Gioacchino GAROFOLI

Université de Pavie

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,

ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION

AND TERRITORY

I. - Introduction

Iwill deal, in this paper, with territory and economic development, underlying the active role of the territory in the process of development. With respect to these issues, particularly to the relationship between economic development and territorial organization of production, my departure point is that we need a bridge between theory and reality, in fact we are in a phase of transformation not only with reference to economic organization (and world economic scenarios) but also to economic theory.

It seems to me quite important, in this phase, to work in a more systematic way on inductive analysis, exploring deeply the different cases of development to reconstruct some typologies of local development.

In my introduction I will deal with two main issues, and precisely :

a) the crisis of paradigms in regional development ;

b) the interaction between local and global.

What seems to be particularly important, in the economic transformation of the last two decades, is the progressive emergence - at all the observable scales : from local to national and international level - of new models of development, of reversal of territorial trajectories, of the incapacity of the old theoretical models to interpret the changing reality (cf., mainly, the fall of the core-periphery paradigm).

With the new models of development there are emerging new actors (local institutions, local State, collective private subjects/actors,...) that are able to influence the process of economic and social transformations. These actors have been forgotten from previous theoretical schemes. Moreover there is the breakdown of the idea of deterministic laws of development and new opportunities are emerging. Local communities have some chances (and responsibilities) to promote deve-

22 REVUE D'ÉCONOMIE INDUSTRIELLE — n° 64, 2e trimestre 1993