Public Organizations and Local Rural Development : an Empirical Analysis

Abstract

This paper describes an empirical approach designed and adopted to analyze and qualify the role of some public agencies devoted to rural development. These public organizations operate as critical agents in managing local public goods within a complex relation system functioning on a rural area. On the bases of the experiences and observations made on a case study in Central Italy, it emerges an analytical framework deriving from the correlation of an objective and subjective perspectives in the evaluation of these organizations’ performances. From these correlations, it derives a model to empirically classify these agencies evaluating also their potentials in creating integration, condensation and amalgamation phenomena based on trust, efficiency and effectiveness and their eventual potentials in determining positive impacts for the rural areas in which they operate.