ABSTRACT
This chapter is about issues of leadership, local power and rural restructuring in Hungary. It examines the socio-demographic and economic structure of rural Hungary and looks at the distinct meanings ascribed to the rural within a Hungarian context. Rural services and industry as well agricultural enterprises exist in an economic and social space full of contradictions. In 1996 the Hungarian parliament passed a Regional Development and Physical Planning Act, which transformed the decision-making process, decentralising it for the first time in Hungarian history. The activities of the county regional development councils require cooperation between the government and business interests. Agrarian and rural policies have been of a rather aggressive nature particularly in the second half of the twentieth century; they left practically no space for autonomous civil institutions and the participation of local residents. The leadership and power relations of rural development have started to be more intellectual with the evolution of politically impressive rural images.
