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Journal of Central European Green Innovation 3 (2) pp. 171-174 (2015)
JOURNAL OF CENTRAL EUROPEAN GREEN INNOVATION
HU ISSN 2064-3004
Available online at http://greeneconomy.karolyrobert.hu/
TERRITORIAL COHESION IN RURAL EUROPE – THE RELATIONAL TURN IN
RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Edited by Andrew K. Copus and Philomena de Lime
TAKÁCS-GYÖRGY Katalin
The book is the 76th of series named Regions and Cities. It suited into the main stream of
thought of Regional Studies Association.
The book is an appropriate answer to the changing social, economic and political
environment, concerning the countryside. Going back to 1988, when the reform of the EU’
Structural Funds was carried out and the Cohesion Policy was introduced it was realized that
the development of agriculture, it linkages with the food industry and other environmental
aspects really were taken into consideration. The Authors highlight that although a lot of
development could b3e recognized, the level of cooperation, coordination and integration
remained low. As the LEADER project is an “umbrella project”, gives frame for local
development initiatives, for cooperation among private and public sector as well, but more
efforts are needed to strengthen the local communities, rural areas and resulted the community
led local development. It is emphasized it was good to recognize that not agriculture would
have determining role in rural development.
Based on the analyses of the former processes, European Union policies, the question of rural
development arose again: is the direction is good where we are going and are the tools
appropriate for the present and for the future at the same time? The answer is: new paradigm
is needed, the common rules, common objectives must be changed, important will be the
cooperation, coordination and integration, the coopetitive behavior. With the former
mentioned thoughts predicates the book the new approaches for development of rural areas,
namely territorial development.
The Authors (Contributors) come from several different areas, institutions with different
scientific background and approaches. That is one key value of the study. First the Reader
gets a brief history of the concept of rural development turning to rural cohesion and after it
the problem is discussed from several disciplines in a holistic way.
The book consists of three main parts. The Editors aim was first to give a representative
picture of contemporary rural Europe
The first part is about the past and present: Contemporary rural change and the concept of
territorial cohesion.
Introduction: from rural development to rural territorial cohesion by the Editors (Andrew K.
Copus and Philomena de Lime) The Editors’ aim was first to give a representative picture of
contemporary rural Europe, their starting point was to base the idea of ‘smart, sustainable and
inclusive growth’. To reach this aim it was needed to give an overview of restructuring of the
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rural economy, highlighting the macro-scale patterns (Andrew K. Copus, Chapter 2),
following the brief history of the evolution of European Rural Policy (Thomas Dax, Chapter
3). He concluded three main lessons for present and future: interdisciplinary appears in the
practice depending on the actors and policy development, the tendency to think and act in a
holistic approach is slow; though it was in the center the decrease of the territorial
differentiation it has not met the expectation during the past 25 years; thirdly more attention to
multilevel governance and innovation issues is needed. The necessary movements, steps must
be based on the experiences, lessons from the past. Chapter 4 (by Andrew K. Copus and Lisa
van Well) is about the harmonization: Parallel words? Comparing the perspectives and
rationales of EU Rural Development and Cohesion Policy. Urban-rural linkages and
cooperation, multilevel and territorial governance, role of coherence between policies
targeting the same area but implemented by different levels in the policy hierarchy must be
harmonized. Authors give a summarization of the potential key actions, highlighting the
importance of harmonization and explicite the role of cooperation of participants. The chapter
gives a more detailed review of the existing policy issues, debates relating to Rural Policy. It
is declared that to the extant, that Cohesion Policy is/was directed towards rural areas, the key
concept relates to ‘trickle down’ effects from nearby cities, towns, the potential engines of
regional development. So here the thoughts of importance of rural-rural, rural-global
interactions have been appeared yet. The underlying part of the book comes to an end with an
example (study) from the new World: Territorial Cohesion: US and Canadian perspectives on
the concept (Chapter 5 by Pamela Kelrick, Thomas G. Johnson and Judith I. Stallmann). The
Authors compared the European Union’s vision on the concept of territorial cohesion, the
experiences with the US and Canadian practice, where these term does not exist. One of their
outcome is, that “cohesion” for EU means an active, and organized intervention in the
economy, governance, social networks built up by the EU, through policy, programs and
governance. In the US the thought of regionalism can be considered as a part of a responsible
action, less than a widespread, proactive interregional effort. The cohesion relies on stronger
governmental leadership, but can be characterized with significant decentralization and
devolution of authority, interregional transfers to equalize capacity, extensive emphasis on
interregional collation-building, accommodation of diverse cultures and traditions in Canada.
Their opinion is that Canadian model offer more useful and interesting experiences: it must be
separated the territorial cohesion objectives from economic objectives partially, based on the
differences3 of historical, cultural, geographic, economic, social and political context.
Second part is about the past processes took part in the European Union in the last decade.
