Global geography and the organisation of human activities on earth are
fundamentally managed by governments of different nations. Each
sovereign country has their own legislations and interest governing
economic activity within their boundaries. Governments have numerous
roles in the economic activity. Conceptually ‘government’ refers here to
a set of public sector organisations that are responsible for governing
the specific areas and spatial scales. As an example, municipalities
are interested on the local scale and activities that impact their
specific vicinities where as regional or national governments or bodies
are focusing on larger spatial scales. The nation state may be
considered as the fundamental level of regulation as the states have the
right to conduct taxation of its inhabitants. This is the reason why
international economy is governed with trade and commercial treaties and
is based on international agreements. This chapter elaborates the key
characteristics of innovation geography.