Four views of "regional" in regional environmental change

Abstract

For a number of reasons, mainly to do with data and computational insufficiency, a number of analysts are calling for regional models of global environmental change phenomena. This paper presents a typology for conceptualizing the dynamic relationship between the region being analyzed and the global system in which it is embedded. Regionalism can be convergent, divergent, local, or ambivergent. In addition to positing that regional phenomena can be modelled as a superposition of convergent, divergent, and local processes, it also shows that different regional specifications of a problem can lead to radically different analytical strategies, insights, and policy prescriptions. (C) 2000 Elsevi..