Misión y estrategias de los gobiernos provinciales frente a la despoblación rural: el caso de la Diputación de Jaén (España)

The demographic challenge requires inter-administrative coordination to make the allocation of available resources and funds more efficient. Provincial governments, in their role as guarantors of solidarity and intermunicipal balance, can play a key role due to their proximity to the territory and their priority attention to smaller population centers. In the case analyzed, however, the results show budgetary and territorial governance limitations. This conclusion has been reached by combining quantitative (economic and demographic) and qualitative information, especially from the interview of twenty-five informants who have been key to the construction of a conceptual map reflecting the causes and complexity of the problem, identifying at the same time several vicious circles that emphasize the competitive difficulties of the territory as the ultimate cause of population loss.