The limits of development: State structural policy, comparing systems adopted in two European mountain regions (1945-1989)
Final Report Abstract
The aim of the research project was to investigate how agricultural transformation, nature conservation endeavours and development concepts changed the development of European mountain regions in the second half of the 20th century and how they influenced each other. Taking the Slovak Carpathians and the Austrian Alps as examples, the project analysed the extent to which the countries concerned developed a specific regional policy for these areas in relation to the general development of mountain regions during this period. This initially showed how long agrarian production logics prevailed. When looking at the subsidy-based mountain farming policy in Austria, which began in the late 1960s, the comparison with communist Czechoslovakia proved to be particularly insightful: it was possible to work out how, under state-socialist conditions, very similar goals to those in the Alpine region were pursued at times. The Czechoslovak perspective in turn opened up a good comparative perspective on the dynamics and changeability of landscape concepts, which enabled a new perspective on debates in the Alpine region. In a subsequent step, the establishment of national parks in the mountains was analysed: In both cases, it was shown how the idea of nature conservation was transformed over a longer period of time. At the same time, it was possible to work out the extent to which national parks became actors in regional structural policy in their founding phase, through which issues of nature conservation and landscape preservation, but also of mountain agriculture and development policy, were negotiated on behalf of mountain regions as a whole. Despite politically induced differences in regional spatial planning, the analysis revealed two similar phenomena in both comparative cases: In the first phase, large-scale concepts prevailed, which became increasingly complex in their design in the second phase. From the late 1970s onwards, the limits of a comprehensive structural policy for mountain areas became recognisable, which is why more emphasis was placed on small-scale solutions. In Austria, nature conservation protests and greater consideration of local interests influenced further development, while in Czechoslovakia the expert level steadily gained influence. Another key finding is that the structural policy measures in the second half of the 20th century, which ranged from agricultural demarcations and allocations to the establishment of national parks and comprehensive spatial planning concepts, led in both cases to the respective mountain areas being demarcated as specific regions for the first time, which triggered further knock-on effects (landscape design, forms of cultivation).
Publications
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Die Landwirtschaft in den slowakischen und österreichischen Bergregionen. Akteur regionaler Transformation oder Problemfall in Nutzungskonflikten? In: Geschichte der Alpen – Histoire des Alpes – Storia delle Alpi 27 (2022), 83-97.
Zückert, Martin
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Strukturpolitik im Staatssozialismus. Ansätze und Grenzen regionaler Förderpolitik in den slowakischen Bergregionen (1948-1969). In: Westfälische Forschungen 72 (2022), 159-175.
Zückert, Martin
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Strach z divej prírody? Štrukturálna politika a ochrana prírody v rakúskych a slovenských horských oblastiach v období 1945 až 1989. In: Holec, Roman/Zückert, Martin (eds.): Environmentálne dejiny v stredoeurópskom kontexte. Košice 2023, 51-71.
Zückert, Martin
