Such ‘beggar-thyneighbour’ strategies (to gain an advantage at the expense of the other party), were increasingly doomed to failure, and rural development practitioners concluded that the competitive advantage of ‘their’ rural area increasingly depended on less mobile and less tangible resources which were locally rooted and were hence better protected from global competition.
À cette époque, le grand dilemme auquel les régions rurales étaient confrontées était de savoir comment dépasser la perception de la mondialisation en tant qu’ensemble de menaces et d’ouvertures et élaborer la meilleure stratégie de développement rural alliant le niveau local et le niveau planétaire.