Networks, Trust and Social Capital by Koniordos Sokratis M.;

Author:Koniordos, Sokratis M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Not only is there no natural leader in the Sangone TP but the towns in this area are much smaller than in the Canavese. As in the rest of the Turin metropolitan area (excepting the Canavese) the presence of prior social resources is very poor. No co-operative relationships existed among the local actors, or only such as were oriented towards managing industrial and employment crises. Again the prevailing common activities were reactive and not proactive, tailored for specific urgent situations.

The TP in the Pinerolese area, finally, was not characterised by formal local partnerships, and public-public as well as public-private relationships were very ordinary. The Pinerolese did not effectively discuss local development until the beginning of the 1990s. Also, the relationships and activities of the local collective actors were extemporaneous and again mainly directed toward the management of various economic emergencies. Moreover, the main town (Pinerolo) was largely unconcerned with the local development of the territory. Pinerolo used to be notable for its absence from a territory comprising the mountain communities of small villages, the town of Pinerolo itself, and the consortium of the towns close to the Turin area. The existence of so few autonomous actors was one of the elements that conduced to the territory’s fragmentation until the middle of the 1990s. Thereafter the situation began to change: a new political class along with a new mayor was elected, and the mountain communities started to activate co-operative relations that involve the whole territory. The main result of this new process is the Forum for the Development of the Pinerolese. It includes the area’s two parliamentarians, the Pinerolo mayor, the representatives of three mountain communities, a representative of the other councils, and a representative of the administration of Turin. Unions and business associations were very soon invited to join the Forum, whose activities are mostly political and programmatic, and the coalition is responsible for certain documents on the problems of local development.

All in all, only the Canavese areas showed a high level of social capital, while in the other three cases co-operative practices and horizontal social relationships were either negligible or absent altogether.

Mobilisation

Two modalities can be distinguished in the mobilisation process: closed and open mobilisation. In the first case one or a few local actors elaborate the Pact proposal, in the second case the ideation process is more polycentric. The four types can be placed along a continuum from the more open to the more closed. For instance, in the case of the Sangone, the idea was elaborated by the managers of the ASSOT public agency for local development, who saw the TP as the first chance to widely legitimate the new public agency, which had just been set up. Their decision to activate a TP was then communicated to the other local actors.

In the West Zone case, an integrative TP, the early phase of the mobilisation process again took place among the restricted group of local public administrators. This was necessary to solve certain internal conflicts that had characterised the area for some time.

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