Disintegrated Rural Development? Neo‐endogenous Rural Development, Planning and Place‐Shaping in Diffused Power Contexts

What is the role of the state in promoting sustainable rural communities? Only a few years ago any discussion of this question would have alluded to the concept of integrated rural development. Today the concept of governance is internationally used to address such questions, reflecting a recognition of the changing role of the state (at all levels) and the greater propensity for public, private and voluntary sectors to interact at multiple scales in diffused power contexts together with attempts to mobilise local actors. This article asks whether the concept, integrated rural development, still has any meaning in the context of the new rural governance and begins to link this to re‐theorisations of concepts of spatial planning, place‐shaping, capacity‐building and neo‐endogenous development, and offers illustrations from the north of Scotland. The article concludes by suggesting that initiatives such as the EU's LEADER programme might be recast explicitly as a transnational experiment in doing ‘disintegrated rural development’, addressing the challenges of neo‐endogenous rural development, multi‐scalar governance, an enabling, generative state and the transformation of mainstream policies.