CROATIAN RURAL FUTURES IN 2030: FOUR ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS FOR POSTSOCIALIST COUNTRYSIDE IN THE NEWEST E.U. MEMBER STATE

abstract

The academic picture of a globalized European countryside, and particularly of rural areas in postsocialist, new member states of the European Union, is one of huge and increasing complexity, diversity, and uncertainties about the future. The aim of this research is to construct alternative scenarios for rural Croatia in 2030, acknowledging its postsocialist transition as an important framework. Future development scenarios were constructed by integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches. The main methods used were: factor and cluster analysis; Monte Carlo simulation; and Delphi method, involving 37 rural experts in two rounds of written questionnaires. Four scenarios were developed: Rural Renaissance, Shift, Road to Nowhere, and Growth without Development. These scenarios provide a set of well-documented and reasonable assumptions to aid in thinking about possible future paths for the Croatian countryside, while at the same time allowing for the discussion of rural development paradigms.

 Keywords::

• diversity
• neoendogenous development
• rural
• scenario method
• typology

Notes

¹ In this paper the term “new member states” (NMS) is used to denote ex-socialist countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe that entered the E.U. in the last three waves of enlargement: in 2004 (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania), and 2013 (Croatia). Although Malta and Cyprus joined the E.U. in 2007, they are not considered in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project number 4513 (project title: Croatian Rural Areas: Scenario-based Approach to Discuss Planning and Development). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Croatian Science Foundation.