Drawing on research based on four case studies in France and Italy, studied over the period 1994-2015, this article looks at the effects of the implementation of the European rural development programme LEADER in the beneficiary areas. The research is therefore based on the comparison of four Local Action Groups: West Cornwall in Brittany, the Pays d'Arcachon Val de l'Eyre in Aquitaine, the Delta Po in Emilia-Romagna and the Venezia Orientale in Veneto. This choice of cases was based on the following comparative hypothesis. The normative and cognitive framework of the European LEADER programme has two dimensions : the rural development perspective adopted in the deployment of the programme and the place of local authorities in rural territories in territorial governance. The article analyses the mechanisms involved in the contribution of this programme to the transformation of the issues at stake in these territories, to the evolution of the systems of local actors, and finally to changes in the definition and implementation of local public policy. By participating in the strengthening of local authorities according to their relative territorial capacities and by generating processes of domination by regional authorities, LEADER ultimately contributes to the redistribution of the places and roles of elected representatives and experts within the local arena and generates effects on programmes other than LEADER. LEADER thus participates in the recomposition of local public action, not by imposing the principles of neo-endogenous territorial development, but by juxtaposing them with other rural development proposals, depending on the actors, contexts, periods, policies or programmes concerned. Furthermore, LEADER feeds learning processes about cooperation between actors and the mobilisation of public action mechanisms through socialisation mechanisms that lead to social innovations, the mobilisation of territorialised public action instruments and, finally, inter-community and inter-municipal cooperation.
