Rapid change in the world economy required revision of the rural policy paradigm and adaptation to the values of post-industrial society. The new “place-based” paradigm requires important changes for setting rural policy measures that intend to have multi-level approach and orientation towards sustainable development of the entire rural region rather than support to an individual farm or a settlement. Therefore, new rural policy paradigm focuses on administrative-territorial regions instead of individual settlements. Lithuanian government need to do adjustments along new trends in rural policy and administer these policies effectively.
Applied scientific research was used at this Project because regional classification by rurality does not exist in Lithuania. The typologies of Lithuanian regions were constructed for public administration goals and determined the criteria used to decide the adequacy of the typologies. The project provided four typologies of the Lithuanian administrative regions according to different features of rurality adapted to the rural policy objectives of post-industrial society.
Each proposed Lithuanian regional typology reveals different aspects of rural regions that need to be addressed to the governments and can be regulated by rural policy measures.
The typologies do not compete and their application should rather be complementary than alternative for the needs of public administration.
Theoretical framework of research was based on systemic approach to reveal specifics of each region type based on three aspects of higher order systems:
1) Values of post-industrial society;
2) New “place-based” rural policy paradigm;
3) Lithuanian economic and social situation and institutional structure.
The functionalist approach enable to evaluate the subsystems - type of regions by their rurality in the larger system and assess the role it plays within it. Types of Lithuanian regions by rurality were also assessed in the context of changing public values, assessment of advantages and disadvantages of each option and provided recommendations for the most appropriate application area of each typology in the rural policy decision-making process.
Key words: typologies, rural regions, rural policy, regional policy, post-industrial stage.
Lietuvos regionų tipologijos kaimiškumo aspektu: Mokslo studija/Dalia Vidickienė, Rasa Melnikienė, Živilė Gedminaitė-Raudonė, Erika Ribašauskienė. - Vilnius : Lietuvos agrarinės ekonomikos institutas, 2012. - 75 p. : iliustr., santr. angl. (online) ISBN 978-9955-481-31-7.