Studies of contemporary economic development within industrialized societies often focus upon the local scale of analysis. From the positive externalities linked with agglomeration to the role which local institutions can play in altering regional economic trajectories, there is a tendency within economic geography to ‘go local’. Though there is much to be gleaned from local, firm-based research, the fact that the local is situated within other spatial scales, and in many cases is contingent upon broader geographical contexts (e.g. regional, national, global) is sometimes understated. We expand the geographical frames of reference by which Italian economic development, and in particular understandings of local growth in Italy, are understood, by situating the local in Italy within other meso-scale relationships.Though certain areas and regions of Italy are famous for their particular brand of local economic development, these places are not isolated nor are they independent in a geographic sense.Through detailed spatial analyses of provincial export shares, which are used to gauge the external basis of a local economy, we show that understanding and explaining economic growth in Italy and elsewhere can benefit from an approach which appreciates the significance of extra-local linkages.

This survey brings into conversation diverse literatures on geopolitics in order to interrogate one of the most visible geopolitical projects of our age, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The paper provides a brief review of the main geopolitical approaches that are being applied to the BRI, including classical, critical, radical, assemblage and feminist perspectives. While feminist and assemblage approaches to the BRI are positioned as a way out of essentialised accounts of this initiative, this review also attempts to facilitate a dialogue on the value of applying multiple approaches and different types of knowledge to the BRI and its various contexts. It seeks to capture how such thinking in geopolitics can bring the BRI's incoherence and myriad tensions into focus. This involves tracing the competing logics, contexts, relations and elements from which the BRI has emerged. Bringing competing strands of geopolitical thought into conversation rejects singular and reductionist interpretations of the BRI and understandings of geopolitics more broadly. It highlights linkages between elements and assemblages, as well as a circular logic in some of the prevailing approaches to the BRI and geopolitics. This survey explores the multi‐dimensional possibilities of contemporary geopolitics for examining the BRI's interwoven logics and its contradictions, while using the case study of the BRI to evaluate the diversity and potential of this sub‐field.

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This article discusses the strategies and country‐specific challenges of conducting elite interviews overseas. Drawing on examples from fieldwork undertaken in the Russian Federation, it explores the ways in which the knowledge produced from such interviews is contingent on the analytical approaches selected; the researcher's time‐specific entry into the field; issues of ethics; the contemporary political environment; and notions of insider/outsider. Undertaking elite interviews overseas places the researcher in a particularly intense and unique set of power relations with his or her research subjects. This provides both opportunities and challenges, which ultimately have the potential to elicit insights into the personal convictions and beliefs of the political and intellectual elite, as well as the contexts within which they operate.