Managing Rural Change and Competing Rationalities: Insights from Conflicting Rural Storylines and Local Policy Making in Ireland

Abstract

This paper assesses the actions of local policy makers and policy stakeholders in the rural arena by exploring the contested nature of rurality. Through an examination of two case studies in the west of Ireland, the paper argues that the persistence of conflicting rural storylines within the local policy arena has underpinned and framed the emergence of competing rationalities for local territorial development, which have impacted on landscape protection goals and economic and community development. The result is a disintegrated rather than a holistic approach to establishing local policy goals for rural sustainable development, suggesting the need for competing narratives to be explored, challenged and reworked within policy and local governance processes.