LEADER: Where it came from and what’s still in it

LEADER has a long history and is still going strong. Robert Lukesch gave a talk in the final conference of the transnational project ‘LEADER/CLLD: Our common future’ on 4-6 November 2024, in Cheleiros/Mafra, Portugal, on the topic of ‘LEADER: Where it came from and what’s still in it’. This was based on a treatise in which he offers an exceptional account of the origins, evolution and prospects of LEADER from a personal perspetive.  The list of its contents that follows shows the wide range of topics imaginatively handled by the author. The link to the full paper is available below.

Introduction

PART I: The Background of LEADER

Global political and economic shifts

• When the bipolar world order crumbled
• The neoliberal turn
• Globalisation under the neoliberal lodestar
• The countercurrent that sees the world as finite
• German unification and British sceptics
• A touch of Euro-optimism

The European Union in the making

• The origins of agricultural and structural policies
• The buildup of European institutions
• The institutionalization of Cohesion Policy
• Shifting targets for the Common Agricultural Policy
• The CAP transition to area-based payments
• The European Commission under Jacques Delors
• Bureaucracy asserts itself

The emergence of new approaches to local and regional development

• The apparent weaknesses of top down planning and investment concepts
• The call for an end to dependence
• The paradigm shift towards endogenous and place-based development approaches
• Local development as an emancipatory concept
• Scaling up: the shift towards place-based approaches in mainstream policies

PART II: The voyage of LEADER through time

The genesis of LEADER

• Prelude
• The DG V (Employment), the incubator of LEADER in the EC
• The OECD, a most significant source of advice
• The focus of LEADER precursors: local employment, education and training
• Towards integrated territorial development
• The time was ripe for LEADER
• LEADER arises: From the Community Initiative to the method
• From the ELISE network to the LEADER I Coordination Unit
• LEADER I, the radical institutional innovation
• LEADER II and the European LEADER II Observatory
• Deciphering the code: the LEADER method
• “800 Leader give their views”
• LEADER as a driver of innovation
• LEADER as an emancipatory approach
• The small, but significant reconfiguration of the LEADER specificities

The mainstreaming of LEADER

• LEADER+: A bumpy transition
• The institutionalisation of LEADER as CLLD
• The rural network grows, staffing for LEADER shrinks
• LEADER spreads out
• The LEADER community, spanning institutional and civil society networks
• Synthesis: overview of six phases of LEADER implementation

PART III: LEADER at the crossroads

Recent developments in European agricultural and rural policies

• Ambitious objectives, implementation delegated
• The journey continues

Turning the page: How can the lessons from the past nurture future prospects?

• Growing diversity, rising complexity
• Territorial inequalities, an underestimated evil
• Remarrying global challenges with place-based approaches
• Cultivate what has been achieved and venture the new
• Lessons to heed
• Scattered thoughts on the future of governance
• Laughing against the wind

Summary: Key proposals emanating from this treatise

Bibliography

This treatise has been written by Robert Lukesch in the framework of the transnational LEADER project “LEADER/CLLD: Our Common Future” (2023-2024) implemented by 13 partners and the Austrian LEADER forum as the lead partner.

For the full treatise click below