Introduction
International relations and public policy research has long been dominated by macro perspectives: great powers, systems and structures as default units of analysis. But real policy problems always happen in specific places: water governance in one city, pollution in one transboundary river, mobility in one border community. Zooming in often reveals mechanisms and constraints that macro narratives miss.
Why local knowledge matters
Local knowledge first supplies additional information: how local institutions work, how different groups understand risk, how historical experience shapes present choices — details hard to obtain fully from statistics or official documents. More importantly, local knowledge corrects analytical premises: many apparently universal policy tools embed institutional assumptions of particular societies and may fail when transplanted to other contexts.
Two paths of connection
For regional studies to genuinely serve public knowledge, two sets of connections are needed. The first is bottom-up: distilling local experience into comparable variables and concepts so it enters general discussion rather than remaining a list of cases. The second is top-down: translating global issues (climate, supply chains, technology governance) into locally actionable problems, helping decision-makers understand the local effects of distant change. Without either path, research tends to float or fragment.
Avoiding two traps
Local research has two common detours. One romanticises local experience, substituting “indigenous wisdom” for rigorous methods and evidence. The other treats “local” as exoticism, satisfying curiosity while avoiding genuine local agency. A responsible approach treats local partners as co-researchers rather than objects of study, keeping the process of knowledge production itself transparent and reciprocal.
Conclusion
Good global research needs good local research as its foundation. The Institute places regional studies at the centre of its agenda precisely to maintain that sense of the “nearby” — remembering that grand issues ultimately land on specific people and communities.
Sources and version: this is an editorial opinion piece; version v1.0 (2026-09).