Neo-endogenous Rural Development Research Articles

Building the plane in the air: Articulating neo-endogenous rural development from the ground up

Neo-endogenous rural development is driven by local people from the ground up but enabled and steered by policy actors from the top down; the balance of driving and steering, or where the power in the relationship lies, is thus a key point of enquiry. This paper interrogates contemporary theorisations of rural development using recent empirical evidence from Australia. We analyse a recent development process in the rural region of North West Tasmania, Australia: the “Regional Futures Plan”, conducted over the period 2019–2021. The Regional Futures Plan was a locally led development initiative that brought together regional actors across sectors in a structured process to address employment, population, and sustainability challenges. It received limited State government funding or support. In this paper we ask: to what extent is this locally led rural development process an empirical example of neo-endogenous rural development, classic endogenous rural development, or something else? Analysis through an anthropology of development lens deepens current theorisations of neo-endogenous rural development by revealing the logics and strategies local actors use as they work together for change in dialogue with external actors and the State. The analysis concludes that the Regional Futures Plan experience can be understood as a form of disarticulated neo-endogenous rural development whereby local actors seek to drive local development outcomes in dialogue with, but in the absence of formal relationships with more powerful governing institutions and the state. The existence of locally led but disarticulated rural development suggests both opportunities and challenges for future rural development policy.

Entrepreneurship and the formation mechanism of Taobao Villages: Implications for sustainable development in rural areas

With the progress of information and communication technologies (ICT) and advent of the knowledge economy, the burgeoning e-commerce heralds new opportunities to reverse the declining trend of the rural economy. In the past two decades, the emergence of Taobao Villages in rural China has exemplified the significant outcomes of e-commerce in changing rural communities. Despite fruitful research on rural e-commerce, the formation mechanism of Taobao Villages has not been explained in detail. This study fills this gap by investigating the development progress of a typical Taobao Village in-depth. Drawing on the framework of neo-endogenous rural development, we conducted a case study in Dongfeng Village, one of the first three Taobao Villages in China, to identify the development path and formation mechanism of typical Taobao Villages. We found that the prosperity of e-commerce in Dongfeng Village could be attributed to the combination of the bottom-up initiative of farmers and top-down intervention by the government. Initially, pioneer entrepreneurs brought e-commerce to the village and achieved great success in this business, then social network acted as a channel for the diffusion of e-commerce in the local community. Subsequently, the government recognized the significance of e-commerce for the rural economy and provided support to advance the further development of rural e-commerce. With the help of the government, a developed e-commerce ecosystem emerged in the rural community and brought changes to the village in terms of the industrial structure, farmers' livelihoods, and rural landscapes. Based on the case study, we concluded that farmers’ entrepreneurship, local participation, and adequate government intervention were important to rural development. The cultivation of rural elites, leadership building, and participative governance should be considered in the rural policy design.

The path and mechanism of neo-endogenous rural development from the perspective of symbiosis:A case study of rural operation in Lin'an district, Hangzhou

The path and mechanism of neo-endogenous rural development from the perspective of symbiosis:A case study of rural operation in Lin'an district, Hangzhou

A Substantive View of Social Enterprises as Neo-endogenous Rural Development Actors.

Social enterprises are recognised as relevant rural development actors. The specific features of social enterprises operating within rural areas (i.e. their relational, socially innovative and multi-stakeholder character and their focus on integrated development) concur with the principles of the neo-endogenous approach to rural development, which stress the potential role of third sector organisations as development actors within governance frameworks. In order to study this phenomenon, that links social enterprises and rural development, we propose a conceptual and methodological framework drawing from Polanyi’s socio-economic theory, complemented with the concepts of place, spatial scale and corporate agency. Through the proposed framework, we advocate for a plural vision of the economy, socio-spatial and geopolitical sensitive concepts and overcoming methodological individualism for the study of an increasingly relevant phenomenon such as the participation of third sector organisations like social enterprises in the (neo-endogenous) development of rural areas.

