Rural development and network failures: insights from an Apulian LAG

This chapter is an attempt to test a theoretical model for the analysis of failure — or failures — of LAGs (Salento, 2017, in the same book). Starting from a brief methodological note it proposes a case study of an Apulian LAG, which in many ways provides a typical example of the point at issue. The LAG in question, in effect lends itself well to analyses and considerations regarding both the relationship between sectoral actions and rural development, and the difficulties in structuring a governance of rural development under political and institutional conditions in some ways less than favourable for an integrated, bottom-up management of decision-making processes.