Participation, Governance And Poverty Reduction: An Analytic Approach

RODRÍGUEZ BILELLA, PABLO

Roskilde, Dinamarca

Conferencia; New Challenges and Opportunities for Local Development, Social Cohesion and Innovation; 2006

INTERREG IIIC

Although the study of local governance has been until recently an underdeveloped field in rural sociology, studies of rural governance are nowadays growing, mainly concentrated on specific policy areas. Adopting a different perspective, in this paper I am interested in paying attention to the links between concrete practices and broader trends and processes in the relationship between the economy, the state, policy and society. Specifically, I want to advance the discussion of rural governance and participation in the context of Latin America, taking as a point of departure the case of the Social Funds. These can be understood as particular  governance arrangements that emerged since the mid 1980s in Latin America (and later in Africa and Asia) aimed at reducing or countering the adverse economic shocks that affected the poor and vulnerable during the structural adjustment programmes implementation. Assuming a descriptive-analytical view of the governance perspective, I will argue about the usefulness of adopting an Actor-Oriented Approach in order to shift the research lens from looking at the outputs of rural governance to looking at its processes -mainly from the perspective of those living in rural areas. In this way, a direct engagement with issues of participation will provide akey stimulus for a non-normative view of governance issues. A case study of the implementation of a Social Fund in Argentina, the Agricultural Social Programme (PSA) is instroduced in order to ilustrate the discussion, while in the paper´s concuslions I highligh how the insights gained from the case study extends beyond rural Argentina.