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.