Impacts and Risks of Global Change - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 51

is changing dramatically since the neoliberal paradigm got infl uence even
on the most marginal regions of the globe and so also is infl uencing the
mountain regions.
Neoliberalism as the dominant ideology of the age of globalization has
been instrumental in the breakthrough of the principles of deregulation,
privatization, fl exibility, global competition, free transfer of goods and
capitals. Against this background, economic policy everywhere, and also
in mountainous regions, is moving towards a more market-oriented control
of regional development. This means a shift in the constellations of policy
actors. In many places, the private actors gain in infl uence at the expense
of public authorities when it comes to the control and concrete design of
regional development. Here, interdependencies with globalization also
make themselves felt, as the real estate market and agriculture become an
increasingly interesting business opportunity for globally acting real estate
agents, tourism managers, planners and investors (Borsdorf and Coy 2009).
z
z
z
Figure 3.8. Effects of globalization on mountain agglomerations (Design: Martin Coy, source
Borsdorf and Coy 2009).
The traditional population on one side suffers by these processes, on
the other hand they adopt the new lifestyles and economic conditions.
Globalized fast-food, music, vesture are mostly accepted, the fi ght for land
rights, acceptance of regional cultures or indigenous nations, better prices
for local products and acknowledgement to traditional land- use techniques
cause many confl icts.