There has been a profound change within the sphere of government and societal regulation in recent years. Traditional hierarchical government has been challenged by new governance instruments relying on negotiations instead of command and control. Alongside this development there has been a change in the time-framing of politics and steering. Traditional politics has been implicitly based on stability and permanence while new forms of governance are explicitly based on just-in-time actions such as projects and issue-based collaborations in networks and programs. This book analyses the implications of this shortening of time frames, focusing particularly on spatial policy interventions and examines the characteristics of temporary policy measures across a range of rural, urban and regional contexts, in four continents: Europe, North America, Oceania and Africa.

Stefan Sjöblom, Professor in Local Administration, Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Finland, Kjell Andersson, Professor in Rural Studies, Ã...bo Akademi University, Finland, Terry Marsden, Professor, City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, UK and Sarah Skerratt, Senior Researcher, Scottish Agricultural College (SAC), Edinburgh, UK.

1: Introduction: Exploring Short-termism and Sustainability: Temporal Mechanisms in Spatial Policies; I: Temporary Policy Measures; 2: Leader as a Means for Strengthening Rural Development Capacity: From Project Output to the Embedding of Outcomes; 3: To Be or Not to Be... Political? Development Discourse, Participatory Instruments and Programme-Based Approach to Public Action in Tunisia; 4: The Democratic Implications of Project Organisations - A Case Study of Leader-Projects in Finland; 5: Temporary Guides and Long Term Policy Challenges: The View From Remote Australia; II: Effects and Outcomes; 6: Overcoming Short-termism? Building Sustainable Eco-clusters in Rural Devon; 7: The Need to Shift Rural Community Development from Projects Towards Resilience: International Implications of Findings in Scotland; 8: Understanding Short-termism: Development Policies in Paris, Budapest and their Surrounding Settlements; 9: Temporal Dimensions of Governance: A Critical Analysis of Projects; 10: Mobilizing Civil Society for Environmental Protection in a Context Dominated by Industrial Agriculture: Avoiding Projects; III: Intermediaries in Spatial Policy Interventions; 11: Institutions and Networks in Rural Development: Two Case Studies from Hungary; 12: Wind Energy Exchanges and Rural Development in Italy; 13: From Business to Territorial and Social Networks in Rural Development? Experiences from Rural Valencia (Spain); 14: Conclusion: Progressing from Governance Challenges to Approaching 'Must Hit' Spatial Policy Targets