Instrumente der Regionalentwicklung, Beteiligungsprozesse und Kapazitätsaufbau: Ergebnisse der Begleitforschung zum Modellvorhaben Land(auf)Schwung im Themenschwerpunkt „Governance“ : Band 3 der Begleitforschung Land(auf)Schwung

Regional development initiatives often use governance tools adopted from the private sector. These include, for example, the allocation of funds via competitions, management by objectives, regional budgets, and management boards with the participation of public and non-public actors. With these instruments, decisions should be made independently of short-term electoral considerations, include a broader stock of knowledge, initiate innovations, promote the acceptance and motivation of local actors, use funds more economically and enable region-specific strategies and the development of self-sustaining structures. To what extent the new instruments meet these expectations has not been researched, despite decades of practice. To test the instruments of competition, regional budget, management by objectives, the participation of key persons, guide for funding support, resource plan and interregional networking, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) conducted the pilot program Land(auf)Schwung (rural up-swing) with 13 rural regions particularly affected by demographic transformation all over Germany. The accompanying research for the pilot program has examined in the topic "Governance" to what extent the expectations of the tested instruments have been met and what unintended side effects have occurred. On this basis, recommendations for action on governance in rural regional development processes were derived. Quantitative and qualitative methods were combined to answer the research questions. Representatives of the 37 applicant regions and all members of the 13 decision-making bodies were questioned in a standardized way, and group interviews and participatory observations were carried out in the model regions at three times and at networking events. The results show, for example, that regional budgets are extremely popular with regional actors because they not only enhance the regional level of decision-making, but also offer extensive flexibility in order to keep the own funds of low-resource actors in disadvantaged regions low. The hoped-for effects of regional budgets on the effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy of regional development, mentioned in the literature, could be hardly demonstrated in the data. On the other hand, there are negative or potentially negative effects such as high transaction costs, funding coalitions, pressure to spend funds or a lack of economies of scale in administrating the funds. Furthermore, the participation processes in the regional decision-making bodies meant that those with strong resources were favored. In addition, key players could be identified, who usually combine several functions on just a few people. On the one hand, this means a high reputation for these people, on the other hand, it is also an indication of certain dependencies, low specialization and limited involvement of the other participants. As an example of a policy recommendation, a monitoring concept was developed on the basis of governance patterns observed in the course of the development process. Using such a monitoring allows funding bodies of rural development to identify at an early stage any regional need for support or undesirable developments that make intervention in certain phases necessary. This includes, for example, the experience with corresponding funding initiatives in the region in the initiation phase, the intensity of participation after the concept phase or the commitment of funds two years after the start of the implementation phase.