Lock-ins and community resilience: Two contrasting development pathways in the Austrian Alps

Abstract

Tourism, especially in the European Alps, contributes to rural livelihood and depends on farming to preserve the landscape. The symbiosis is also expected to strengthen community resilience, conceptualized as a combination of economic, social, cultural, political and natural domains. The interplay of these domains may result in path dependencies driven by lock-in effects, beyond which controlled development is basically not possible. In our study of two villages in the Austrian Alps, we investigate how long-term development pathways affect the domains of community resilience in terms of path dependencies and lock-ins. A document analysis of a former Man and the Biosphere project from the 1970s, combined with recent qualitative expert interviews enabled us to draw a longitudinal picture of both villages that highlights strengths and weaknesses of each domain. Conclusions reveal that the different development pathways of the communities still result in similar economic, structural and political lock-ins that reinforce path dependencies.