Abstract
Abstract In this article, we study how declining rural communities build political resilience in Finland. Community resilience is an adaptive process through which rural communities try to maintain their viability in changed circumstances. This process does not entail a submissive attitude, but rather active agency and an effort to influence matters concerning the community’s well-being. We focus on the political dimension of resilience by identifying different local tactics that rural communities adopt to promote their own development following municipal mergers. We classify these tactics into three categories: cooperation, conflict and community-led development. The significant differences between them lie in how the community relates to the new municipality and communicates with its officials and decision-makers. However, none of the three tactics identified in our study are sufficient to ensure the viability of rural communities in the context of municipal mergers.
Highlights
Because of population decline and public-sector funding crises, rural communities all over Europe face the same challenges in maintaining their vitality (Elshof et al, 2014; Hospers and Reverda, 2015)
We argue that a social systems-based approach to community resilience will benefit from insights from field theory, such as the ideas of power, struggle and social skill (Fligstein, 1997 2001; Fligstein and McAdam, 2012)
We focus on the political dimensions of resilience by identifying different local tactics that rural communities adopt
Summary
The concept of resilience was first applied in the 1970s to explain ecological systems’ adaptivity to adversity (Norris et al, 2008). They can build diverse tactics related to conventional (political party voting and activities, political discussions and meetings) or unconventional politics (social media influencing, protests, various types of civic engagement such as implementing development projects) Another advantage that can be taken from field theory is the idea of power struggles and the understanding that these processes are ‘about who gets what’ The idea of political community resilience must take into account how local actors navigate systems characterized by imbalanced power relations so as to maintain their own political agency and gain experience of political influence and meaningfulness in changed circumstances, including by promoting their own interests and desires to foster their community’s vitality
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