Economies-institutions-territories nexuses: Old Issues Revisited and New Research Avenues

The book consists of a collection of chapters dissecting the complex inter- plays between economies, institutions, and territories. As stated in the first chapter, accounting for these interconnections is a way to handle such abstract and multi-faceted concepts. It is also an intriguing way to look at the whole social anatomy (Hedstrom, 2005). Through the chapters, it has been shown that there are several processes that are more likely to emerge nowadays than in the past (e.g., shocking events, climate change, unforeseen economic crisis) and put the interplays between economies, institutions, and territories under stress. The societies of organized capitalism of the Fordist age were, in fact, well-integrated in their sub-systems. By contrast, recent research has pointed out that in the scenario of financial and globalized capitalism societies have been suffering from new “structural imbalances” (Bagnasco, 2003, 2008). In this context, increasing difficulties have emerged in reconciling economic growth with the contain- ment rise of social inequalities at the territorial level, maintaining high levels of social mobility, and safeguarding the effective and efficient functioning of democratic assets (Trigilia, 2020). From this perspective and by taking multi- ple disciplinary perspectives, looking at different areas of the world, and examining various topics, several chapters in the book show a series of mis- alignments among economies–institutions–territories. Beyond these structural imbalances that have become entrenched in recent decades, the interplay between economies–institutions–territories continu- ously raise new puzzles pertaining to micro dynamics – i.e., how economic activities are rooted at the territorial level and shaped by local institutional arrangements – and macro dynamics – i.e., the economic orders at the inter- section of global trends and institutional frameworks. In this respect, several chapters of the book do not point to the social problematic aspects related to these nexuses but dissect some of their relevant analytical elements. In sum, the book offers one main general insight. The nexuses between economies–institutions–territories must be investigated through a multi- disciplinary comparative perspective. The comparison can be synchronic, i.e., concerning different territorial areas, or, vice versa, diachronic, i.e., relating to the dynamic evolution of these links over time. By observing the connec- tions between economies–institutions–territories, one can grasp both change and persistence in the social world: the reconfiguration of institutional ele- ments, economic processes, and their kinds of embedding at the territorial level. No single discipline holds the key to unpacking and understanding the complex relationships that exist between economies, institutions, and territo- ries – sociologists, economists, geographers, and scholars from other discipli- nary perspectives all have valuable insights to offer. That being said, in these concluding pages, we can pinpoint some promis- ing research avenues that have already been suggested in some of the chapters and deserve further exploration. We draw upon the four sections of the book to illustrate a tentative future research agenda.