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Land reform, planning and people: an issue of stewardship
John Bryden and Keith Hart
The Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research
University of Aberdeen, Scotland
3rd April 2000
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This paper examines the recent policy shift from state regulation to community
participation as the framework for greater local decision-making. The authors do
this by looking through the lens of land reform in Scotland; and in particular
the issue of stewardship - a concept which appears to have won wide acceptance
by most sides in the land reform debate.
By way of a conclusion the authors highlight the need for a more equal and
widespread ownership of land as a condition of economic democracy, and that for
devolution of power downwards to local communities. They argue that if concepts
such as stewardship and community planning are used to obfuscate these real
issues, such that no one knows what kind of power is being exercised by whom,
then they merely constitute rhetorical devices cloaking the real interests and
conflicts involved in the processes of devolution and land reform. As such they
hinder realistic analysis of the issues, even if they may on occasion help to
bring people together.
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