MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF MARGINALIZATION PROCESSES AT THE PERIPHERY OF EUROPE

Under the influence of the enlargement of the European Union, there is now a renewed concern for marginalization processes in rural areas. Especially in countries at the periphery of Europe, these processes often have a large‐scale and multifaceted character. As agriculture and rural areas have become dissociated, the marginalization or success of the one no longer necessarily affects the other, and not necessarily in the same way. Dealing with the phenomenon in policy terms requires tools to explicate it. In this article, we present a simple typology of marginalization processes as a first step to its disentangling. The typology is applied to Finland and Portugal, countries at the periphery of Europe. The results strengthen the idea that different processes with different characteristics are going on at the same time, requiring specific approaches.     

INTRODUCTION: GREENING THE COUNTRYSIDE? CHANGING FRAMEWORKS OF EU AGRICULTURAL POLICY

In response to wide‐ranging criticism of agricultural policy, especially within Western industrialized countries, new frameworks of justification are emerging and new hybrid policy fields have been established to tackle some of the ‘externalities’ of agricultural support. However, institutional frameworks are proving slower to change, partly because this would require coordinated action across different levels of governance. Nevertheless, previously marginalized environmental concerns have successfully gained entrance to agricultural policy networks, while the intersection of trade liberalization and rural diversification have undermined the dominance of the productivist mindset in government. This gives rise to a plurality of policy actors and actions which defy the conventional categories of analysis of agricultural policy, calling for changing frameworks on the polity of agriculture too.