Call for papers

The seminar invites an international scientific audience in the fields of agricultural and resource economics, regional economics, political economy, institutional economics, political science and other relevant disciplines dealing with social, economic and policy aspects of rural development.

Participants who would like to present a paper (or poster) are requested to submit an extended abstract in English (2 pages; Times New Roman font, point size 12, single spacing) before March 1st 2010. The abstract should indicate: the question addressed, the concepts and theories to which it relates, the methodology used and the results obtained.

All abstracts will be refereed. Notification of acceptance/rejection will be communicated by April 30th 2010. The deadline for submission of the full version of accepted papers is August 10th 2010.

Please find the GUIDELINES FOR FULL PAPER here!

Invited and contributed papers will be published in a special issue of the IAMO Studies series.

Language

The official language of the Seminar is English.

Themes

The seminar will focus on the areas outlined below. We invite papers that address any of them, singly or in combination. Without prejudging the preferred themes, or organization of the sessions, a number of possible research issues are listed for illustration.

1. Rural governance models
   
   
   • rural governance as a policy system, analyzing actors and institutions;
   • ‘New rural paradigm’ visions vs. rural development policy in practice;
   • processes and structures underlying European rural development policies;
   • the political economy of rural development;
   • rural development policy discourses (an international perspective).


2. Rural development policy programming, implementation and delivery
   
   
   • rural development policy design and delivery
   • performance of EU RD policies: identification of good practice examples or principles;
   • identification of rural development expenditure patterns;
   • patterns of EU rural development expenditure vs. policy priorities (consistency between EU RD policy needs and objectives and resource allocations);


3. Rural livelihoods and structural change – socio-economic aspects and policy implications
   
   
   • trends and factors affecting structural change in agriculture;
   • structural change in rural economies and labour adjustment patterns;
   • production factor markets, investment potential, rural credit markets;
   • valuing rural amenities, remuneration of positive rural externalities;
   • rural business development.


4. Tools for evaluating rural development policies
   
   
   • standard EU RD policy evaluation tools – merits and limitations; review of the CMEF
   • alternative tools for evaluating rural development policies;
   • complex models for integrated assessment of rural policies;
   • contested issues regarding rural development policy modelling, and challenges for future research.