Municipality Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The presented book is devoted to local development and its governance by forming, on the strategic level, the relationships connecting municipalities with supralocal, i.e. regional, national and global milieu. It is divided into five chapters.
The first chapter constitutes the theoretical and conceptual foundation of the entire study. It discusses the crucial concepts used, such as Fordism and Post-Fordism, localism and new localism, localness and a local system, socio-economic development and sustainable development, as well as the relationships and the historical background of the evolution of these concepts. It also presents the definitions of local development included in the world literature, as well as two new approaches to local development created by the author – the local and supralocal one. These approaches were discussed in the model, process (dynamic) and structural (static) oriented variants. Next the author’s original typology of supralocal relationships of the local systems, which determine local development, was presented. Within its framework the relationships of valorisation and animation were identified as favourable for the local development, and also the relationships of suppression and depreciation as unfavourable for such development.
The second chapter discusses the implementation of local development concept. First the essence and the entities of local and supralocal policies of local development were presented. Next the reader’s attention was directed towards the issue of municipal governance of local development presenting it as the component of public governance. The mechanism of local development formation by the local authorities, using the instruments at their disposal, was also explained. It was followed by presenting the motives and the concept of strategic approach in the municipal governance of local development, showing them as an alternative for an administrative approach. Next the new, author’s category of supralocal perspective of municipal strategic governance of local development was defined. It consists of the characteristics of this governance related to supralocal relationships of a local system defined as exogenous utilitarianness, neo-endogenous absorptivity, protectiveness, retentionness and supralocal easementing, as well as the relevant activities of the local authorities.
The third chapter presents the analysis results of contemporary, world studies on supralocal relationships of local systems and their formation. On its basis the general research problem was identified and described, consisting in the insufficiency of knowledge in this matter despite the theoretical and practical rationale of having it. It was followed by presenting the reasons for which it is indispensable to carry out pilot, subject specific studies covering the selected group of local authorities and aimed at solving the fragment of this problem. The authorities of Polish small towns were selected as such a group. Next the supralocal reasons of contemporary socioeconomic situations of these towns were described in detail along with the interest in their supralocal relationships of science, local governments, supralocal authorities, business environments and the residents of these towns. Further part of this chapter presents the research goals, objects, strategy, methods and techniques, as well as the information sources. The adopted primary research goals were the identification of the characteristics of supralocal perspective of local development strategic governance of small towns, followed by enunciating the general characteristics of this perspective. The adopted secondary research goals were marking improvement methods of this governance perspective out along with the verification of usefulness of the selected information sources, research methods and techniques in diagnosing it.
The local authorities of 369 Polish towns with the residents’ number ranging from 5 to 20 thousand constituted the research population. The applied research method was a diagnostic survey using the technique of long personal interview, the method of content analysis using the encoding technique and the method of qualitative field research using the participant observation technique. The following information sources were adopted: town mayors, local development strategies and the groups of people playing key roles in the construction and implementation of these strategies. All the methods, techniques and sources were combined in accordance with triangulation research strategy. The chapter was completed with the description of the research questions and tools used and the report of the course of conducted research. The research results are presented in chapter four. It contains the detailed information how the studied authorities perceive the importance of particular supralocal relationships of their towns and their own roles in these relationships formation. It also includes information about the relationships which are mainly affected by exogenous utilitarianness, absorptivity, protectiveness and retentionness of strategic governance carried out by the analysed authorities, about the instruments used in this area and also about the positionality, neo-endogeneity and supralocal easementing of such governance. The provided information was illustrated by several comprehensive tables and several dozens graphs.
Based on the above information, the general characteristics of supralocal perspective of local development governance of Polish small towns is presented in the last, fifth chapter. Apart from its main components, i.e. the relationships perceived as strategically significant and formed on the strategic level, its unification was characterized along with its contextual specificity for the supralocal milieu. Fordist and Post-Fordist values dominating in this perspective of governance were also indicated. The impact of supralocal development policies, carried out by Polish state and regional authorities, on this governance, was also discussed. It was all concluded by the assessment of the level of transformation of administrative approach towards local development governance into a strategic one. Next, based on the analysis of legal acts, literature studies and cause and effect analysis the problem specific recommendations were made regarding the improvement of the discussed governance perspective. They were addressed to the analysed authorities, public governance related scientific environment and Polish state authorities. By analysing the course and the results of research the usefulness of methods, techniques and research tools, along with information sources in different, analogical studies, was also shown. The publication was finished with indicating the rationale, directions and methods for the conducted research continuation.