Conclusions

In order to explore relevant mechanisms of local "conscious governance” activating dynamic SHD processes, this chapter has analysed the case study of Local Economic Development Agencies or Regional Development Agen­cies as organizations holding ‘important potential as a source of innovation in regional policy' (Halkier and Danson, 1997, p.

Applying the STEHD framework, LEDAs potentially act as enabling factors for LED within an SHD perspective, influencing LDSs' internal elements (i.e. partnerships, resources and institutional structure and capacities to func­tion), and contributing to institutionalize multilevel processes of dialogue and articulation, as well as mechanisms of collective choice. In particular, associational and multilevel governance, institution building and interactive learning represent the domains through which well-organized local devel­opment agencies can dynamically enable and sustain endogenous processes of the expansion of opportunities and achieved functionings within local systems.

Although it is clear that LEDAs cannot foster and guarantee SHD by themselves, the main argument is that contemporary LEDAs can poten­tially move beyond their economic mission to embrace a shared vision of SHD and poverty reduction, through ownership and active participation of multi-sector territorial stakeholders.

By focusing on the capacity of LEDAs to sustain processes of blending, align­ing and gardening and by exploring the experience of REDASP in Sumadija and Pomoravlje region in Serbia, this chapter has shown how LEDAs can represent institutional and policy innovations in themselves (see also Clark et al., 2010). In addition, LEDAs appear to be suitable instruments for lay­ing the foundations of Europe's 2020 strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive growth (Canzanelli, 2011), through their focus on socially and environmentally sustainable economic development.

Nonetheless, in terms of the perspective advocated in this book, LEDAs do not appear to represent a bottom-up governance tool in which ‘policy has been taken out of politics' (Halkier and Danson, 1997, p. 245) and par­ties (Helmsing, 2001), but rather local "meta-organizers" shaping a new set of interrelations among the realms of territorial polity, politics and policy. Indeed, the embeddedness of LEDAs in the polity and politics of their respective territorial society cannot be underestimated. Nor can their role in influencing social mobilization, power struggle, institutional architecture and decision-making processes.

More focused knowledge and learning on the topic is required. On the one hand, it would help provide solid theoretical base and analytical account of these organizations, linking their operations to the insights deriving from different strands of the literature. On the other hand, similar analyses can provide feedback to research in order to widen the knowledge base on organizational and institutional tools leading, under certain conditions, to evolutionary processes of local economic development and SHD.