Local Democracy Put to the Test of Negotiated Development

This chapter finds a similar obligation in a great many European policies applied in the past ten years to agriculture or to rural areas. This recourse in turn raises the question of the relationship between a &s;technical democracy&s;, emerging through this &s;negotiated development&s;, and the traditional local democracy of rural societies of which the local politician is the principal representative. For the past ten years or so, it can be said that a &s;new situation&s; for agriculture has been emerging, driven by a large number of heterogeneous factors that tend to revolve around the notion of &s;sustainability&s;. Compared to the results of changes in practices or technical innovations, the agrienvironmental experience could seem vain, just as it was by no means surprising that the ecology associations should hesitate between a protest-based culture and opting for active involvement. The chapter aims to study the ability of rural societies to integrate socio-technical arrangements.