Abstract
The chapter takes concepts of evolutionary governance theory to the understanding of neo-endogenous rural development in a European context. It does this 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. The approach thus pursues a middle way between “spontaneous order” and centralized control that avoids the disadvantages of top-down policies traditionally dominating in rural and agricultural policy. Moreover, it illustrates the path, inter-, and goal dependencies of evolutionary governance. Because initial conditions matter, outcomes cannot be planned or engineered from the outside.
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Notes
- 1.
An expanded and more technical version of this chapter appeared as Petrick (2013). I am grateful to Stefan Ewert and Kristof Van Assche for helpful comments.
- 2.
Rural start-up firms commonly are constrained to rely on the ‘3F’ of funding sources: the founder, family and friends. Equity capital is typically not available and fixed transaction costs for small loans to rural entrepreneurs are high (OECD 2006, p. 75).
- 3.
Even signed labour or apprenticeship contracts are hard to enforce by rural companies should their young staff members decide to leave the area.
- 4.
An alternative interpretation is that it is only played once for the entire period the governance mechanism is present.
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Petrick, M. (2015). Between Individual Autonomy and Centralized Control: Outlining an Evolutionary Model of Neo-endogenous Rural Development. In: Beunen, R., Van Assche, K., Duineveld, M. (eds) Evolutionary Governance Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12274-8_17
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