN and cepts are simply more diYcult to demonstrate empirically. Alternatively, fuzziness could be attractive to some REPHANN , 1995), are breaking new ground. Qualitative techniques have also advanced signi® cantly in writers simply because it excuses them from doing the hard work of documentation and to others because it regional studies, as judiciously chosen and interpreted case studies enrich our understanding of regional enables them to avoid politically diYcult issues, the naming of names or pointing the ® nger. development. Contemporary regionalists are now much more freAlthough I place a great deal of emphasis on empirical veri® cation in what follows, I am not arguing that quently writing narratives or case studies of particular regional development phenomena, borrowing techall concepts must be operationalized to be useful. New Debates and Surveys 873 and valid concepts may be diYcult to operationalize Fordism, that it is characterized by the externalization of transactions and thus the disintegration of large ® rms because we lack appropriate data or evidence. The concept itself may provoke the generation of new data and the rise of smaller, less specialized and locally networked ® rms, and that it creates a tendency toward as, for instance, the notions of aggregate demand and gross national product prompted the creation of spatial re-agglomeration, counteracting the tendency towards dispersion noted in the product/pro® t cycle national income accounting systems in the 1930s, or the big bang theory of the creation of the universe literature. It is mostly strongly articulated by STORPER and SCOTT, 1988: evoked new empirical techniques which eventually supported its protagonists’ remarkable contentions. Indeed, it now seems that a new, hegemonic model of I stress the value of subjecting new concepts to industrialization, urbanization and regional development empirical tests, by which I mean simply evidence of one has been making its historical appearance in the US and sort or another, not necessarily quantitative, because it Western Europe . (p. 21) is often the best way of revealing inadequacies in Because of the tendency to externalization of the transconceptualization. Even designing such research withactional structures of production, selected sets of proout carrying it out may have a salutary eVect. Having ducers with especially dense interlinkages have a tendency to commit oneself to stating where and when a concept to agglomerate locationally . (p. 26) applies and where it does not is often the easiest way Accordingly, the turn towards ̄ exibility has been marked by a to pare fuzzy concepts down to a sharp and clear decisive re-agglomeration of production and the resurgence of pro® le. It may be suYcient to state where and how the phenomenon of the industrial district. (emphasis in other researchers and readers could observe the pheoriginal, p. 27) nomenon if and when we have adequate evidence. The ̄ exible specialization concept has other important facets, particularly regarding production relations inside Policy distance the ® rm and between ® rms. But for regionalists, these spatial contentions have been very in ̄ uential. Under-researched fuzzy concepts are more tolerable the less we expect them to guide action, whether by A rich and engaging literature debates various aspects of the ̄ exible specialization connotation and its the state or groups in civil society. Overall, I would argue, there has been a retreat from engagement with regional embodiment (see, for example, GERTLER, 1988; SAYER, 1989; AMIN and ROBINS, 1990; PARK regional policy since the late 1980s, either at the national or subnational level, on the part of regional and MARKUSEN, 1994). In general, much of this discussion is about the very notion of ̄ exible specializascholars. The relative neglect of the state’s role in regional development exacerbates the distance between tion ± what actually constitutes it and what causes it. Less attention has been paid to the actual empirical theory, research and policy. Uneven regional development continues apace, and state policies contribute to record, on either the pervasiveness of the phenomenon per se or its imputed spatial implications. The relative it in some cases, ame