When the Cohesion Policy Is Effective. Analysis of the Relationship Between Policies and Cooperative Entrepreneurial Action

The European Union establishing cohesion policy meant to contrast some of the wicked effects of the common European market (Rideau 2002). In particular, this policy was born in order to lower the economic gaps between the various European regions (Viesti, Prota 2004). The history of the cohesion policy has shown that the interregional gaps aren’t just economic ones but they’re mainly institutional ones (Barca 2006; 2009), this finding encourages politics and social scientists to deepen the social dimensions of institutionalization processes.

In  contexts where  cohesion policy has been effective we find that the elaboration of appropriate strategies based on redefinitions of local markets is promoted.(Bukowski, Piattoni, Smyrl 2003; Deidda 2004). Using the categories of analysis widespread in the sociology of public action, this paper proposes a reflection on the results of an interregional research carried out in Southern Italy on cohesion policy implementations (Vinci 2013). From the comparison  it comes out that the public action succeeds in being effective in contexts where it primes coordination processes among the several public polices and where it promotes firms with appropriate incentives. More specifically, the public action becomes effective leading the local entrepreneurs on the one hand to rethink the supply markets and on the other hand to build potential markets.

The paper is divided into two sections. The first one describes the different regional contexts by detecting the presence of local policies supporting the cohesion policy and particularly the policy that encourages the formation of cooperative systems among the various firms. The second one, instead, will focus on the existence of promoters of public action that foster productive specialization and local experts that solicit local entrepreneurs to redefine the supply markets and outlets. This second section also focuses on the social embedding of entrepreneurial actions and proposes a reflection on the social credit enjoyed by different promoters of public action and by different experts. The analysis investigates the reasons that allow entrepreneurs to overcome the particularism of their entrepreneurial vision and, in some cases,  envy,  pride and self-reference. The research reveals the maieutic function on the entrepreneurship exercised by the coordination among the various multi-levels policies, but it also reveals the efficient function exerted by specific social norms on  policies effectiveness . How to encourage the entrepreneurial cooperative action remains an open question that affects policy makers not less than sociologists.