Systems of Local Self-Administration after Agricultural Transformation
Experiences of a local resource management project in East Germany.
Autor: Laschewski, Lutz
In:

Globalising Rural Development.
Competing Paradigms and Emerging Realities
Herausgeber: Behera, Maguni
Ort: London/New Dehli
Verlag: Sage
ISBN: 0-7619-3479-0
Seite: 242 - 255
Jahr: 2006

Einordung:
Institut: Professur Agrarökonomie

Abstract:
Systems of local self-administration and participatory approaches in rural development and resource management are becoming increasingly popular both on the part of the scientific community and among the practitioners of development co-operation. On the one hand they promise the possibility of incorporating social and ecological complexity in management structures and, on the other hand, they appear to give legitimacy in the sense of democratising society. The views expressed by institutional economists in general assume a logic of rational action on the part of individual and collective actors, and they therefore argue that the practicability of local co-operation and self-administration is derived primarily from the nature of the problem themselves. In this case, attention is directed especially to the characteristics of technological processes or the influence of specific conjunctures of action. For example, the differentiation between private, public, club and common goods, which are assumed to have different optimal institutional arrangements, is undertaken on the basis of the criteria of excludability and rivalry .
Such approaches take little account of the social genesis and political realisation of participation. However, empirical research in political sciences and economic research with a social-science orientation point to marked differences in social competence with regard to self-organisation and co-operation, which is referred to as social capital in current discourses. These discourses and concepts, which were developed with reference to both advanced western societies and southern countries, are now being applied to rural development in post-socialist societies in Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Lampland 2002). Here, the predominant findings seem to indicate very negative effects - deriving from the socialist past and/or the radical structural fracture - on the formation of social capital in rural societies. Indeed, anomic social conditions have been diagnosed as the specific result of structural change (Alanen 2001). However, the analysis of the constitution of rural societies in these countries as a whole and the formation of social capital is still in its early stages.
This article is intended to contribute to this debate by analysing the structure of local decision-making processes on the basis of an investigation of local agricultural and environmental policy networks in two selected regions of East Germany. The question posed is whether, and in what manner, the special social conditions in East Germany influence network relations and the possibility of creating co-operative institutions in resource management and rural development. First, a number of special features of East German agriculture and rural areas are described. This is followed by an analysis of the important groups of actors and their incorporation in local agri-environmental decision-making structures in the selected regions. Finally, a number of institutional and social implications are identified.

Ansprechpartner

Weitere Information im WWW

Zur Publikation: Mitarbeiter, Projekte
Weitere Publikationen im Forschungsteilschwerpunkt