Referring to Kiese (2013) and Sternberg et al. (2010), but also other papers such as Crespy et al. (2007) for France, we added that, especially for Germany, we should not underestimate the roles of states and local authorities in the cluster policy. Finally, in the conclusion, we stressed the lack of multilevel governance approach as a limitation, which should be more explicitly considered in future research.
For the German cases, the authors may have underestimated public agency, since they did not investigate the role of state governments (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg) within the country’s system of multilevel governance, which is key to understand cluster policies in Germany (cf.