Of vines and policy vignettes: sectoral evolution and institutional thickness in the Languedoc

We argue that the search for rural regimes in particular localities can be usefully advanced through the deployment of a sensitive and suitably nuance d conceptualization of institutional thickness. Empirical validation of thi s theoretical framework with reference to Languedoc viticulture offers subs tantial evidence of the interdependency between regime building maintenance and stability, and local institutional integrity. The theoretical framewor k developed here, based on the notions of consensus and concrete institutio ns, also provides an analytically rigorous approach for understanding the c omplex rescaling of the political economy of rural governance, not least by offering some indication of the scalar rationale for consensus compatibili ty and partnership building between elites situated at different politico-g eographic scales. We contend that an understanding of this shared logic of action among local and extra-local administrative and political elites is c rucial to the restructuring process unfolding in European rural regions.