In the context of public budget cuts and rural areas facing depopulation and aging, local governments increasingly encourage citizen engagement in addressing local livability issues. This paper examines the non-engagement of mid-aged and elderly residents (45+ years old) in civic initiatives that intend to improve the livability of their community. We focus on residents of depopulating rural areas in the North Netherlands. We compare their engagement with the behavior of residents in other, not depopulating, rural areas, and urban areas. Using logistic statistical analyses, we found that the majority of the aging residents did not engage in civic livability initiatives during the past two years, and one-third of this group had no intention to do so in the future. In all areas, the main reasons for non-engagement were that residents had other priorities, felt not capable of engaging, or felt that the responsibility for local livability belonged to the local government. Furthermore, it appeared that non-engagement was predominantly explained by the unwillingness to engage, rather than by specific motivations or lacking abilities.
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Against the backdrop of depopulation and Big Society, citizen initiatives in rural areas are believed to be able to mitigate service-provision inequalities between urban and peripheral regions. Factors influencing the success and failure of such citizen initiatives and their potential in providing solutions to perceived problems have thus far hardly been explored. Our previous work on potential aspects of success and failure indicates that the durability of an initiative does not necessarily define the success of the initiative. Studies have neglected the question of continuity and what will happen when the initiators put down their efforts. In what way do initiators transfer their responsibility and is there a sense of problem ownership?This paper aims to conceptualize factors influencing the continuity of citizen initiatives and provide insight in the processes that take place when initiators stop their activities. Further, the study aims to identify who claims ownership of the issue the initiative focuses on. An inventory of citizen initiatives was made in the three northern provinces of the Netherlands, where rural areas experience depopulation. Questionnaires focusing on how initiatives think about their future, especially when the initiators stop, were sent to around 600 initiatives. The results will add to future research on success and failure of citizen initiatives, but also provide insights for citizen initiatives and ways local governments try to facilitate them.
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In this paper, we apply a civic perspective and social innovation theory to examine how residents of a Dutch village experiencing rural depopulation and austerity reforms evaluate a civic initiative aimed at improving liveability, and what explains their evaluation. Using multivariate statistical analysis, we found that most residents were positive about the initiative and its contribution to local liveability. We also discovered that a substantial group knew very little about the initiative and that low-income groups, in particular, lacked the interest to identify and become engaged with it. Voluntary engagement, however, did not necessarily result in a positive evaluation. Above all, tangible outputs explained citizens’ appreciation. A perceived increase in collaboration within the village and novel forms of collaboration with the local government also proved important, but only when they were accompanied by realised tangible outputs.
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A small group of people managing a swimming pool to prevent it from closing, or a group taking care of a next door public green area. These are examples of citizen initiatives and they are becoming more and more prevalent. Citizen initiatives are a way for citizens to organize themselves and take action to arrange those activities that otherwise would not take place but are nevertheless important to them. But how and under which circumstances do these initiatives function? And how is continuity warranted? This research will focus on the continuity and success and failure factors of citizen initiatives in depopulating rural areas.
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Population decline, welfare state reforms and austerity measures pressurise the liveability of rural areas in the Netherlands and call upon local governments and communities to adapt and renew their mode of governance. This paper reports on three Dutch experimental governance arrangements which are analysed through the lens of Evolutionary Governance Theory. The study focuses on how decision-making roles change while these arrangements unfold and how the three municipalities institutionalise these changes in the course of time. The study produces three main conclusions. First, the readiness and preparedness of local governments to shift decision-making roles with citizens proved to be of main influence on governance change. Second, local residents’ commitment importantly affected the progress of the experiments, while social cohesion and tangible outputs strongly influenced the extent and continuity of such commitment. Third, although the arrangements took place in the same period of time and abovementioned context, the level of institutionalisation of shifting roles between government and residents differed among the cases. Certain pathways of evolving decision-making roles seem to be more stable than others. It is in this area that the extent of both formal and informal institutionalisation seems to play an important role.
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In this article, we use Kooiman’s theory of governance in combination with key-conditions of community self-steering identified in recent studies to examine how the self-steering capacity developed of a community initiative aiming at improving the liveability of a small Dutch village. Using non-participatory observations and qualitative analysis, we obtained in-depth insights into how this initiative, ‘Project Ulrum 2034’ managed to build local autonomy from 2010 to 2018. We found that government support was crucial for many of its successes. Also, tensions came to light between 1. local autonomy, and its dependence on professional support, and; 2. broader community engagement, and accountability related to the public funding obtained leading to the formalisation of its organisation and the centralisation of tasks. We discovered that self-steering capacities fluctuate in time, are dynamic and develop in a non-linear way. The voluntary engagement was above all temporary, except for some activities when of direct interest to those involved. The continuity of community self-governance was fragile, due to its dependency on external funding and voluntary engagement.
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Purpose: The study aims to understand the meaning of event-based and place-based community practices, as well as the resulting social impacts. Design/methodology/approach: An ethnomethodological approach was followed (participant observation and interviews were supplemented by secondary data), with the analysis being exploratory and interpretative. Findings: The festival and the place reinforce the community’s social practices, which have impacts beyond the festival, benefiting individuals, the community and the place, becoming a means for valorisation and diffusion of the rural way of life, and placemaking. Research limitations/implications: In this study the authors focus on social practices in the context of an event and of a place (the village where the event occurs). The authors connect to theories of practice, which they apply in the analysis. The value of the study lies on the underlying mechanisms (how communities exercise social practices in the context of festivals, and what social impacts may lead to) rather than its context-dependent specific results. Practical implications: National and regional authorities can play a role in providing local communities with adequate tools to overcome the challenges they encounter. This can be done by issuing appropriate (events) plans and policies while giving room for the locals to voice their opinions. Social implications: Community-based festivals are key social practices that can strategically impact placemaking, strengthening community bonding, forging connections with outsiders and promoting well-being practices that discourage rural depopulation. Originality/value: There is a scarcity of research that deepens the understanding of the role of festivals in placemaking and their social impacts, particularly in the rural context. This study contributes to closing this gap by focussing on the social practices of a community-based festival in a village in the interior of Portugal.
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Citizens’ initiatives are believed to be a suitable alternative approach to service provision, especially in rural areas where services and facilities are under pressure because of depopulation and the decentralization measures of the state. To date, research has mainly focused on successful examples of these types of initiatives, revealing which factors influence success and how success can be facilitated. However, understanding the process of failure is equally important in order to provide the needed support and to increase the chances of success. This paper specifically focuses on citizens’ initiatives that are perceived by their initiators to have failed. This study adopts an integral approach, not only focusing on failure factors but also considering failure as a process. Within the literature, six obstacles to the success of citizens’ initiatives were identified based on studies of success. Three case studies on failed citizens’ initiatives in the Northern Netherlands revealed three themes in the process of perceived failure: interactions with governments and institutions, appropriation and personal investment. We also conclude that the process of perceived failure is dominated by a discrepancy of scale because citizens’ initiatives operate on the local level, yet they depend on and must interact with governments and institutions that operate at the regional level.
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