Harnessing Communities, Markets and the State for Public Goods Provision: Evidence from Post-Socialist Rural Poland

Analyzing four case studies on rural Poland during 1990-2005, this study shows how partnerships of local governments and civil society organizations provided public goods that boosted local economic development. By taking a comparative institutional economics perspective, we demonstrate how the partnerships successfully combined the governance mechanisms of state, market, and community. We find a striking similarity across the cases concerning the assignment of functions in public goods provision to certain governance mechanisms. Communities played a mediating role in the transition process toward a new configuration of rural governance.