The Region in Political Economy

A decade ago, regions were the hot topic in political economy. Convinced by accounts of how regions were competitive economic territories per excellence and crucial sites for promoting a plural society, the ‘new regionalism’ ascended to a position of orthodoxy in political economy. Today, the memory of these halcyon days is but a distant one with the past decade seeing regions be the site for a number of topical debates that appear, at first sight, to challenge the regional concept: the collapse of the new regionalist orthodoxy; the theoretical ascendancy of relational approaches to conceptualising spatiality; and the political ascendancy of the ‘city‐region’ concept. All of which suggests that the regional concept may be under threat in contemporary political economy. But it also prompts the need to confront searching questions as to whether we are in fact witnessing the awakening of a new geography of the region. This article emphasises the latter, arguing that what we are witnessing is the emergence of a new era of ‘relational regionalism’ in political economy.