Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Research from the perspective of clusters and innovation systems indicates that networks support the competitiveness of regions (Tödtling and Trippl 2005). Regional actors serve as a “global pipeline” (Bathelt et al. 2004) and as “gatekeepers” (Rychen and Zimmermann 2008) to smooth the transfer of knowledge and information for increased regional development. However, when no companies can fulfill this role, the ways in which municipalities can accomplish these functions lacks in-depth study. Therefore, this research aims to fill this gap. Municipalities not only act as coordinators for regional economic development but also disseminate information about local companies and technologies and introduce new external knowledge and information (Asheim et al. 2011). Many municipalities in Japan are now pursuing internationalization policies to globalize the region. In addition, it is assumed that the international strategies that are adopted by municipalities differ, depending on the population size and the centrality of the region. Therefore, this study examines what kind of regional development policies concerning internationalization are possible for municipalities by scale. The methods include text analysis of international strategies that were established by Japanese municipalities and semi-structured interviews with some of them. As a result, we divided the typology of municipal international regional development policies into three categories by scale. It was found that, for regional cities in Japan, where declining birth rates and aging populations are rapidly advancing, not only large cities but also some small and medium cities are keen to implement strategies to benefit from internationalization.