“…In the past two decades, community involvement in local policymaking has gained increasing attention as an alternative approach to rural development in the European Union (EU) (Barke & Newton, 1997;Clark, Southern, & Beer, 2007;Diaz-Puente, Yague, & Afonso, 2008;High & Nemes, 2007;MacKinnon, 2002;Osti, 2000;Ray, 2000;Saraceno, 1999;Scott, 2002;Storey, 1999;Valentinov, 2008) and worldwide (Belsky, 1999;Curtis & Lockwood, 2000;Fox, 1995;Francis & James, 2003;Rigg, 1991). The strategies of exogenous rural intervention in the early post-war period supported the state-led import of industries, technologies and skills into the underdeveloped rural areas, and received growing criticism of the excessive dependence on state subsidy, the marginalisation of the local, small-scale enterprises and the conservation of local inactivity (Ellis & Biggs, 2001;Murdoch, 2000).…”