Reconciling top-down and bottom-up development policies

Riccardo Crescenzi and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

No 2011-03, Working Papers from Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales

Abstract: Top-down and bottom up development policies have been generally sold as two irreconcilable ends of the development intervention spectrum. Top-down policies, solidly based in micro- and macroeconomic theories, but lacking the adequate flexibility and ‘place-awareness’ to respond to local complexity; bottom-up approaches much more responsive to diverse territorial needs, but devoid of a clear conceptual framework. In this paper we aim to show that this division need not remain still and that the foundations of top-down and bottom-up development policies can be reconciled in a joint 'meso-level' conceptual framework which can serve simultaneously as a deductive justification for bottom-up local and regional development policies and as a coordination device between different policies.

Keywords: development policies; top-down; bottom-up; integrated framework (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-01-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-geo
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Published in Environment and Planning A 43(4), April 2011: 773-780

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Working Paper: Reconciling top-down and bottom-up development policies (2011)
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