Publication Date:
2015-08-22
Description:
Underlying the crisis affecting peripheral European countries is their structural, long-term loss of competitiveness (Hadjimichalis, 2011, European Urban and Regional Studies , 18: 254–274). This article will focus on the Portuguese case and discuss the institutional constraints that hindered its economy from transitioning towards the production of higher-value added goods and services. It will discuss institutions as the product of a political process laden with power asymmetries and argue that the dominance of a relatively small community at the heart of economic and political life in Portugal has conditioned the development of the economy as a whole. Using this framework, this article will then contribute to the literatures on innovation and technological modernisation and argue that alongside a technical process of catching up there is a political process that can enable or constrain development.
Keywords:
B52 - Institutional
;
Evolutionary, O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences
;
Diffusion Processes, P16 - Political Economy
Print ISSN:
1468-2702
Electronic ISSN:
1468-2710
Topics:
Geography
,
Economics
