ABSTRACT
In this context, declining manufacturing production, output and employment in the Global North – see Williams (1992) for example – has necessitated the re-invigoration of local and regional political economies through the development of geographical capacities relating to service and knowledge-based sectors in which innovation plays a central role. Rather than relying on manufacturing as the base of their national economies, which characterized post-Second World War Fordism (Jessop 2002), the argument goes that these countries have had to find ways to capture value from the so-called ‘knowledge-based economy’ or face continual decline (e.g. OECD 1996; European Council 2000). A number of commentators have lauded the emergence of this ‘new economy’ (Reich 1991), ‘knowledge economy’ (Leadbeater 1999), or ‘creative economy’ (Florida 2002), arguing that it is opening up new forms of organization, new forms of production and consumption, new forms of work, and so on.
