Strategic Planning on the Local Level As a Factor of Rural Development in the Republic of Serbia

• Clearly defined differences, and sometimes underlined controversies as well,
between the growth and development that should be ensured through strategic
planning

• Growing emphasis on the importance and role of non-economic factors, in the
first place information and communication, education, cultural identity, etc.

• Identification of beneficiaries and holders of development as a result of strategic
planning without any class, racial and national attributes (man-centred
development)

• Localisation of overall civilisational changes, such as the quality of living
(individual human values and the like) that are not directly conditioned with
economic power, i.e. property

• Readiness to tolerate different value judgements, different economic orientations
and differently identified and defined strategic objectives

• Development, its planning and all relevant value connotations, and

• Growing impact and even realisation of ascendancy of technological
development or technological transformation as essential precondition, objective
and significance of strategic planning

Perhaps this is a good place to mention also theoretical approaches such as the theory
of anomie³ which states that development leads towards destabilisation and
decentralisation of social consciousness and system structure through differentiation
and progression of labour division. In other words, the impact of the existing social
consciousness and social norms in a certain point of time becomes an increasing
limitation, their effects start gradually decreasing so that they become less binding -
which all results in the advance of anomie. This gives rise to public confrontations, fresh
ideas and new movements, organisations, strikes, etc. which can by no means be
brought under the old moulds. If this takes place when there is an economic crisis, as is
the case in Serbia, we face what Durkheim calls de-qualification. This process pushes
down many individuals and families to a lower level of material status in accordance
with which they should tailor their behaviour - self-control, ethics and the way of life. In
such a situation the advantages of social impact die out, so the society would have to
promote more rigorous forms of ethical behaviour accompanied with attributes such as
self-control and solidarity that are compatible with this phenomenon. Of course, this kind
of behaviour cannot be attained so soon, and there are efforts to escape the existing
hard conditions, which is often done in an inadmissible way. This leads to a weak (if
any) integration, tensions and conflicts, which characterise the emerged social changes
- namely, a tendency towards involution and regression to the old situation.

This practice often leads to a gradual establishment of fundamental functions and
structural processes that make social advancement. One of the starting processes is

³ Durkheim’s theory recently redeveloped by Neil Smelser

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