Governing Small Villages: Review and A Multi-Level Perspective

Small villages, characterized by close-knit communities, grapple with scarce resources and depopulation, distinct challenges setting them apart from larger municipalities. Their unique dynamics magnify the repercussions of demographic shifts, underscoring the need for targeted solutions to ensure their sustainable development. However, no studies are devoted to the comprehensive understanding of small villages' governance literature to shed light on the multi-level influences affecting their administration. Via a Systematic Literature Review, we reviewed 25 scientific articles dealing with small village governance; in particular, we adopted a multi-level lens to decipher the administration dynamics of these public governance realities. Results reveal that four main levels positively or negatively affect small village governance, i.e., socioeconomic factors, governors, stakeholders (e.g., other public administrations), and residents. In addition, we provide future research trajectories; among them, there is encouragement to take a co-evolutionary view. We believe that our findings contribute to improving our understanding of what determines sound governance for small villages, and our study suggests that more research is needed on how entities at different levels may interact or jointly influence the governance of small villages.