The impact of EU governance and rural development policy on the development of the third sector in rural Poland: A nation-wide analysis

Governance and rural development programmes such as the European Union's LEADER programme are claimed in the policy literature to mobilise the involvement of the third sector in local development decision-making. Tracing the emergence of the third sector from the collapse of the socialist regime in the late 1980s to the aftermath of Poland's EU LEADER programme, this paper presents nation-wide data relating to the changing profile of the third sector in Poland's rural areas over time. Our analysis suggests that the implementation of the Polish LEADER + Pilot Programme (2004-2006) and the LEADER 4th Axis in Rural Development Programme (2007-2013) resulted in a significant increase in the number of third sector organisations. Using secondary data to examine the factors attributed to this increase, we found that the financial support offered by the LEADER programme incentivised the formal registration of third sector organisations. However, an analysis of primary data found that third sector organisations' dependence on acquiring funding constrained how they identified and achieved their own objectives. Nonetheless, we found that active involvement of the third sector in LAGs had a positive impact on the latter's engagement with local inhabitants in activities such as formulating local development strategies. We conclude that now, over a decade since the initiation of the Polish LEADER programme, the third sector has grown exponentially but its institutional character remains in flux. The presence of the third sector, its resources, and its power in rural governance is patchy. A greater period of time and targeted policy supports are required for the third sector to have a more defined and powerful presence in inter-sectoral partnerships and in rural areas more generally.