The decoupling effect and shifting assemblages of English regionalism: economic governance, politics and firm-state relations

The regional scale continues to be considered critical to economic governance, particularly regarding issues of uneven development. Successive efforts to reform and rescale the region have however illustrated limited impact, with notable political repercussions. This article argues regional economic governance should be considered an assemblage, occurring in space through overlaying territorialisations of place, policy, and stakeholder. These territorialisations are in turn shaped by a set of dynamic capacities involving the multiplicity of components and interactions, legacies of prior arrangements, and agency of actors.

Reformed governance arrangements therefore play to a process of becoming or formation, the assemblage a fluid reading of territorial relations. This becoming occurs alongside a process of decoupling, revised arrangements shifting the levels to which actors and groups of actors are integrated within the assemblage, with spatial and sectoral implications. Using analysis from Southern Staffordshire, part of the Greater Birmingham city-region, this article argues the shifting nature of regional assemblages and distinct forms of territorialisation play a material role in decoupling key local sectors from local economy and place with emphasis on localities most affected by uneven development.