The research was organized in three main parts. First, an extensive literature review about patterns of industrialization and their underlying socio-political and institutional dynamics in peripheral areas of Europe and of developing countries, was carried out. Secondly, the research has focused on the comparative analysis of policy-tools used in the two regions to sustain investments of firms, namely programming contracts in Italy and special economic zones in Poland. The research has allowed to point out commonalities between these two policy-tools which concern in particular the lack of a place-based and territorial dimension. Finally, the analysis has zoomed in the transformation of two local economies, the city of Brindisi and Wałbrzych, which were struggling to implement alternative local development policies in order to break away from a legacy of very environmental impactful and dependent form of development.
The research built on a variety of original primary data collected through: - 43 semi-structured interviews of approximately 1h00 each with local policymakers (political and administrative élites) and representatives of socio-economic organizations (business and unions ‘representatives) ; - a documentary analysis of reports, strategic economic and planning documents covering the last two decades (2000 – 2020) ; - a press analysis of local media articles on industrial policies and programmatic declarations of local politicians (N=300).
The research results have been discussed and presented in a variety of occasions involving both the academic community, students and policy-actors. In particular the researcher has attended five international conferences (Congress of French Political Science Association, 2019 ; ECPR Congress Southern European Politics group, 2020 ; International Sociological Association, Sociology of Development Panel, 2021 ; Regional Studies Association Congress, Regions in Recovery, 2021 ; Congress of the Italian Economic Sociology Association, 2021). Moreover, an international workshop opened to students and policymakers on local development strategies has been organized jointly by the University of Florence and the University of Barcelona. The researcher has also given lectures in the Doctoral Program on socio-political change of the University of Florence and University of Turin on methodological and theoretical issues of the project. Finally, a policy-brief has been written and addressed to all the actors that have been interviewed in order to disseminate the main policy-lessons that stemmed out from the comparison.
