Contenu du sommaire : Management des territoires ruraux

Rural management is an integral part of the territorial development paradigms, moreover management and rurality are influencing reciprocally during the development processes. This introduction examines how the project management may influence rurality, and how the managerial practices may be challenged by rurality. Starting form a bibliometric approach to identify the main lines that organize the rural management field, this article also recalls how the various managerial approaches are related to the various developmental paradigms.Today, as organizers of a complex governance, territorial managers must reinforce their knowledge of the management tools and technics, notably the brand, to organize stakeholders and enhance the potential of rural areas. To reach this goal, a favorable institutional support is required, based on efficient frameworks. The LEADER and TZCLD programs, mentioned in this special issue, aim the mobilization of the endogenous capital as a condition for successful projects. The use of these mechanisms is nevertheless uneven and leads to contrasting regional economic effects. This calls into question the strategies that exclusively give local responses to global problems.More than a set of techniques, rural management has also an important symbolic dimension. It is a space of values in phase with contemporary aspirations, particularly environmental ones. If it could symbolically engage in a form of revenge, rural management must recognize and maintain the multiple interactions with the urban world. These interactions are moreover part of the elements on which rural management is based.

Organic agriculture is part of the rise of more sustainable agricultural production systems. The objective of this research is to determine the extent to which the development of organic farming in rural territories constitutes a territorial innovation that is part of a diversification of the existing agricultural system, offering the characteristics of smart specialization. This research aims to shed light on a paradox relating to the local capacities of this type of area. On the one hand, these territories are often considered as less innovative because of their low density and the lower technological intensity of the industries. On the other hand, the characteristics of rural areas suggest specific innovation capacities, with greater recourse to personal links and an important place for local resources. The research is based on a unique case study, the Gers department, the first "organic department" in France. 25 semi-directive interviews were conducted with a panel of territorial stakeholders. Interviews were the subject of a thematic content analysis. Five main findings emerged from this research. First, it was the farmers who initially supported the development of organic farming and not other local economic and institutional actors. Secondly, it is essentially local networks and resources that have enabled the growth of organic farming in the department. We also observe a real intentionality of local public policies to support organic farming. This territorialization of organic farming is based on a demand from consumers outside the territory. Finally, there is a diversity of visions of organic agriculture that may hamper its development as a territorial innovation.

This article contributes to the debate on sustainable rural development. It aims to better understand individual connections to rural places through an analysis of deconsumption practices and, conversely, their implementation from the perspective of the territory. The analysis of thirteen interviews conducted with women engaged in the challenge of reducing their consumption level – the ‘Rien de Neuf' challenge of the Zero Waste association – shows that deconsumption is not only an urban issue, but also a major rural issue. The results call to reassess the simplistic representations of an idyllic rurality with intrinsic voluntary simplicity. Indeed, the findings suggest that rural deconsumption practices have specificities that deserve to be considered, especially with respect to the frequency of purchases, exchange platforms and local networks. We highlight the different challenges faced by the participants when they try to consume less. The implementation of deconsumption practices in rural places reveals two types of link to the territory: a commuting link that maintains the centre/periphery dichotomy and an involvement link that shows a willingness to establish a different anchorage to one's place of residence in order to achieve deconsumption. These results are discussed in light of the literature on territorial development and deconsumption practices. We draw the attention of the stakeholders involved in sustainable rural development to the importance of local infrastructures, which are more likely to support the ecological transition of daily practices. Finally, we highlight the limits of this research and the avenues for future research.

Drawing on research based on four case studies in France and Italy, studied over the period 1994–2015, this article looks at the effects of the implementation of the European rural development programme LEADER in the beneficiary areas. The research is therefore based on the comparison of four Local Action Groups: West Cornwall in Brittany, the Pays d'Arcachon Val de l'Eyre in Aquitaine, the Delta Po in Emilia-Romagna and the Venezia Orientale in Veneto. This choice of cases was based on the following comparative hypothesis. The normative and cognitive framework of the European LEADER programme has two dimensions : the rural development perspective adopted in the deployment of the programme and the place of local authorities in rural territories in territorial governance. The article analyses the mechanisms involved in the contribution of this programme to the transformation of the issues at stake in these territories, to the evolution of the systems of local actors, and finally to changes in the definition and implementation of local public policy. By participating in the strengthening of local authorities according to their relative territorial capacities and by generating processes of domination by regional authorities, LEADER ultimately contributes to the redistribution of the places and roles of elected representatives and experts within the local arena and generates effects on programmes other than LEADER. LEADER thus participates in the recomposition of local public action, not by imposing the principles of neo-endogenous territorial development, but by juxtaposing them with other rural development proposals, depending on the actors, contexts, periods, policies or programmes concerned. Furthermore, LEADER feeds learning processes about cooperation between actors and the mobilisation of public action mechanisms through socialisation mechanisms that lead to social innovations, the mobilisation of territorialised public action instruments and, finally, inter-community and inter-municipal cooperation.

The article focuses on the European rural development program LEADER and its implementation in former GDR rural areas. The three studied regions are affected both by the heritage of the socialist era and peripheralization, defined as a combination of population departures, economic weakening, political dependence and stigmatization. The article questions the extent to which these factors might prevent local stakeholders from getting involved in the LEADER European development program. It is here assumed that the program is inadequate for the targeted regions, as the most disadvantaged regions, which would particularly need the program, are the least able to use LEADER as an instrument of development. They have to face difficulties in too many fields to implement concrete and efficient endogenous development strategies. The interregional competition increases therefore inequalities between disadvantaged regions and the prosperous ones. After a study of several profiles of stakeholders in the studied regions, showing different level of involvement, the strategies of circumvention and instrumentalization of the program's rules are highlighted. A particular attention is paid to the financial rules of the LEADER regions and how they tend to increase inequalities between regions but also between small cities within those regions. The role of personal acquaintances is also pointed out as a significant advantage. The methodological framework is a mix of qualitative methods including repeated semi-directive interviews with regional managers, observation of rural development reunions, as well as analysis of the development strategies. This fieldwork took place over several months in 2018 and 2019 in three LEADER regions of Mecklenburg-West-Pomerania.

The results presented in this article are drawn from a field survey conducted in the canton of Prémery between January and November 2019. It is based mainly on the conduct and analysis of semi-directive interviews, supplemented by additional data contextualisation and validation tools (documentary research, work on archives and mobilisation of framework data from official statistics). It aims to question the capacity of local actors to revitalise a declining rural area on the basis of an endogenous territorial development strategy. The case studied is that of the experiment Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée in Prémery (Nièvre), a small rural town marked at the beginning of the 2000s by the closure of the Lambiotte factory, which was the main source of employment in the area. Although at first glance the project appears to be a classic integration scheme along the lines of those imagined since the 1970s by associations fighting against job insecurity, the TZCLD program actually has several original features. It is financed by a specific fund coming mainly from the state and aims to reduce long-term unemployment by taking into account both the needs of the territories and the skills of the beneficiaries. The effective implementation of this program led to a reconfiguration of local governance by including new actors such as inhabitants, unemployed, associations, entrepreneurs, administrative staff, elected representatives.