The Lack of Attention Given by Neoendogenous Rural Development Practice to Areas Highly Affected by Depopulation. The Case of Andalusia (Spain) in 2015–2020 Period

Abstract How are the problems of depopulation being faced by the Local Action Groups (LAGs) and the LEADER approach? What kinds of proposals are being pointed out to tackle young people’s exodus, the economic depression, the physical and virtual distances, and the marginality from the political and economic centers by these local public-private partnerships to the areas having the more worrying situations? Andalusia, a southern region of Spain, has many municipalities with these severe devepopulation problems. According to this aim, the Local Development Strategies documents (LDSs) of the LAGs for 2015–2020, have been reviewed. The predominance of the top-down approach has limited the attention given to face the rural depopulation. It is relevant to note, as well, the reduced presence of specific objectives and projects to combat depopulation in these deep rural areas. The last finding is that these municipalities with extreme depopulation have been left aside; as no solution placed. Definitely, as empty areas to promote rural development. Depopulation concept and depopulation areas have been forgotten for neoendogenous rural development practices.

Amenities and new firm formation in rural areas

Building on the neo-endogenous rural development model and the resource-based view of the firm, this paper investigates the role of place-based amenities for new firm formation. Empirically, we employ a full-population dataset encompassing new firms in Sweden from 2009 to 2016, combined with geocoded datasets with the spatial distribution of nature- and culture-based amenities. The results show that local amenities are indeed important factors in determining the rate of new firm formation. Estimating the model across urban and rural neighborhoods show that amenities are relatively more important in explaining new firm formation in rural areas as compared to urban. As such, our study contributes to the literature on diversification of the economies of rural areas by pointing at the important role that place-based amenities may play for an entrepreneurially-driven development of less developed and/or rural areas.

Rurality as context for innovative responses to social challenges – The role of rural social enterprises

Rural social enterprises are increasingly recognized as organisations that contribute to local development by providing goods and/or services to meet community needs and by fostering inclusive social and governance relations. The purpose of this paper is to explore how rural social enterprises engage in a plurality of socio-economic relations with different dimensions of their ‘place’ when contributing to the development of their localities. Based on three in-depth case studies of social enterprises operating in rural Ireland, our findings illustrate how rural social enterprises engage with locational, institutional, material and identity aspects of their ‘place’, which indicates their ‘placial embeddedness’. Moreover, our findings also demonstrate how these organisations engage in, and combine market, redistribution and reciprocity relations, which indicates their ‘substantive hybridity’. Based on the interrelated nature of these findings, we argue that it is through a process of placial substantive hybridity that rural social enterprises foster social innovation in order to contribute to an integrated development of their localities. They harness and (re)valorise (untapped) local resources while complementing these with other resources from extra-local sources and accommodate and/or respond to structural-exogenous forces based on the needs of their local population in line with neo-endogenous rural development.

Picking Up Where the TMDL Leaves Off: Using the Partnership Wild and Scenic River Framework for Collaborative River Restoration

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protects less than ¼ of a percent of the United States’ river miles, focusing on free-flowing rivers of good water quality with outstandingly remarkable values for recreation, scenery, and other unique river attributes. It predates the enactment of the Clean Water Act, yet includes a clear anti-degradation principle, that pollution should be reduced and eliminated on designated rivers, in cooperation with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state pollution control agencies. However, the federal Clean Water Act lacks a clear management framework for implementing restoration activities to reduce non-point source pollution, of which bacterial contamination impacts nearly 40% of the Wild and Scenic Rivers. A case study of the Musconetcong River, in rural mountainous New Jersey, indicates that the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act can be utilized to mobilize and align non-governmental, governmental, philanthropic, and private land-owner resources for restoring river water quality. For example, coordinated restoration efforts on one tributary reduced bacterial contamination by 95%, surpassing the TMDL goal of a 93% reduction. Stakeholder interviews and focus groups indicated widespread knowledge and motivation to improve water quality, but resource constraints limited the scale and scope of restoration efforts. The authors postulate that the Partnership framework, enabled in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, facilitated neo-endogenous rural development through improving water quality for recreational usage, whereby bottom-up restoration activities were catalyzed via federal designation and resource provision. However, further efforts to address water quality via voluntary participatory frameworks were ultimately limited by the public sector’s inadequate funding and inaction with regard to water and wildlife resources in the public trust.

