The Rise and Limits of Local Governance: LEADER/Community-Led Local Development in the Czech Republic

In the 1990s, a new method of endogenous development called ‘LEADER’ associated with elements of local governance began to be implemented in a number of rural areas of the European Union (EU). As the method had proved to be successful, the need to implement it arose in the countries which accessed to the EU in 2004. Post-socialist states had limited experiences with the application of local governance concepts. The aim of the chapter is to assess the process of implementation of the LEADER method in the Czech Republic in the view of two research questions: was a sufficient institutional capacity created to initiate local governance in rural areas of the Czech Republic, and how does the applied form of implementation influence its functioning and development? The authors used an analysis of relevant policy documents, spatial statistics of Local Action Groups (LAGs) and a questionnaire survey among LAG managers. The results show that the possibilities of the initiation of local governance have grown since 2004, as the institutional capacity (LAGs) has been gradually built for almost the entire territory of the Czech Republic. The authors argue that quantitative progress was not accompanied by qualitative progress as the strengthening of national regulation and control and the limited scope for the support of the thematic areas defined by the state agencies have placed limitations on the elements of local governance in the current period.