First the demographic change is discussed, because the structure of habitants, the question of
mobility among member countries, migration and immigration from outside to EU, the rural
habitants are most relevant topics from the point of view of territorial cohesion. They live
there, they work there, they want to go into the direction to development. Chapter 6 is about
the Demographic trends in rural Europe (by Mats Johnson) who highlight the interest on the
positive impacts on the rural areas, like the changes in urban-rural relations, the more
favourable conditions accessible rural regions in Central and Western Europe. But important
is to focus on those differences that come from the varieties of the member states, the
peripheral effects, going back to the economic roots. So neither urban nor rural can be
considered (is) a homogenous aggregate, so must be adapted all the aims, tasks, policies, tools
to the certain given environment. Next issue is about the experiences of free movement in the
EU: Reconciling labour mobility and cohesion policies – The rural experience by Philomena
de Lima (Chapter 7). Impacts of labour mobility both on sending and target countries were
examined by wide literature analyses. It is a fact that there is a great increase in immigration.
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Migration also makes effect not only on the economy (European competitiveness), not only
on rural areas and their regional labour market and economy, but it is also important in the
development of rural communities and due to the changing cultural, social characteristics of
the communities something will work differently. So after ten years of EU accession, the intra
EU labour mobility is more complex and dynamic process. Chapter 8: Business networks,
translocal linkages and the way to the New Rural Economy (by Dimitris Skuras and
Alexandre Dubois) turn into other direction. The Authors’ assumption was ‘that regions that
are able to position themselves within multi-local and multi-industrial networks will be more
able exploit their own potential in terms of human and natural resource’. From this aspect
they summarized the network literature, showing some examples and defined the ‘rural way
of networking’. They highlight the role of trust and kinship in strong and viable local
networks, the importance of social capital. Also important to get closer the business networks
to rural development programs and to expand the reach of rural networking, enhanced
intersectoral and translocal rural networks at the same time. Networks enhance the social
capital through bridging and capacity-building mechanism in rural areas, they also act as
‘reflective agencies’. For the future it is a task to strengthen the economic, cultural, political
and social environment that help the existence of networks in rural territories like key actors
of New Rural Economy. Part II is closing with an Irish case study: Agricultural restructuring
in the EU (by Caroline Crowley and David Meredith, Chapter 9). The example of Ireland
shows the changes of rural areas to agricultural restructuring process from the point of view of
economy, social characteristics, ways of life, relationships, etc. Through a model developed
for assessing the changes of Irish agriculture it is carried out that specialization is a strategy
for the farms to increase the productivism, farm economic size and causes a radical decline in
farm numbers. At the same time there can be observed that the intensification level has
increased mainly in larger farms. These figures led the attention to those farms that are not
economically viable based on primer agricultural activities. The Authors emphasize the role
of sustainable agriculture at the same time. Taking into consideration their model
differentiating para-productivism and peri-productivism, farms operating in rural areas must
be divided into categories, based on the lessons of past. There are different challenges for the
future development of rural areas, like environmental impacts in those areas that characterized
by para-productivism (where intensification, concentration is the direction) and the so called
‘youth out-migration’ from areas dominated by peri-productivism (where other activities
should be added to be viable). The Authors drew out the attention that these processes and
challenges must be addressed by territorial cohesion.
Part III is something like giving new directions, ideas, tools for getting closer to those
interventions that contribute (promote) to strengthen the rural area, economy, communities, to
maintain the environment in other words to meet the requirements of sustainable rural life.
Chapter 10 is about the Changing social characteristics, pattern of inequality and exclusion
written by Bettina Bock, Katalin Kovács and Mark Shucksmith. Here the main a brief outlook
we can read about the heightening problem of poverty and the Authors explain – with theories
and statements coming from literature, highlighting the necessity of new ways of
understanding social inequality – why is important to focus on the localization of ‘poor people
in poor places’ question if the real aim is to narrow the differences between the poorest and
richest regions in the EU. The question of peripheral places is a nowadays question in all
member states, but mainly is located in remote rural areas in the south and east of Europe.
Chapter 11 is written by Gusztáv Nemes, Chris High and Anna Augustyn, on the question of
why it was not successfully introduced the new approaches to rural development summarized
by the OECD New Rural Paradigm, why has not became into practice. The implement as key
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determinants of positive results the emergence of the collective reflexive agency. Local
participations and more concerned of people, more focus on the process than on products is
needed to gain positive results. The limits and barriers of multilevel governance for
institutional organization and analytical framework are discovered by the Authors. For the
future the solution is the collective reflexive agency and it must be focused on learning and
innovation networks according to the Authors.
Summarizing, the Authors and Editors of ‘Territorial Cohesion in Rural Areas’ tried to define
objectives, key targets, tools and actors of Rural Cohesion Policy. From the past they start,
evaluate the history of rural development policy to territorial cohesion policy, and design
potential directions based on more or less successful examples, underlying why Rural
Cohesion Policy, the new paradigm is an appropriate response to current rural trends.
One of the values of the book is the usefulness, as all chapters are based with good
international literature coming from the last decade. This helps the researchers to find the
most appropriate source for further researches. Other key issue is that a lot of questions are
withdrawn from different scientific aspects that are worth to examine to understand better the
ongoing processes concerning the territorial cohesion in rural Europe.
Prof. Dr. Takács-György Katalin
Károly Róbert College
H-3200 Gyöngyös, Mátrai u. 36.
[email protected]
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