Synergy and coherence through collective action: Some insights from wine routes in Tuscany

A wine route can be seen as a network established around the theme of wine. The impressive economic impact that the establishment of the Costa degli Etruschi wine route has had on the farms involved is traced back in this article to the collective action that produces synergies and coherence. Synergies can be defined as linkages between two or more entities, whose joint effort produces quantitatively and qualitatively higher effects than those produced by the efforts of the same entities alone. Coherence is a duality belonging to the elements that constitute the context of action in successful rural development practices: natural and man-made environment, social networks, and symbolic systems. The process of creating coherence is not without conflict, and the article contends that the establishment of coherence needs a hegemonic strategy that involves all sources of empowerment and particularly cultural codes.