Neo-Endogenous Rural Development in Favor of Organic Farming: Two Case Studies from Italian Fragile Areas

Abstract This paper analyses two case studies ascribable to neo-endogenous paradigm for rural development experimented by two small municipalities in Northern (Varese Ligure) and Central-southern (Castel del Giudice) Italian Apennines. By means of different approaches, the two towns have been able to provide local development through organic farming that in turn have boosted economic diversification or new forms of territorial aggregation. They have drawn the attention to the neighbouring communities and have stimulated emulation processes. Through a multivariate analysis this study therefore gets to a distinct partition of the two regional territories (NUTS2), where the cases belong, identifying the municipalities that show greater affinity to the cases in question, in order to offer to policy makers useful elements either for encouraging the replication of best practices or including them in future planning strategies. However, while the cluster that includes Varese Ligure (in Northern Italy) appears more clearly influenced by environmental values and a certain demographic resilience, the one to which Castel del Giudice belongs (in the Center-South) is more influenced by the aging of the population and by a greater structural dependency. Both clusters, however, could find a common way of development centred on the economic potential offered by organic farming due to the affinity shown by the proposed case studies.

Transnational Inter-Territorial Cooperation in the LEADER Approach. The Cases of Finland and Spain

This research focuses on the LEADER approach, the practice of neo-endogenous rural development inside the European Union (EU), and inside of this, one of its basic specificities, transnational cooperation projects (TNCP), specifically for Finland and Spain, and for the 2007-2013 programming period, what implementation problems have these projects faced? What effects have been derived from their application? To obtain quantitative information, the reports from the European Rural Development Network have been analyzed; and to extract detailed information, the reports of the National Rural Network of Spain, of Nordic-Baltic LEADER Cooperation Award, have been consulted, in addition to for some projects, the reports of these TNCPs of each Local Action Group; and in the cases that those responsible for these TNCPs have been found, the data extracted from a questionnaire, answered by 19 of them. The data show that PCTNs have not obtained the needed expectations, mainly due to bureaucratic, economic problems, and even, due to the lack of willingness of the initial and last stakeholders and managers in charge to implement them. Therefore, the potential for transnational cooperation remains underutilized in terms of knowledge sharing and skills development, to provide new ideas and inspiration that strengthen rural development strategies, and even to foster solidarity between different rural areas.

Emprendedores y proyectos fallidos de LEADER y PRODER en Andalucía en el periodo 2000-2006. Perfil y motivos de desistimiento

Durante 25 años el enfoque LEADER ha contribuido a incorporar nuevos principios a las recientes teorías del desarrollo neoendógeno. Para esta Iniciativa, se realiza un análisis de los proyectos que, habiendo sido inicialmente aprobados, no se llegaron a ejecutar para conocer el perfil del promotor, tipo de inversión y causas que provocaron su caída. Se han consultado los expedientes no ejecutados durante el periodo 2002- 2008 de los Grupos de Acción Local de la provincia de Granada y se han realizado entrevistas tanto a los técnicos como a los gerentes de tales Grupos. En estos proyectos se aprecia una prevalencia del emprendedor privado sobre el público y de los jóvenes y nuevos empresarios frente a los que no lo son. Las causas últimas de desistimiento van desde la inadecuada planificación y la falta de financiación, hasta las rigideces en tiempo y requisitos administrativos exigidos.

Territorially unequal rural development: the cases of the LEADER Initiative and the PRODER Programme in Andalusia (Spain)

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the territorial effects of the LEADER approach in Southern Europe, by analysing the region of Andalusia (Spain). Our research has revealed that, in many cases, projects were concentrated in the most dynamic, most populated areas, with a well-established business network with the financial and organizational capacity required to access European funding. In these areas, the economic leadership of the most dynamic municipalities has been reinforced at the expense of more depressed areas with little social capital and few businesses. These programmes have not, therefore, helped to mitigate territorial imbalances. In a minority of rural areas, however, this trend was not observed, which shows that although territorial inequality is a widespread problem in the practice of neo-endogenous rural development, it does not affect all areas to the same degree.

