T he creation, operation and evolution of food supply chains are one key dimension in the new patterns of rural development now emerging (see Marsden 1998). As a result this dimension -the food chain dimension -becomes a significant building block for a new theory of rural development. This paper explores some of the key aspects of the food supply chain approach, making a direct link between theory and practice. To more fully understand the role and potential of food supply chains in the process of rural development we contend that they need to be seen in tandem with greater, empirically rich, conceptualizations which move beyond description of product flows, examining how supply chains are built, shaped and reproduced over time and space. The focus here will be upon using theoretical and conceptual parameters to understand the diverse nature of 'alternative' or 'short' supply chains and, in turn, to comment upon what these bring to a more generalized theory of rural development. Reference is made to one case study, within a broader analysis of European cases. These help to build a more rigorous theoretical framework, which places food, supply chains as a significant element in broader rural development debates.Given that under existing market conditions there is likely to be a continued and steady withdrawal of capital from the farm and rural areas, two questions need to be addressed by rural development theory. Firstly, what are the mechanisms needed to capture new forms of value added? And secondly, how relevant is the development of short food supply chains in delivering these?The emergence of 'short food supply chains': re-valuing foodsThe development of 'alternative food chains,' or networks has attracted much attention in recent years, with a new food politics beginning to fill gaps left by conventional government regulation and with the growing public concern over the provenance and manipulation of foods. From a rural development point of view, this new resurgence of interest in 'more natural' or 'more local' (also viewed as more healthy, see Nygard and Storstad 1998) types of food comes at a critical time for the land-based production sector. It offers potential for shifting the production of food commodities out of their 'industrial mode' and to develop supply chains that

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Conflict around wind farm development has stimulated interest in 'community benefits' - the provision of financial or material benefits by the developers to the area affected by these facilities. By and large, both policy makers and researchers have couched the rationale for community benefits in instrumental terms, i.e. that an increased flow of community benefits will improve the social acceptability of these facilities and thereby expedite planning consent. This paper questions this conventional rationale. Proponents of this rationale neglect the institutionally structured terrain of the planning process; the provision of community benefits can shift in significance depending on whether or not the 'affected community' has any significant influence over wind farm projects. Similarly, our discourse analysis conducted in Wales shows that community benefits are seen predominantly as compensation for impacts, without any clear implication that they should change social attitudes. Our conclusion is that the dominant, instrumental rationale for community benefits obscures other, equally important justifications: the role of community benefits in promoting environmental justice; and how flows of community benefits might better serve the long-term sustainability of wind farm development areas.renewable energy, community, compensation, justice, planning,

The varying rates of recovery of European regional economies from the 2007 to 2008 economic crisis have raised interesting questions about the sources of economic resilience. Policy discourse has increasingly asserted the role played by innovation in facilitating rapid recovery from economic shocks, whilst evolutionary thinking has highlighted the specific importance of innovation capacity. However, empirical evidence on this is lacking. This paper addresses this gap by providing new empirical analysis of the relationship between regional innovation capacity and the resilience of European regions to the crisis. It finds that regions identified as Innovation Leaders at the time of the crisis were significantly more likely to have either resisted the crisis or recovered quickly from it (i.e. within 3 years). This provides important insights for evolutionary approaches theorising the relationship between innovation and resilience. JEL Classification R1 · O3

This paper describes an approach developed to measure regional economic resilience across Europe which is novel in three key dimensions. Firstly, it seeks to date regional downturns as opposed to assuming that all regional economies are affected by economic shocks at the same point in time; secondly, it measures the amplitude and duration of economic downturns and subsequent recoveries; and thirdly, as well as measuring recovery, it measures the resistance of regional economies to economic shocks. The paper applies this methodology to selected European countries to provide an analysis of differential regional responses to several economic shocks since the early 1990s. The paper then reflects upon the utility of this methodology for operationalising regional economic resilience in crosscomparative studies. AbstractThis paper describes an approach developed to measure regional economic resilience across Europe which is novel in three key dimensions. Firstly, it seeks to date regional downturns as opposed to assuming that all regional economies are affected by economic shocks at the same point in time; secondly, it measures the amplitude and duration of economic downturns and subsequent recoveries; and thirdly, as well as measuring recovery, it measures the resistance of regional economies to economic shocks. The paper applies this methodology to selected European countries to provide an analysis of differential regional responses to several economic shocks since the early 1990s. The paper then reflects upon the utility of this methodology for operationalising regional economic resilience in crosscomparative studies.

IntroductionThe governance and regulation of rural nature are reaching a point not just of crisis (associated with health issues, environmental loss, the control of epidemics, overproduction of low-quality products, and the failure of producers to manage to cut their costs and prices) but of entrenched divergence of purpose. There is a slowly developing failure of policymaking, and of the expertise (not least social science expertise) relevant to that policymaking. In studying these issues, we have to consider the contradictory ways in which rural nature is currently`socially managed'. That is, how the actions of the state, market, and civil society are grouped together in seemingly legitimate ways to create particular exploitation patterns of rural nature. This social management lies at the heart of sustainable development debates in that it demonstrates how the dominant approaches to rural nature can remain unsustainable for such long periods of time.In recent papers (Marsden, 1998; we have identified and counterpoised three differing but coexisting rural development models which have relevance in understanding this current crisis. Each of them has its own internal logic, ideology, scientific rationality, and regulatory arrangement. First and by far the most dominant is the agro-industrial logic. This model still defines rural nature largely as intensive productive space, and places the emphasis upon the continued rationalisation of production, for the purposes of generating food commodities which can compete on world markets. This is, we argue, essentially a`race to the bottom' logic in both economic and environmental terms for large sections of the farming population of most advanced nation-states. Major efforts by the state through the use of public funds, and by private capital, through the use of new technologies (not least genetic modification), are made to restrict the most harmful effects of this system. But, as Buttel (1997) and Drummond and Marsden (1999) have argued, these attempts, despite their massive public and private costs, are only palliative over time. Second, of growing ascendancy during the 1980s and 1990s has been the postproductivist dynamic. This has largely turned its back on agricultural justification and has celebrated the growth of the consumption countryside. The third dynamic örural developmentöis much more fledgling in that it emerges very much in opposition to the agro-industrial dynamic by trying to create Abstract. There is a growing realisation that agriculture is a central mechanism for delivering sustainable rural development in Europe. However, agro-industrial and postproductivist logics and dynamics have largely tended to marginalise its significance. In this paper we explore some of the conceptual parameters needed to develop the rural development dynamic. This is one which recentralises agriculture and farm-based activities and provides a basis for countering the growing crisis in rural and agricultural policymaking. In order to further embed the rural development dyna...