The EU LEADER programme: Rural development laboratory

This paper introduces the theme of the seven papers of this 'special issue' on the Ev LEADER rural development initiative. Having described the genesi s and general characteristics of LEADER, the paper proposes a set of four a nalytical frameworks which might serve to guide the study of LEADER-type in terventions: (I) LEADER as a quasi-marketization of rural development; (II) LEADER as the politicization/democratization of rural development; (III) L EADER and endogenous development as discourse; and (Iv) LEADER and the pote ntial for a humanistic/personalist form of development.