Annette Aagaard Thuesen

Identifying social innovations in European local rural development initiatives

Social innovation is attracting increasing attention in research and policy, heightened by continuing austerity across Europe. Therefore, this paper examines earlier research into community-led local development (CLLD) initiatives in rural areas of Europe to develop our understanding of the meaning and scope of rural social innovation. We draw on a Schumpeterian view where innovations emerge from new combinations of resources that bring about positive changes and create value in society. A Schumpeterian social innovation framework is derived as the basis for re-analysing data from previous evaluations of LEADER policy in five different national contexts. This elicits a clearer understanding of social innovation in a rural development context, identifying different processes and outcomes that create social value. As the CLLD agenda and the demand for innovation in Europe gather pace, our aspirations are to inform future research and other initiatives on how to integrate social innovation into the design and evaluation of new rural development policies and programmes.

Partnerships as Associations: Input and Output Legitimacy of LEADER Partnerships in Denmark, Finland and Sweden

Formal EU regulations prescribe that LEADER local action groups (LAGs) should be organized as partnerships consisting of representatives from the different socioeconomic sectors. Three case studies of LAGs in Denmark, Finland and Sweden from the LEADER+ period 2000–2006 indicate that LEADER partnerships have been organized in markedly different ways in the Nordic countries and that these differences have had consequences for the legitimacy of the groups. One important phenomenon is the increasing use of the associational form when organizing LAG partnerships. Through an evaluation of the input legitimacy and output legitimacy of the three LAGs, the article identifies different mixes of association and partnership and suggests combinations of the two organizational forms. It argues that without strict meta-governance, partnerships organized as associations have difficulties finding a place under the partnership umbrella.

Important Types of LAG–Municipality Interaction When Collaborating on Rural Development Lessons from Danish LEADER LAGs

This article analyses the prevailing types of interaction between two important actors, namely, Danish municipalities and the EU-funded LEADER Local Action Groups (LAGs), in a qualitative case study of LAG-Djursland. In addition, parallels are drawn to the national implementation of the programme through a quantitative study. The analysis addresses interaction at the policy-making (board) level, the operational (staff) level and the implementation (project) level and employs inter-organizational theory. The analysis concludes that at LAG-Djursland, the policy-making level has the least integrated mode of interaction with the municipalities, followed by the operational level, and the implementation level is the most integrated. However, the analysis indicates that the operational level is most important for achieving the objective of delivering rural development. The study shows that the municipalities are valuable partners in fulfilling the LAG objectives; however, it is difficult to define the inflection point at which municipalities become too dominant and come into conflict with the rationale behind the LEADER approach to self-governance in LAG partnerships.