Triggering social innovation through the European Union LEADER program: evidence from a quantitative, comparative study

The Liaisons Entre Actions de Developpement de l’Economie Rurale (LEADER) program is considered a really significant endeavor within the context of (neo)endogenous rural development and social innovation, not only for its numerous success stories, but also for its recent devaluation. The LEADER attenuation is partly attributed to a loss of its socially innovative drift. In order to examine this argument, the present article explores the questions: to what extent does the LEADER program foster social innovation in rural regions? What are those dynamics that curb the innovative potentialities? To address these questions a comparative, cross-regional case study was conducted between three highly heterogeneous regions: Mühlviertel in Austria, Baixo Alentejo in Portugal and Pthiotis in Greece. By drawing from sociological institutionalist studies in the field of planning and policy analysis, a quantitative research tool was developed. The quantitative research compared the socially innovative capacities of the Local Actions Groups (LAGs), i.e., the locally based executing agencies of the LEADER approach. Research results indicated that whereas the focus of LEADER is local and regional, the national governance frameworks appear quite pivotal for its application. In this respect, even in the case of enhanced institutional resources and fairly empowered agents, governance deficiencies might be proved quite restrictive for the socially innovative capacities of the LAGs.