The Network of Institutional Actors in the Development of a Small Town

Abstract

The aim of the article is to describe the relations between institutions in the public, private and non-profi t sectors that are considered the most important actors of negotiation and decision-making in local development. These institutions and the relations between them are defi ned as a social network. A study was carried out in the small Czech towns of Blatná, Český Krumlov and Velké Meziříčí, and data were collected in 2007 and 2008. The fi rst part of the article describes the institutional actors, the collection of the relational data, and the context of the three towns that were studied. The analytical part consists of social network analysis. Basic quantitative characteristics are used to describe and compare the social networks of the institutional actors in the local development of the three towns. The conclusions indicate the unconditional signifi cance of local public administration institutions and the signifi cance of other local institutions; relations to extra-local institutions are rather weak. A section on methodology at the end of the article contains methodological notes on Hellinger divergence and SNA.