Többszintű, hálózati kormányzás a magyar terület- és vidékpolitikában

The involvement of regional and local institutions and stakeholders in decision-making processes is essential to ensure that policies at EU, national, regional and local levels are sufficiently coherent in addressing rural challenges and meeting the needs of rural communities. The development of coherent rural policies requires the development of multi-level governance structures that build on regional and local knowledge and integrate it into policy-making. The development of rural policy therefore requires governance approaches that are based on open dialogue between institutions and stakeholders and on the participation of citizens. As a member of the international partnership of the SHERPA (Structure of Rural Policy Networks) H2020 project, the Institute of Agricultural Economics examined the situation and opportunities of multi-level and network governance in rural policy in Hungary with the participation of the participants of the science-policy-society (multi-actor) platform. The main findings and suggestions of the expert community organized for the task, detailed in our article, can be summarized as follows: In Hungary, the Fundamental Law and other laws designate the institutions and their competencies for the exercise of local and regional public affairs. However, in general, the dominance of the central government and its organizations in management and development policy is characteristic. The sharing of competencies necessary for the proper functioning of multi-level governance between the individual territorial levels, as well as the mechanisms of cooperation, is lacking. There is no integrated rural policy, and even rural development policy in its name has a strong agricultural focus (in line with the subordination of the EU rural development policy to agricultural policy). As for the levels of multi-level territorial governance, the local government level, in addition to generally having limited resources and autonomy (especially in small rural settlements), is in practice not part of the multi-level governance structure of development policy. The real development policy weight of the institutions of medium-level territorial governance (county governments, regional development associations) is moderate. The micro-regional (district) and regional levels have no development policy relevance (representation and function). LEADER action groups with national rural coverage – operating at the lowest level of the multi-level development policy institutional system, closest to the settlements – are heavily dependent on central funding and exposed to the bureaucracy of implementation. The community-led local development (CLLD) approach is not implemented in the integrated development of cities and their “countryside”. The lack of coordinated cooperation and territorial guidelines that take into account bottom-up initiatives often leads to isolated developments and unjustified duplication. Citizen participation and cooperation, which are a basic condition for the effectiveness of multi-level governance, are at a low level (the COVID pandemic and the energy crisis have further reduced citizen activity and community life), and there is a general lack of knowledge and trust. At the same time, there are active organizations, networks and informal communities, from local interests to national ones, that have been operating for a long time and provide many good examples. Communities need good leadership, motivating personalities (“local heroes”) and must build on the intrinsic motivation of the participants. The research suggests following and adhering to the European Union’s guidelines on governance in the design of institutions and their competences, as well as in development and policy-making processes. Strengthening local/regional partnerships based on the participation of the public, private and civil sectors (governance type) and middle-level governance is essential, by increasing their development mandate and room for manoeuvre. Similarly, there is a need to promote networking and capacity-building activities of LEADER communities, as well as their skills to involve the wider society. Overall, it is necessary to develop a culture and tools of (trust-based) cooperation, partnership and social participation at all levels of policy-making. More intensive and extensive research is needed to expand knowledge on the above issues.