ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to analyse and discuss the gender balance in Danish local action groups (LAGs) against the background of a reform in the LAG set-up aimed to secure input legitimacy. LAGs have become well-known in the domain of local rural development ever since the start of the European Union’s Community Initiative LEADER in 1991. Since the 1990s, the emergence of a broad notion of integrated and sustainable rural development led to ‘values about the active participation of stakeholders’ coming to play a more distinguished role’ (Greer 2005, 120). ‘All of these approaches circumvented the top-down governmental approach associated with the traditional agricultural policy community’ (Murdoch 2006, 174). Traditionally, the agricultural policy community has been male dominated. More local and informal decision-making has been thought to stimulate the entrance of previously excluded groups such as women. This chapter focuses on the gender distribution in LAGs because LAGs have become firmly established decision-making bodies for local rural development.
