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Die Entwicklung ländlicher Räume und die Lebensqualität in ländlichen Regionen werden durch eine Vielzahl interagierender Faktoren bestimmt, für deren Betrachtung sich verschiedene Perspektiven innerhalb der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften anbieten. Im Rahmen der 60. Jahrestagung (23. – 25. September 2020) der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaus e.V. (GEWISOLA) wurden unter dem Thema „Herausforderungen für die ländliche Entwicklung – Wirtschafts- und sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven“ jüngste Erkenntnisse vorgestellt und diskutiert. Organisiert wurde die Tagung gemeinschaftlich von der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, der Hochschule Anhalt und dem Leibniz-Institut für Agrarentwicklung in Transformationsökonomien (IAMO). Ursprünglich war die Ausrichtung in Halle (Saale) geplant, aber durch die Corona-Pandemie wurde es die erste virtuelle GEWISOLA-Jahrestagung. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die wesentlichen Inhalte der verschiedenen Workshops und Vorträge. Der Tagungsband kann über die Internetseite der GEWISOLA (https://gewisola.de/schriftenreihe) abgerufen werden., Berichte über Landwirtschaft - Zeitschrift für Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaft, Aktuelle Beiträge

"The International Journal of the Commons published in 2008 a special issue on 'The commons in Europe: from past to future' (IJC Vol. 2, No. 2, July 2008). This volume traced the development of European commons from the Middle Ages to the modern environmental services organized as commons. In the northern and Western European continent, most historical commons had by the end of the 19th century changed their character by the enclosure movement and general land consolidation. But it also showed that many resources in the European region are still governed by common user associations or by community institutions in the form of alpine forests, mountain pastures etc. The volume also identified a number of 'new commons' in the European region (leisure areas, ecosystem services etc.) that has caught the interest of commons scholars. In summing up the contribution of the first IASC European Regional meeting in Brescia (2006) and that first special issue, there was a discussion of what was missing at that stage in the development of commons scholarship in Europe. One type of missing research identified was connected to the large field of fisheries and use of coastal areas (costal commons) for aquaculture and sea-ranching. Another type of missing research was related to urban commons and new ways of organizing various community services."

This study describes and discusses initiatives taken by public (water) agencies in the state of Brandenburg in Germany, the state of California in the USA and the Ebro River Basin in Spain in response to the challenges which climate change poses for the agricultural water sector. The drivers and actors and the process of changing agricultural water governance are its particular focus. The assumptions discussed are: (i) the degree of planned and anticipatory top-down implementation processes decreases if actions are more decentralized and are introduced at the regional and local level; (ii) the degree of autonomous and responsive adaptation approaches seems to grow with actions at a lower administrative level. Looking at processes of institutional change, a variety of drivers and actors are at work such as changing perceptions of predicted climate impacts; international obligations which force politicians to take action; socio-economic concerns such as the cost of not taking action; the economic interests of the private sector. Drivers are manifold and often interact and, in many cases, reforms in the sector are driven by and associated with larger reform agendas. The results of the study may serve as a starting point in assisting water agencies in developing countries with the elaboration of coping strategies for tackling climate change-induced risks related to agricultural water management.

CONTENTS: Mapping institutional change... 3, Insa Theesfeld, Frauke Pirscher; Affordability as an institutional obstacle to water-related price reforms... 9, Erik Gawel, Wolfgang Bretschneider; Analysing the shortcomings of the Ukrainian urban waste water sector - Institutional options for modernisation ... 35, Herwig Unnerstall, Nina Hagemann; Gemeinschaftsgüter und Gemeinwohl - Theoretischer Erkenntnisgehalt und praktische Relevanz für die Regionalentwicklung am Beispiel von Wasserinfrastrukturen und Kulturlandschaften ... 55, Andreas Röhring, Timothy Moss, Ludger Gailing, Rita Gudermann; Explaining top-down institutional design: The introduction of River Basin Management in Portugal... 85, Andreas Thiel, Catrin Egerton; Decentralization failures in post-socialist fishery management ... 107, Insa Theesfeld, Oscar Schmidt

During the post-socialist transition period, the Bulgarian irrigation facilities deteriorated to a large extent and no longer meet the needs of the new landowner and agricultural production structure. The Bulgarian government therefore enacted two new laws to encourage collective action and to establish water user associations in order to achieve sustainable water management. In this article, we will question the frequent argument that water user associations could easily be established in Bulgaria, because they are rooted in the water syndicates. Empirical findings from village case studies reveal that limited collective memory exists today about former water syndicates? rules-in-use and patterns of action. We will explain this breach of tradition by the migration from villages to cities, the suppression of precommunist so-called capitalist behaviour, and the length of the communist period. Moreover, the analysis of the historical cooperative development in Bulgaria shows that the water syndicates were enforced by a top-down approach and did not have much in common with the classic cooperative principles.

Water for irrigation and irrigation infrastructure are both common pool resources, due to their low excludability and high rivalry. The well-known common pool resource dilemma is often the consequence. Collective action may be a way how societies can overcome this dilemma. First results from a three-month empirical field study in Bulgaria are presented trying to explain how actor groups characteristics, such as lack of trust between community members and effective institutional settings at the local level, such as information asymmetry, limited sanctioning and enforcement mechanisms and almost no monitoring mechanisms provide conditions under which opportunistic behaviour dominates. The effective rules-in-use in local communities are presented. The simplest example is watering crops without paying the water price. Individuals will use their power to maintain their opportunistic strategies and, consequently, they will not agree to any rule change. Moreover, the actors' attitude towards collective action is very pessimistic. This has a crucial impact on the evolving of credible commitment which is one prerequisite for collective action. The effects on water management can be severe and the common pool resource dilemma situation may continue. This article questions if there are additional influencing variables inherited from the transformation process that will have an impact on the institutional change and constrain the emergence of collective action solutions. The discussion is based on empirical material from Varbiza village in the south of Bulgaria.