Governance and regional development: a theoretical review for its study

Abstract

As a consequence of an unfinished decentralization process, municipalities in Mexico are characterized by a series of institutional weaknesses that limit them to fully comply with their constitutional obligations to provide quality public services. In relation to this, in the political sphere there has been a turn in the approaches of the old technocratic positions, where the coordination of actors becomes a determining factor to establish public policies and have more competitive territories. As Mayntz (2001) points out, governance is used more and more frequently to indicate a new way of governing, differentiating from the traditional hierarchical models of control, establishing a new model of cooperation between actors, linked to citizen participation. The objective of this research is to propose a methodology that allows analyzing how the networks of local actors in the municipalities of the State of Sinaloa play a determining role for local economic development. At first, the concept of governance is analyzed linking it to the regional development approach, then a methodological proposal is presented, based on focus groups, which would allow examining the elements that determine an effective cooperation of actors through networks. It is based on the hypothesis that, with greater coordination of local actors, incentives are created that favor the local development of the Sinaloa municipalities.