The rural development trilemma
本文提出农村发展三难困境概念，即空间政策、技术发展与市场或资源限制之间存在内在矛盾，并以挪威50年农业和渔业政策为例验证其有用性。
Rural public policies are important and contested in many countries. Politicians and administrations often have high ambitions for both spatial policies (e.g. maintaining demography, local work, businesses etc.) technological development (modernisation, increased productivity etc.), while production tend to be limited by markets (as in the case of agricultural productions) or resources (as in e.g. fisheries and forestry). In this paper we demonstrate that rural policies may be hampered by a specific type of wicked policy problem: inbuilt contradictions between policy measures in the form of what may be described as a rural development trilemma. A trilemma is a situation where there are three goals but the fulfilment of (any) two goals contradicts the third. We present and discuss the concept of a rural development trilemma. Empirically we analyse and compare the developments of the agricultural policy and the fishery policy of Norway over the last 50 years. The sectors are very different, but both sectors are important in terms of rural development and the two policy fields run into a similar trilemma. This comparative study constitutes a plausibility probe of the notion – and usefulness – of a rural development trilemma in the field of rural public policy. • Trilemmas may serve as a specification of the wicked nature of rural public policies. • Rural policies tend to suffer from an inbuilt trilemma. • The ‘rural development trilemma’ make rural development through agriculture- and fishery policies difficult. • Trilemmas develop over time.