The Challenges of Including Political Economy Research in Regional Economic History

Martin Eriksson (martin.eriksson@ekhist.umu.se)

ERSA conference papers from European Regional Science Association

Abstract: Issues such as regional interest group mobilization and the projection of regional claims on the national political arenas often occur during critical junctures of regional economic development. In many cases they have such impact on the outcome of a development process that they deserve economic history research. My paper will focus on the challenges of including such issues in regional economic history writing. Departing from research on the historical political economy of the Swedish Norrland region, I will discuss a number of research design challenges that the regional historian will need to manage and reflect upon. One such challenge concerns the use of theory. I will discuss how interest group theories may be used (and abused) to capture decisive relations and linkages between regional interest group demands on one hand and government decision-making on the other hand. I will also point at the importance of a critical attitude towards those myths, discourses and interpretations that may dominate the regional debate on a research field. In this respect, concepts and language may influence historical explanation to such an extent that they distort the understanding of the past. The historian will therefore need to confront those myths through a scientifically adequate research process.

Date: 2011-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa10/ERSA2010finalpaper1642.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1642

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ERSA conference papers from European Regional Science Association Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Gunther Maier (gunther.maier@wu.ac.at).