Heterarchies and changing developmental pathways. A new approach in micro-regional studies

Abstract

For a long time, development was understood as being synonymous with economic growth and explained by a single, statistically established cause (i. e. GDP). Research in economic sociology in the past two decades has, however, revealed that development is about institutional change to be measured in multiple dimensions (equitable access to public goods, quality of life). Only institutional change that allows for heterarchic decision-making mechanisms can guarantee a development process. Framework conditions – institutional structures or policy mechanisms – are important as they may foster particular qualities of social networks and build local capacities. This paper presents a new approach that draws on this theoretical background and is based on research that studied changing patterns of governance in six micro-regions in Hungary between 1990 and 2006. The findings indicate that the dominant trend was a move from a non-hierarchical mode of governance in the early 1990s towards hierarchical modes by the 2000s. These evolutionary trends were mainly shaped by domestic factors, the EU having had only indirect influence on the process by providing the central state with prerogatives to control sub-national development policies.

However, this is only one aspect of the findings. Pre-accession EU support programmes had also strengthened the governance capacities of local state and non-state actors and enabled local political entrepreneurs to organise microregional territorial development through heterarchies even in the face of asymmetric power constellations. The case studies confirmed the hypothesis of the research about the interplay of heterarchic governance and development and showed that in an unstable and swiftly changing political, economic and institutional environment, heterarchic institutional solutions are necessary to maintain at least an average developmental level or to change a development path.