Volume 10 (2018): Issue 3 (September 2018)

Viticulture has an effect on several ecosystem services, while it also is a sector critically affected by diverse ecological risks. Payments for agri-environmental services address several of these risks. Based on 77 interviews, we compare the motivational patterns of vintners participating and non-participating in the Austrian agri-environmental scheme ÖPUL to analyse mechanisms of motivation crowding. We identified three types of vintners that are motivated not only by “financial incentives” but also by a complex combination of different intersecting socio-psychological mechanisms – such as frame shifting by social learning or peer recognition reinforcing or control aversion and frustration with the administrative burden hindering the delivery of environmental services. More research is needed to understand how different strategies of risk governance, such as legal standards, information, capacity building, incentives and reflective discourse might be best combined to address different groups of farmers.

This article pursues an innovative dimension of social entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector that keeps rural areas viable, so-called social farming. Social entrepreneurship appears as an essential driver in the European economy and it heads toward new opportunities mainly through its impact on social integration, economic sustainability, and fair society. Social farming and social farms can successfully respond to the challenge of social exclusion and lack of social services provision and other opportunities in rural areas through alternative therapeutic activities, sheltered working places or integrative educational activities in a farm environment. From this perspective, a social farm should correspond to the definition of a social enterprise. By introducing the basic frames of social entrepreneurship and social farming in general and in the Czech Republic, and by concentrating on fifteen Czech social farms, this paper presents an insight into this retro-innovative practice of social integration systems in the countryside. It mainly answers the question, whether social farming complies fully with social entrepreneurship stream, and it explores the role of the social farm in rural development by using semi-structured and in-depth interviews.

In Europe, Social Farming (SF) and agritourism are multifunctional agriculture activities that arise when agricultural land is abandoned in rural and peri-urban areas; it is difficult to develop commercial agriculture if it is not intensive. In our research, we studied SF in Catalonia, carrying out a census and classification of 161 initiatives and a more in-depth analysis of 10 projects (or 9 in some cases), identifying their viability and the economic, social, and environmental return on investment (SROI) for the resources used in each case. The methodology included questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and Canvas and SROI analyses. Although SF has developed in many European countries, it is incipient in the Iberian Peninsula. The projects in Catalonia combine agrarian activity, socio-health care and social policies, with the aim of offering innovative solutions to the needs of different groups at risk of social exclusion.

The authors of the article consider regional labeling as a marketing tool which can contribute to the development of regional activities. These are focused mainly on traditional regional products and products. Their general popularity in prosperous regions is an important source of income for the inhabitants. In the less developed regions, it represents a significant stimulating tool of development. By means of a Slovak region of Gemer-Malohont as an example, the authors bring quantitative findings related to the preference of regional brands. They took into consideration the indicators of age, gender, education, monthly income and locality in connection with preference of regional products. They pointed to the fact that regional labeling has a mobilizing function to link and then jointly present its local activities. The behaviour of the population from the regions is an important recommendation for small producers and producers from less developed regions of Central Europe.

Tourism development has been a particularly intense area of negotiation in the Spanish countryside since the 1990s because of its major role in public policies for the economic restructuring, the regionalisation of policy instruments and its own intersectoral nature. This leads us to examine how the coordination takes place within the actors engaged in the tourist development of Sierra de Albarracín. This research adopts an inductive approach to the social relations that underlie the construction of a tourism project territory. From the meeting between the methodology of the social network analysis and the analytical framework of the School of Proximity, the procedure presented here helps to understand the logics of territorial construction. Cooperation appears more fictitious than the policy instruments of governance envisage. Questioning both cooperative and conflictive proximities offers new clues for the evaluation of public policy instruments.

The impact of the transformation of economic activities and sharp weather and climate changes on the quality of life in rural settlements on peatlands in the Moscow region was analyzed. As theoretical background, an analysis of various interpretations of the concept of the quality of life was carried out, including in the context of sustainable development. The impact of economic and environmental factors of the quality of life in rural settlements on peatlands is considered with respect to their location in the zone of attraction of Moscow. It was concluded that the development of industrialization in the region led to population decline and to increase in the anthropogenic load. This critically increased the vulnerability of peatlands to fluctuations in weather and climate conditions and several times led to serious environmental disasters. At the same time, location in the zone of attraction of Moscow opens up opportunities for improving the quality of life associated with the development of post-industrial recreational use.

The paper presents a multi-theoretical argument by linking the mid-range concepts of risk and trust to some core, classical approaches of rural sociology. The main assumption is that risk and trust, two essential features of social interactions in late modernity are influenced by the rural and urban forms of coexistence. Based on the typological grand theories of early rural sociology, countryside-like milieu reduces risks, and by this, supports the individual abilities of showing trust. The paper analyzes this assumption on European countries’ data through a quantitative empirical inquiry. The findings do not strengthen the basic hypothesis which conclusion suggests that the classical typological approach of rural sociology should be seen through a critical lens – just as the new theoretical interpretations from the field recommend it.

The collapse of the Soviet utopian world, where the government sought to plan and control economic and social processes, caused a wave of significant changes in the post-socialist countries. The territorial regrouping of citizens is one of the hard to control changes that started at the end of the 1990s in Lithuania. This article identifies the major changes in the settlement system in Lithuania and its effects on peripheral areas. The main scope of this article is an analysis of the potential of residents from peripheral areas to adapt to the rapidly changing socio-economic environment. For the analysis, we used data and information gathered during field trips to peripheral rural areas throughout the country between 2013 and 2014. This study found that the residents who remained in peripheral areas had several opportunities in rapidly changing environment after Lithuania gained its Independence in 1990. Interviews with local authorities allowed us to define three groups of residents and their potential to adapt to the labour market: those who are active, those who are passive and those who choose social benefits instead of a work salary. The survey results allowed us to predict that the ‘central-peripheral’ spatial structure will be one of the main factors influencing regional development in Lithuania in the near future.

This contribution discusses regional development drawing on the EU member state Austria as an example. The crosscutting theme is illustrated from initial positioning through to relevant fields of action. In doing so, the way forward is seen as a process and those who accompany it are seen as the ones responsible for its implementation. Responsibilities are identified along theses. These are formed in the context of demographic change, mobility, energy, regional public services, residential development, cooperation and governance processes. Fields of action are discussed in accordance with the developed theses.