L’approccio endogeno allo sviluppo rurale: radici teoriche e sviluppi dottrinali[Endogenous approach to rural development: theoretical roots and doctrinal developments]

The modernization of agriculture has a well-established theoretical basis from Capitalist, Marxist and Keynesian approaches. These approaches have different bases of departure: market mechanisms and state planning. But these different approaches require an identical exogenous path of development for rural areas based on 'modern' processes of specialization, concentration and integration. Instead, the endogenous approach to rural development did not initially have a solid theoretical basis. It was created by the action of different actors in marginal areas. Lowe (2006) identified four endogenous sources of resistance to exogenous processes which we have integrated by adding two exogenous sources. The first theoretical background of the phenomena of endogenous development of rural areas was due to the school of rural sociology of Wageningen which produced the so-called paradigm of endogenous rural development. The paradigm essentially study traditional typologies of agriculture excluded from the modernization processes. Ploeg (2006) has studied endogenous rural development at the light of the concept of 'local styles of farming'. According to the paradigm, the exogenous resources have to be 'deconstructed' and 'reconstructed' in conformity of 'local styles'. Processes of deconstruction and reconstruction will be discussed in our work critically showing two examples. Finally, following the definition of “strong” and “weak” sustainable development , we shall create a new definition of rural endogenous development.