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The transfer of the local development model in the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy (2007-20 13) implies learning a new form of public action based on initiatives borne by local stakeholders. One of the objectives of the LEADER Program is to improve the governance of rural areas through a bottom-up approach to local development. Are the conditions for carrying it out it in each country's institutional context capable of boosting citizen participation in collective actions and consolidating local democracy? Defined and formulated at the EU level, the Leader approach has been transposed by member states in different ways and incorporated in each country's system of local government in line with political strategies for establishing "action areas" that differ in their territorial coverage and articulation with institutional units. Empirical research sheds light on how local action groups have been shaped through the formation of partnerships and networks. The positions adopted by a few mayors on the local scene provide evidence of the emergence of a genuine political leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problems related to "trajectories of evolution" lie at the center of the analysis of economic transformations in the Czech Republic since the early 1990s. Given the major political breakthrough represented by 1989 and membership in the EU in 2004, rural society in the Czech Republic has responded in a variety of ways to the new requirements made by the marketplace and by EU directives in economic matters. Deep social and cultural changes, partly legitimated by national or EU projects and policies, have modified how Czech rural areas are used (residence, leisure activities or tourism depending on the place) and how society views these areas. This diversification of economic activities in the countryside has not affected all places in like manner. Some have switched to being residential or touristic zones, while others have retained (or even reinforced) farming or industrial activities. These changes in economic activities and their distribution in rural areas are analyzed in terms of a global/local dialectics at the scale of the whole country. How do rural activities and territorial dynamics fit together in quite differentiated geographical settings? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]