title: Challenges of Lagging Regions: A Classification and an Analysis of Underlying Mechanisms, Development Barriers and Policy Options
title: Herausforderungen von strukturschwachen Regionen: Eine Klassifizierung und eine Analyse der zugrundeliegenden Mechanismen, Entwicklungshemmnisse und politischen Optionen
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Hertrich, Tobias Johannes
Publisher: name: Philipps-Universität Marburg
Year: 2024
Subjects: left behind place, feeling left behind, economic geography, skill shortage, research collaboration barriers, innovation barriers
lagging regions
Geography &amp; travel
Geografie, Reisen
abgehängte Regionen
sich zurückgelassen fühlen, Wirtschaftsgeografie, Fachkräftemangel, Hindernisse für die Forschungszusammenarbeit, Innovationshindernisse, Entwicklungshindernisse, Fallstudie

description: ENGLISH: Lagging regions face numerous challenges, and the people living in these areas are at risk of falling further behind economically and socially compared to more prosperous centers. Innovation-driven structural change could contribute to the economic strengthening of lagging regions and advancing their development in the future. However, little is known about the obstacles hindering higher innovation in these regions. How to best support these regions politically is also not conclusively determined. Moreover, people in some lagging regions tend to increasingly vote for populist parties. Some scholars describe a sense of bitterness and revenge among these people. Yet, the underlying mechanisms leading to populist voting decisions and the feeling of being left behind by many people in these lagging regions remain unknown.
This dissertation investigates the challenges faced by lagging regions, the underlying mechanisms, and development barriers to derive political recommendations based on the results. Grounded in the concept of innovation-driven structural change and psychologically influential mechanisms in left behind places, this dissertation pursues three overarching aims:
(1) Classify lagging regions based on regional innovation barriers to develop a region-type specific policy approach;
(2) generate empirical findings on the impact and perception of specific development and innovation barriers of lagging regions; 
(3) develop a model that explains the collective feeling of being left behind by people in lagging regions and reveal the underlying mechanisms.
These aims are pursued in a total of five independent research papers, employing methods such as expert interviews, surveys, VAR analysis, and cluster analysis.
The results of this dissertation demonstrate that it is fundamentally possible to classify lagging regions based on the predominant barriers to innovation. Overall, six types of regions could be identified. This classification is stable over time, and the region types are sufficiently distinguishable from each other. From the underlying characteristics of each region type, region-type specific policy measures can be derived. Even in regions with sufficient research facilities, the relevance of research collaboration barriers does not decrease. Instead, only the types of perceived obstacles vary. Furthermore, differences in the perception of research collaboration barriers among different actors can be observed. Additional investigations show that skills shortages have adverse effects on regional economic development, investment activity, and employment. However, no negative effects on regional innovation have been observed so far. Based on psychological considerations, a model is developed that illustrates how certain individual and regional conditions, as well as collective opinion-forming processes, can lead to the feeling of individuals becoming a collective attitude of being left behind. Barriers to the formation of a new regional identity can be identified in past experiences or events as well as in the absence of new regional narratives.
Consequently, this dissertation provides new insights into the challenges facing lagging regions, both on a conceptual and empirical level. It facilitates a better understanding of the complex mechanisms and development barriers in lagging regions. Hence, it establishes a broad groundwork for political actions.