Participation of disadvantaged groups and governance in the LEADER and PRODER programmes in Andalucía, Spain

The involvement of disadvantaged groups in European Union neo-endogenous rural development programmes, such as the LEADER programme, must be a high priority. In this paper we study the profiles of the beneficiaries of LEADER and PRODER, the main Spanish example of mainstreaming the LEADER method, in the NUTS 2 region of Andalucia, Spain in the period 2002-2008, and of the decision makers in the Local Action Groups (LAGs). Using quantitative information provided by the regional administration and a questionnaire survey of managers of the LAGs, we show that there has been continuing underrepresentation of previously disadvantaged groups and territories, so contributing to uneven and selective empowerment and governance that favours the emergence of a project class. The groups that have benefited the most from LEADER investments have been entrepreneurs and ‘town halls’, in this order. Interviewed LAG managers felt that many mistakes had been made in the application of LEADER: excessive bureaucracy and interventionism by the regional administration, loss of the original philosophy, low participation of disadvantaged groups and lack of strategic vision. As was noted by one of the LAG managers, “LEADER has been a victim of its own success; the universalisation of its method has led to the elimination of its experimental nature as a real laboratory for the development of rural areas”.

Participation of disadvantaged groups and governance in the LEADER and PRODER programmes in Andalucía, Spain

The involvement of disadvantaged groups in European Union neo-endogenous rural development programmes, such as the LEADER programme, must be a high priority. In this paper we study the profiles of the beneficiaries of LEADER and PRODER, the main Spanish example of mainstreaming the LEADER method, in the NUTS 2 region of Andalucia, Spain in the period 2002-2008, and of the decision makers in the Local Action Groups (LAGs). Using quantitative information provided by the regional administration and a questionnaire survey of managers of the LAGs, we show that there has been continuing underrepresentation of previously disadvantaged groups and territories, so contributing to uneven and selective empowerment and governance that favours the emergence of a project class. The groups that have benefited the most from LEADER investments have been entrepreneurs and ‘town halls’, in this order. Interviewed LAG managers felt that many mistakes had been made in the application of LEADER: excessive bureaucracy and interventionism by the regional administration, loss of the original philosophy, low participation of disadvantaged groups and lack of strategic vision. As was noted by one of the LAG managers, “LEADER has been a victim of its own success; the universalisation of its method has led to the elimination of its experimental nature as a real laboratory for the development of rural areas”.

Where to put the focus in rural development: changing the focus from funding to learning

Since Hungary’s accession to the European Union (EU) most of the actions in rural areas have complied with the regulations of the funding programmes of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why the focus of actions has to be changed from funding to learning. The paper is structured as follows. In the introduction, the author explains, in the light of her research experience since 2001, why a change in focus is needed. The main body of the paper shows how the need for this change can be explained from different perspectives. Firstly, structural change in the economy is given as a reason. Secondly, the need for change is explained from the concept of neo-endogenous rural development, i.e. the interplay between local and external forces. Finally the reason for shifting the focus from funding to learning is explained in terms of the endogenous and exogenous factors influencing rural development, based on the framework developed by the EU Framework 7 project ‘RuralJobs’. The paper concludes with some examples of the types of tools that have already been used and actions that should be implemented to achieve this change in focus.

농민단체 주도의 신내생적 농촌개발에 관한 연구 -아산시 지역농업 클러스터 정책 사례-

이 논문은 2005년부터 2009년까지 농식품부에서 지원하는 지역농업클러스터 사업을 수행한 농업생산자 단체인 푸른들 영농조합법인의 신내생적 발전과정을 분석한 것이다. 신내생적 발전론은 기존의 외생적/내생적 발전론처럼 발전을 지리적인 내부와 외부로 구분하는 것은 실제 농촌발전과정에서 나타나는 현상을 제대로 설명하지 못한다고 비판하고, 발전의 초기에는 내부와 외부의 자원을 동시에 활용하는 신내생적 발전이 나타나며 실질적으로 발전에 도움이 되는 자원들을 조절할 수 있는 능력이 가장 핵심적인 요소라고 주장한다. 유럽에서 시작된 이 개념을 우리나라 지역농업 클러스터 사업에 적용해서 살펴봄으로써 지역농업클러스터 사업을 지역에서 실행하면서 나타나는 사업주체와 행정기관 간의 갈등은 단순히 내생적/외생적인 논란으로는 그 실체를 파악하기 어렵고 신내생적 발전의 개념을 적용해야 그 장기적인 변화방향을 파악할 수 있다는 것이다. 결론적으로 이 연구에서는 아산의 사례를 통해서 농민단체가 발전을 주도할 수 있는 능력이 있다면 이들이 시행하는 것은 내생적 발전으로 진화하는 과도기 단계의 신내생적 발전이라고 평가할 수 있다는 것이다. This paper deals with the novel concept of neo-endogenous rural development which has been applied to explain the contemporary features of the European rural development. The notion of neo-endogenous rural development has been emerged in Europe because the pervious dichotomous concepts of exogenous and endogenous development are no longer useful for explaining the relationship between the local actors and the central or regional administrative organisations. The concept argues that the changing situation of rural regions at the initial stages of endogenous development could only be identified by the concept of neo-endogenous perspectives. Therefore, it tries to apply the concept for the Korean rural development policy which is called Regional Agricultural Cluster scheme. Explaining the development processes and the problems of the farmers group which carried out the project in a local level, this paper argues that the severe conflict between the farmers group and the City Office may be a typical incident of the neo-endogenous development. It expresses the power relations between the local groups and the political managing authority. With the case of the Prundle, it concludes that the neo-endogenous development is the essential stage for all the endogenous development to go through as an transitional one.

