Local Initiatives in Peripheral Areas: An Intercultural Comparison Between Two Case Studies in Brazil and Austria

Summary

The ongoing process of globalization has led to a great challenge of restructuring not only for national but also for regional and urban economies and societies. National governments, the traditional main actors of economic policy, see themselves less and less able to cope with these restructuring needs, both regarding their financial as well as organizational requirements. In recent years, therefore, they have increasingly permitted—and often even promoted—the emergence of initiatives at local/regional levels to cope with these restructuring needs. Local initiatives have consequently become important factors in economic and socio-political restructuring in many parts of the world, a bottom-up alternative to the traditional top-down policies of state governments (see also Stöhr & Taylor, 1981; Muegge & Stöhr, 1987; Stöhr, 1990a).

The present chapter is based on the results of a research project (Birner et al.,1998) which—following up on the above-mentioned publications—contains an in-depth analysis of local initiatives in two peripheral case-study areas in Austria and Brazil. Both areas are similarly marginal in a social and geographical sense. The Austrian one is at some distance from the capital of Vienna and close to the Czech border, while the Brazilian one is a marginal settlement in the Metropolitan Area of Sao Paulo.

The chapter deals with the concept of peripherality in both social and geographical terms. It then analyses the conditions under which local initiatives have emerged and what the characteristics of the actors who triggered these local initiatives were. The analysis of the emergence of local initiatives is related to Hirschman’s (1970) concept of ‘voice’ vs. ‘exit, i.e. of locally interrelated common action vs. placeless individual optimization in the world economy. The analysis of the characteristics of actors in local initiatives is based on Friedmann’s (1992) concept of local ‘empowerment’ explained by the control by individuals over specific resources. Finally the typical ‘profiles’ of actors in local initiatives in the two case-study areas are presented in a comparative way.

In conclusion, the chapter shows the importance of factors such as the individual control over resources, of inter-personal relations, of local and public networks, and of local organizations, for the development of peripheral areas (see also Putnam, 1993). It shows how this can represent the basis for the reformulation of urban and regional development strategies, which have so far been mainly guided by central state agencies, and have focused primarily on economic and financial factors.