Industrial Restructuring, Foreign Direct Investment, and Uneven Development: The Case of Wales

Abstract

This paper is intended as a study of the restructuring of world economy in the postwar period, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, the emergence of new spatial divisions of labour, and the resultant impacts on Wales. The discussion will first focus upon the relevant changes in the world economy in the postwar period, their spatial ramifications, and the theoretical constructs which have arisen out of this new economic and industrial geography. The paper will then proceed to an outline of the effects of these changes on Wales in the form of the foreign investment in the region and the attendant industrial restructuring which has occurred. The central theme of the paper is a plant-based qualitative analysis of the effects of this new spatial division of labour in Wales. The final section is a discussion of the creation and reproduction of uneven development that such a spatial division of labour can create.