Reversing the rural race to the bottom: an evolutionary model of neo-endogenous rural development

This article contributes to the understanding of neo-endogenous rural development from the perspective of evolutionary game theory. Rural development is modelled as the increasing realisation over time of gains from interaction by rural stakeholders. The model exhibits two dynamically stable equilibria, which depict declining and prospering regions. An external government authority stimulates neo-endogenous rural development by helping decentralised actors to coordinate on the superior of the two equilibria. This intervention may be possible and desirable without giving up the autonomy of local decision-makers. Because initial conditions matter, outcomes cannot be planned or engineered from the outside. , Oxford University Press.

Entrepreneurial In‐migration and Neoendogenous Rural Development

AbstractThe social, cultural, and economic transitions in rural areas across the globe lead us to critique the traditional “top‐down” or “bottom‐up” distinction as being outdated for contemporary rural policy. In Europe and the United States in particular, high rates of counterurbanization heighten the need for new ways of thinking about rural development. To address this, we describe the emergence of neoendogenous development theories in the United Kingdom and elucidate further on the economic implications of this approach for rural development. In particular, we examine the role of local and extralocal networks and population flows as facilitators of neoendogenous development based on our independent studies in northeast England and northern Scotland. This approach highlights the importance of diverse forms of capital in rural economies and examines the role of social networks in the utilization of these resources. In‐migrant business owners are a valuable research focus as they provide a link between the “local” and the “extralocal,” allowing greater insight into the creation and evolution of network ties in relation to economic activity in rural areas.

Neoendogenous In- and Output of Selected Rural Areas: the Case of Economic Cycles in Slovenia

The article focuses on neoendogenous rural development that enables development of endogenous potentials of rural areas (human, social, economic, environmental etc. as development resources of the local territorial level) and external resources (i.e. RD programmes on national and EU level). Four Slovenian case study areas were chosen to test the existence, functioning and outcomes of economic cycles. The survey was undertaken on the smallest spatial-social unit (household), additionally existing voluntary local network (associations) and locally and widely connected economic structures (entrepreneurship) were observed. The research partly confirmed that the activation of endogenous potentials of rural areas is evident through the empowerment of (regional) economic cycles.

Disintegrated Rural Development? Neo-endogenous Rural Development, Planning and Place-Shaping in Diffused Power Contexts

What is the role of the state in promoting sustainable rural communities? Only a few years ago any discussion of this question would have alluded to the concept of integrated rural development. Today the concept of governance is internationally used to address such questions, reflecting a recognition of the changing role of the state (at all levels) and the greater propensity for public, private and voluntary sectors to interact at multiple scales in diffused power contexts together with attempts to mobilise local actors. This article asks whether the concept, integrated rural development, still has any meaning in the context of the new rural governance and begins to link this to re-theorisations of concepts of spatial planning, place-shaping, capacity-building and neo-endogenous development, and offers illustrations from the north of Scotland. The article concludes by suggesting that initiatives such as the EU's LEADER programme might be recast explicitly as a transnational experiment in doing ‘disintegrated rural development’, addressing the challenges of neo-endogenous rural development, multi-scalar governance, an enabling, generative state and the transformation of mainstream policies.