What applications for SHD at the local level?

This book has only begun to explore the range of issues to which the per­spective of SHD at the local level can be applied. In order to push forward the contribution of this book to future development thinking and research agenda and to test and further develop the perspective of SHD at the local level, two broad scopes of application appear to be highly relevant.

Firstly, the STEHD framework can be used as a diagnostic tool, in line with Rodrik's (2010) call for a diagnostic approach and Crescenzi and Rodriguez- Pose's (2011) argument for applications to local economic development processes. Instead of looking for universal remedies, rules of thumb and a ‘Holy Grail that produces development at all places and time' (Rodrik, 2010, p. 43), the STEHD framework facilitates a territorial diagnostic analysis, through a combination of theoretical and practical knowledge and adapta­tion to local specificities to address complexity and place dependency. In other words, it can be useful to visualize and explore the processes lead­ing to SHD achievements or failures of different phenomena (e.g. industrial policies, international cooperation programs), thus ‘helping decision-makers choose the right model (and remedy) for their specific realities, among many contending models (and remedies)' (Rodrik, 2010, p. 35). In this regard, analytical attention is devoted to the identification of the key binding con­straints within the SHD patterns at the local level, in order to assess - through pluralistic and multi-disciplinary perspectives - the first-order and second-order obstacles hampering the expansion of individual and collec­tive capabilities. As discussed by Crescenzi and Rodriguez-Pose (2011), whose diagnostic tool offers interesting opportunities of complementarity with the framework discussed in this book, a similar analytical approach allows the ‘identification of policy targets and locally suited remedies' (Crescenzi and Rodriguez-Pose, 2011, p.

For instance, social actions are often based on their sectoral logics, over­looking the fact that they act concurrently on individuals that are affected by other actions and other influences in the territory. As a result, actions that are logically well structured from the individual or sectoral point of view can collectively produce incoherent and ineffective results. The STEHD framework, accompanied with data collection and analysis, would therefore be able to position different weaknesses and strengths of a development program, and to disentangle SHD processes and relate them to different elements that are missing, changing or based on unrealistic assumptions. Several elements can thus be disentangled: incapacity of the LDS sys­tem to function, availability of resources, lack of structural investment, political willingness, lack of space for dialogue, the incapacity to institu­tionalize development processes, the incapacity to let people participate, lack of accountability, lack of coordination, existence of conflicting interests, unequal distribution of resources, unequal access to material and immaterial services and resources and so on. Although two LDSs may lead to the same achieved functionings, this outcome can often be reached by very different strategies and sequences of actions, involving local and external stakehold­ers in more or less participatory ways, with different types of resources and technologies and so on.

Secondly, following Robeyns (2005) and other HD scholars (Frediani et al., 2014; Clark et al., 2015, forthcoming), an enhanced SHD approach can be used as ‘an alternative evaluative tool for social cost-benefit analysis, or as a framework within which to [...

Within this perspective therefore, the focus in evaluation should not only be on what people achieve on the basis of their opportunities, abilities and values, including immaterial aspects of life, but also on the opportunities and functionings of LDSs. This involves, on the one hand, removing obsta­cles in people's lives so that they have more freedom to enjoy the kind of life that, upon reflection, they find valuable (Sen, 1993; Robeyns, 2005); and, on the other hand, creating an enabling environment for human flourishing (UNDP, 1990). Although the achievement of functionings at the individual level remains essential and has an important bearing on policy (Sen, 1999), it is also relevant to take into account the territorial opportunities and achiev­able functionings that complex context-based development processes affect. The metric and scope of evaluation of LDS's performances and develop­ment policies and programs is therefore transformed, linking together issues that have been traditionally separated such as multidimensional impacts, institutional and governance processes and binding constraints.

The STEHD framework pushes boundaries forward and explores these diagnostic and evaluative tools in greater depth. Without intending to map out a general program for empirical research, the framework has potential for at least three broad types of application:

(1) Analytical applications, including procedural ones, such as the following:

• Understanding the value of functionings within a territorial system and its connection to a local vision of development;

• Assessing the role of dynamic and non-linear feedback loops in terms of process activation, institutional change and expansion or reduction of resources and capacities;

• Facilitating analysis at the micro, the meso and the macro levels, con­necting agents' values, conversion factors and behavioural choices to collective and territorial dynamics, as well as national and interna­tional linkages (flows, influence and dialogue);

• Conducting prospective or retrospective analyses, assessing, for example: (i) the potential feedback of local SHD processes (e.g.

(2) Applying the STEHD framework within the domain of local politics as follows:

• Exploring the enabling and disabling factors sustaining the local procedural dynamics of institutional change and reforms (e.g. iner­tia and rigidity vs innovation and instability), actors' participation, self-organization and democratization;

• Conducting stakeholders' analyses to assess systemic relations, the range and alignment of actors' perspectives and goals, their horizon­tal and vertical interrelations, and to identify the missing actors and connections behind SHD;

• Assessing from a critical political economy perspective (Bagchi, 2011) how local power structures and power struggles reinforces horizontal inequalities among social groups, classes and communities (Anand and Sen, 2000; Harvey, 2000);

• Investigating the existence of spaces for dialogue and deliberation, scope for shared political willingness, and local "conscious gover­nance” and "extraordinary concertation” mechanisms;

• Disentangling whether processes of expansion of collective agency and social empowerment are fluid or impinged by any form of vested interests and corruption.

(3) Applying the STEHD framework to a wide range of potential issues relating to multilevel policymaking:

• Analysing policy actions and strategies, considering their theoreti­cal background and rationales (e.g. international cooperation budget support vs decentralized activation, dialogue and capacity building), as well as their implications, efficacy and integration with diverse actions, assessing whether they are able to "interpret” and "manage” the conversion factors of the territory itself, and valorizing its features and development potentialities;

• Facilitating the coordination of development policies and strategies within an integrated territorial approach, complementing other diag­nostic tools to design people-centred plans and tailored road maps for implementation.

In order to explore these issues, it is of crucial importance to go beyond the first operationalization of this perspective and the framework presented in this book, providing applications to a broad array of case studies. For instance, analysing clusters' trajectories of growth and upgrading; assess­ing the role of social enterprises within LDSs (Borzaga and Tortia, 2009); investigating rural development processes; rethinking policies for techno­logical or skills upgrading, infrastructure provision, knowledge creation and diffusion; monitoring and evaluating development initiatives; designing tai­lored decentralization policies and provision of services. These are just some areas, among others, where an SHD perspective at the local level can entail innovative analytical and policy insights.

Whatever the analytical scope, objective and unit of analysis, the notion and its evolutionary framework directs the bulk of attention to under­standing the development processes and to dynamic feedback loops boosted by these processes. Therefore, the value added by a holistic account of the territorial complexity of SHD processes should not be underestimated. Nonetheless, a similar analytical and empirical approach requires increasing efforts by governments and local stakeholders to improve data collection together with systematization and transparent diffusion of different sources of information, including administrative data. This is essential in order to overcome a critical bottleneck constraining the opportunity to conduct relevant research accounts of territorial SHD processes and to strengthen transparency and accountability capacities of citizens.

7.3