Work Package 3 Social Capital, Governance and Rural Innovations
Work Package 3 is coordinated by Humboldt University Berlin and specifically focuses on how changes in social capital formation lead to institutional innovations in a Central and East European (CEE) rural context. The aim of Work Package 3 is to analyse processes of achieving cooperation, and to understand the failure of cooperative strategies. In order to understand the processes, the concepts of trust, communication and social learning will be empirically investigated through case studies. It is hypothesised that the more frequent and complete the communication between agents, the greater the cooperation.
The research will address three theoretical questions:
1)How do trust, reputation and reciprocity contribute to transaction cost theory in both market and non-market settings?
2)How are power structures manifested and reproduced through collective action within CEE rural development?
3)How do different communication structures and strategies (learning to use information) affect cooperative outcomes in CEEC rural development?
To structure these theoretical questions, three different institutional settings will be explored in the case studies on cooperation. The first setting is ‘within the market’, where case studies on the land market in Bulgaria, commodity food markets in will be conducted by researchers from the University of Plovdiv and the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration respectively. In addition, two PhD theses will focus on land fragmentation in Bulgaria and farm producer groups in Poland. The second institutional setting is ‘in and between communities’, where case studies on local community’s reaction to State incentives for rural development will be examined in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. This work shall be undertaken by researchers in the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, the Latvian University of Agriculture and the Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics. The third institutional setting is one of high State intervention, through ‘an environmental protection’ regulation. The governance of National Parks in Poland and Slovakia has been chosen to explore this situation where the State regulation instigates processes of cooperation or non-cooperation amongst stakeholders. Researchers from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan and the Slovak academy of Sciences, Bratislava will undertake this case-study work.
Concepts and Organisation/Responsibilities of WP3Research Focus on Cooperation
A.
In the Market
/ B.In and Between Communities / C.
In Environmentally Protected Areas
HUB Research Facilitator / V. Beckman / C.Murray / C.Murray
Other HUB team involved: / (M.Hanisch, V. Dirimanova
I.Banaszak)
Subcontractors / Bulgaria(land consolidation)
Hungary(land consolidation) / Latvia
LithuaniaPoland / (Community/ies response to rural development policy incentives) / Poland(National Park Designation)
Slovakia(National Park Designation)
Facilitated by CIRAD, E.Cheyns / Poland (regional labelling)
PhD Theses / Bulgaria (land fragmentation)
Poland (producer groups)
Expected Output / 4-5 Case Studies / 3 Case Studies / 2 Case Studies
7-8 Working Papers / 5-6 Working Papers / 4-5 Working Papers
2 PhD Thesis /
Journal Publications Special Edition Journal
IDARI Book