Impact of Leaders : The Impact of the Engagement of Local Government Leaders’ on the Effectiveness of Participatory Planning as Found in the Local Community Academy Program (2014–2015)

The relevance of the above quotation from an excellent author and economist, adapted to present day Hungarian local governments, is unquestionable. At the beginning of the 21st century, in a globalizing world, the demand for the direct inclusion of independent social groups and individuals and the maintenance of the communities within geographical localities have become a primary issue as opposed to the conditions under the alienating, technocratic, impersonalizing and centralized political regimes of the Europe of the second half of the past century. For this reason, the importance of the role of local leadership is magnified.The program included training for the local governments in the convergence regions, and had three pillars. The first pillar includes 6 post graduate e-learning training programs studied by approximately twenty thousand public officers. The second pillar is the network of the so-called Local Community Academies, comprising the elaboration of strategic methodologies by local participants to be recommended to local governments. The third pillar supported the traditional classroom training for three hundred local government employees.The program of the Local Community Academies (LCA) aimed to support the social inclusion, and the ability of strategy-making. This study aims to answer the following research question: “How did the engagement and involvement of local government leaders, affect participatory planning during implementation of the LCA program?” The relevant research method is an empirical analysis of survey data and final reports.