Learning regions as development coalitions: Partnership as governance in European workfare states?

The understanding of post-Fordist societies as learning economies, in which learning organizations such as learning firms and learning regions play a strategic role, has lately received some criticism. The critique has partly pointed at the structural limits to learning in a capitalist global economy, and partly argued that firms in capitalist societies have always been learning, referring especially to the role of innovation in inter-firm competition. Against the critics, it is argued that the learning region has great potential, both as a theoretical and normative concept and as a practical metaphor for formulating regional policy.