Democratic Accountability and Metropolitan Governance: The Case of South Hampshire, UK

Abstract

This paper examines the notion of democratic accountability through an investigation of metropolitan governance in South Hampshire, UK. The author employs an interpretive approach to trace varying readings of democratic accountability and to analyse how these notions reflect and influence specific institutional arrangements. The paper highlights how accountability can be strategically deployed to accomplish and bolster diverse policy and political objectives and how these interpretations impact the quality of democratic engagement

Democratic metropolitan governance: experiences in five German metropolitan regions

“…This question is virulent as many empirical case studies point to the existence of regional regimes with weak democratic input legitimacy butat least in some cases -with high problem-solving capacity (Nicholls 2005;Hamilton 2004;Purcell 2007). This observation is related to the turn to governance in metropolitan politics made prominent in the new regionalism literature since the 1990s (Norris 2001;Buser 2013). Following Heinelt and Kübler (2005), the emphasis given in metropolitan governance to efficiency and effective problem-solving can come at the expense of the influence of citizens' participation through voting and systems of territorial representation, an argument also to be found in the broader debate about governance (Heinelt and Kübler 2005;Hirst 2000).…”

“…The only common denominator is a broad rejection of the institutional ideas of the metropolitan reform era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when regional cities or city-county consolidation was accepted though not uncontested solutions. 1 The debate focused on the effectiveness of different governance solutions but neglected questions of democratic quality of metropolitangovernance, an issue that has come only recently onto the agenda of scholarly work (Kübler 2012;Kübler and Schwab 2007: Lidström 2010Buser 2013;Airaksinen, Härkönen, and Haveri 2013;see also Oliver 2001). This question is virulent as many empirical case studies point to the existence of regional regimes with weak democratic input legitimacy butat least in some cases -with high problem-solving capacity (Nicholls 2005;Hamilton 2004;Purcell 2007).…”

“…Following Heinelt and Kübler (2005), the emphasis given in metropolitan governance to efficiency and effective problem-solving can come at the expense of the influence of citizens' participation through voting and systems of territorial representation, an argument also to be found in the broader debate about governance (Heinelt and Kübler 2005;Hirst 2000). Seen from this angle, efficacious metropolitan governance negatively hampers representative democracy on the local level as institutions of representative democracy are bypassed by opaque regional networks of public and private actors (Buser 2013). …”

From exemplary practitioners to urban chameleons? The role of the citizen in the redistribution of tasks in local governance

“…In this new constellation of actors, organizational boundaries between governmental, professional and civic organizations and differences in these stakeholders' mindsets become increasingly visible. In the same time, public, private and community roles, responsibilities and practices blend (De Wilde, Hurenkamp, and Tonkens 2014). This intermingling not only manifests in hybridized forms of governance but also produces new actors that mediate and create bridges between stakeholders.…”

“…With the recent decentralization of the welfare to the municipal levels and area-based, territorialized participatory policymaking in the Netherlands, local actors often need to work together to solve complex social issues, such as youth work or elderly care (De Wilde, Hurenkamp, and Tonkens 2014;Trommel 2013). In this new constellation of actors, organizational boundaries between governmental, professional and civic organizations and differences in these stakeholders' mindsets become increasingly visible.…”