Workshop 1

FRAMEWORK AND OBJECTIVES
Public policies help to create a social and political order, direct society, regulate tensions, integrate groups and resolve conflicts (Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2018). Through their evolution, they express the transformations of democratic political models, but also the blocking of political regulation when faced with resistance and manipulation by economic and social actors. They are supposed to establish the conditions for the emergence of public actions led by local players.
What makes it interesting to talk about public action today is the mobilisation of an interesting prism that goes beyond a centralised model of government leading to sectoral actions. Public action takes place within a framework governed by a series of public policies and necessarily takes into account a set of interactions that act on several levels. These interactions result from a change in spatial scale, both globally and locally, but also transversally between these two levels, and also from the increased mobilisation of players, sources of expertise and discussion forums. Linking stakeholder networks and spatial scales supports a systemic approach to public action, without neglecting the specific circumstances and dynamics of each territory. For example, the capacity for action of stakeholders in a given area and the potential for change towards transition dynamics are very different depending on geographical location, ecological sensitivity, size, productive specialisation and density (urban/rural/peri-urban), etc.
Public policies are designed to provide a framework for sectors of activity or general issues, whereas initiatives will have to deal with several of these simultaneously. For example, an agri-food processing business that is set up in a locality will have to comply with standards and regulations (issued by the region, state or confederation of states) concerning environmental aspects, energy, staff training and pay, transport, product labelling and health regulations. If it continues a local agricultural activity, it will have to deal with agricultural policies to ensure its supply of raw materials, with the issues of land, agricultural orientation and pricing. What’s more, an initiative of this kind will have to position itself in relation to other operators in the area (small territories that may include municipalities, districts or regions) who are already involved in this activity, in order to move beyond competitive relationships (with suppliers as well as with final products and markets) and move towards cooperation that is crucial to its success, for example to build collective certifications.
Public action will bring together private players and public funding aimed at resolving the specific problems of local operators. They are quickly confronted with the question of how to overcome the multiplicity of standards and scales of action brought about by the fragmentation of public policies and the geography of local areas.
The aim of this workshop is to discuss the experiences and work that demonstrate the way in which territories understand and formalise public action, and also to gain a better understanding of the issues of governance in this multiplicity of experiences and approaches. To do this, we suggest approaching this set of questions from four angles: (i) Multi-level governance (ii) Cross-sectoral cooperation and exchange (iii) Inter-actor and inter-territory networks, what tools should be used? (iv) Skills and support tools.