Strategic path dependence and state management: Exploring historical roots of regional lock-in

Studies on regional and organizational path dependence have provided significant insights into processes of lock-in and path renewal, which hold particularly dire implications for old industrial regions (OIRs). However, this literature, with an emphasis on regional resilience and reindustrialization, has less systematically explored the strategic elements of these processes, which play a central role in the regional development of authoritarian and state-managed economies. In this paper, I study the implications of state management and strategic path dependence for regional lock-in processes in the context of the Soviet Union. Conducting a historical analysis focused on critical junctures, I demonstrate how strategic lock-in processes directed the development paths of Soviet heavy industry districts by restricting the scope of regional path renewal and thus contributing to a persistent structural lock-in. The results of the paper demonstrate how the interplay of state-level strategic path inscription and regional-level self-reinforcing mechanisms can produce long-term constraints for regional path renewal.