The role of social capital in rural development - Conclusions from a European project on marginalisation and multifunctional landuse

Topics

• Governance capacity
• New forms of decision-making, Policies and instruments

Abstract

Rural marginalization manifested in economic decline, unemployment, out-migration, overaging, brain drain, closing down of farm enterprises, loss of infrastructure and services, biodiversity depletion, afforestation, land abandonment and landscape change are eminent problems in many less-favoured and remote European regions. The concept of marginalisation encompasses economic, socio-cultural and environmental issues which are interwoven and exert various implications on regions and local people. Rural development embraces social, civic, environmental and economic aspects in a broader sense. Strategies usually applied in rural development schemes target at marginalisation indicators and thresholds such as hard economic and demographic data derived from different databases. However, in reality the correlation between socio-economic statistics and marginalization respectively social viability is not always evident. Marginalisation and liveliness of civic society are not consistent with simple economic determinism which also means that marginalisation can be largely but not entirely explained by statistical data. The main goal of this paper is to discuss whether social capital - such as defined by J. Coleman (1988) and R.D. Putnam (1993, 2000) - comprising associations, social networks, horizontal solidarity and reciprocity, trust and civicness would be an appropriate means for better understanding the development dynamics of successful agricultural, regional, environmental and social policies on local level and to what extent it could facilitate to overcome economic marginalization, social exclusion and environmental degradation in rural areas. Policies always have unintended consequences. Neither can any policy be believed to tackle any problem completely. Social capital is one of the layers through which policy effects are intermediated, but the process is poorly understood. In addition, the paper discusses the relevance of indicator-driven policy formation. The paper suggests a theoretical concept of how connecting policy measures and social capital with marginalization. The conclusions are mainly drawn from the experience of a European wide project on “Strengthening the Multifunctional Use of European Land EUROLAN”. Two case studies - one in Austria and one in Finland – which have been conducted during this project should disentangle the concept of marginalisation, provide a deeper insight into the mechanism of social capital and finally underline and exemplify the concept developed. In addition to that, also some results from an Italian research on the phenomenon of land abandonment in mountain marginal areas are reported, particularly focusing on the role of social capital in determining the level of territorial cares provided by local communities, as well as their landscape perception.

Issue / Volume / Number

34 p.

Reference to the original publication

hardcopy