Institutions of land-use changes in non-urbanized areas in Poland

The decisions regarding land-use changes have a significant impact both at the local communities and global scale level. Public actors have acknowledged the importance of negative environmental, economic and social consequences, and to mitigate them, they have specified a range of strategies often discussed in the political agenda. Despite the increasing recognition of the topic little is known about the decision making process regarding land-use changes and its' driving forces at the local government level in Poland. The paper aims to fill this gap and to do so, the research is rooted in institutional context to which little attention has been paid so far in the country. We utilize the Political Market Framework (PMF) and conceptualize land-use changes as a result of working local political institutions. According to the PMF, these institutions emerge in a complex environment where different interest groups interact and bargain among each other and with decision-makers over a specific type of policy. This study focuses on nonurbanized areas, as in these spaces, distinctive types of institutions than in urbanized areas emerge. Compared to the latter, the nonurbanized areas have not been comprehensively investigated; hence the results will broaden current knowledge on the topic. The study aims to identify determinants influencing local land-use changes in Poland's non-urbanized areas within 2012-2018 period and assess the condition under which the relationships are moderated or amplified. For this study, OLS regression with an interaction term of institutional and interest groups variables is applied. Land-use changes are operationalized based on remote sensing data from Corine Land Cover 20012-2018, which delivers greater accuracy regarding different land-use categories and has not been widely utilized. Consistent with PMF, the findings indicate that interest groups successfully secure their preferences and influence decision-makers' willingness to favour them.