ABSTRACT
International tourism has discovered the most remote rural areas in the world. In many regions in Europe, rural and urban areas are also becoming increasingly interrelated, physically, functionally and mentally. This chapter attempts to develop a framework for explicitly analysing the various meanings of spatial scale in regional development. The conceptual framework has been constructed on the basis of an investigation of post-war developments in rural regions in the Netherlands, and of theories about these developments. It starts from the notion that regional development comprises a number of aspects with different degrees of 'tangibility'. Regional development involves the interaction of many actors, individuals, groups and organizations, and power relationships are inherent to social interaction. The perspective of the institutionalization of interests focuses on the social processes by which actors gradually try to obtain an established position in the region under consideration, for example, by mobilizing an 'advocacy coalition', by founding an interest organization, or by initiating a regional development project.
