Space without power, power without space. Governance of peripheral regions - empirical experiences

Abstract

The study presents the results of an empirical study conducted in Baranya county (Hungary), which analysed the governance conditions of development policy in peripheral regions. The research block forming the basis of the study focused on the operation of the institutions involved in governance and the opinions of actors involved in governance.

In peripheral regions, the quality of governance is of particular importance, i.e. the decision-making process for the mobilization of local resources and the rational use of external subsidies. The decline and/or stagnation of peripheral regions is traditionally associated with asymmetric power relations, economic and societal dependence, the weakness or lack of enabling, balancing mechanisms. It is a general recognition that decentralised decision-making models are advantageous not only from the perspective of good governance conditions and values, but also due to their contribution to catching up processes in underdeveloped areas. Our research aimed to reveal the actual scope of action of institutions and actors operating at each territorial level. The survey and interviews indicate that governments and institutions at the regional level are not capable of territorial integration. Neither county governments, nor district state administration, nor the still remaining micro-regional associations exercise any meaningful influence in the development policy of the peripheral areas. This power vacuum is compensated by MPs of individual constituencies (106 mandates from the 199 parliamentary sits), which are legally not empowered by any competence in the system of planning and resource allocation. The strong informal role of MPs as a transmitting channel between the top and the bottom symbolises the centralistic logic of regional policy. Centralized resource allocation and planning, without appropriate platforms and relationships for co-operation with the locals, is able to enforce only national priorities, which are often not harmonized with local interests. This governance model in Baranya county aggregates disadvantages, not only because of the structure of small villages, the county’s peripheral location along the border and a traditional scarcity of resources but also because neither the resource-poor county seat, nor the mostly stagnant small towns have adopted the task of spatial integration that would be able to compensate for the lack of a strong county self government. Compared to all territorial levels, paradoxically most of the respondents think that local level leadership is the dominant actor in the whole decision-making mechanism, despite the fact that the tools and powers of local governments have been significantly curtailed in the last decade, and cooperation between local governments have become less widespread. It can be argued that territory lacks power and power lacks territory, while the effects of the two accumulate in disadvantages.