State spatiality and the governance of economic development in the UK: The changing role of the region

This paper adopts a critical regionalist perspective to bring new insights into the drivers of state spatial transformation in sub-national economic development governance in the UK. It demonstrates that multiple forms of state spatiality are emerging in the context of late capitalism which are both territorial and relational. The paper argues that these developments cannot be explained as a simple re-scaling of the geopolitical project of competitiveness. Instead they reflect an array of political forces both in and of space, which are calling into question the functionality of regional state spaces for the governance of economic development