Exploring the Political Potential of the Local State: Building a Dialogue with Sheffield in the 1980s

Abstract

This article explores the political potential of the local state through an engagement with the case of Sheffield City Council in the 1980s. The new municipalism movement has generated renewed interest in the "local" and "urban" as transformative projects. The local state holds a pivotal if problematic role in these debates, often seen as the decisive force facilitating or impeding transformation. In building a dialogue with 1980s Sheffield, we provide a less certain account of the local state's potential. Sheffield occupies an ambiguous position within and beyond traditional municipal labourism and therefore provides a potent example to explore tensions within municipalism between state and autonomist visions of politics. In Sheffield, radical intent turned into a more cautious governmental programme in the city, notwithstanding glimpses of political alternatives. The experience of those years provides insights on the contingencies of bringing movements and state politics together in what was then called "local socialism". Zusammenfassung: Dieser Beitrag untersucht das politische Potenzial des lokalen Staates am Beispiel des Sheffield City Council (UK) in den 1980er Jahren. Die politische Bewegung des neuen Munizipalismus f€ uhrte zu einem neuen Interesse am ,,Lokalen" und ,,Urbanen" als transformative Projekte. Der lokale Staat spielt in diesen Debatten eine zentrale, wenn auch komplizierte Rolle, da er oft als die entscheidende Kraft angesehen wird, die den Wandel sowohl erleichtert als auch behindert. Mit dem Beispiel von Sheffield der 1980er Jahre liefern wir eine weniger eindeutige Darstellung des Potenzials des lokalen Staates. Sheffield nimmt eine ambivalente Position innerhalb und jenseits des traditionellen ,,Municipal Labourismus" ein und bietet daher ein € uberzeugendes Beispiel f€ ur die Untersuchung der Spannungen innerhalb des Munizipalismus zwischen staatlichen und autonomen Visionen von Politik. In Sheffield verwandelte sich ein urspr€ ungliches radikales Programm in ein vorsichtigeres Regierungsprogramm, auch wenn es durchaus Anzeichen f€ ur politische Alternativen gab. Die Erfahrungen der 1980er-Jahre geben Aufschluss € uber die Kontingenz der Zusammenarbeit von sozialen Bewegungen und staatlicher Politik in dem, was damals ,,lokaler Sozialismus" genannt wurde.

Whatever happened to municipal radicalism?

“…In this sense today's experiments more readily resemble forms of municipal statecraft. Indeed, while 1980s municipal radicalism funded cooperative development and established municipal enterprises more directly-such as Sheffield Council's direct development of Red Tape music studios in 1986 (Beveridge & Cochrane, 2023)-the recent resurgence in such activity is circuitously mediated through various other agents, from think tanks and foundations to community development trusts. Especially prominent in the growing 'para-state apparatus comprised of multiple voluntary sector organisations, administered outside of traditional democratic politics'what Wolch famously defined as the 'shadow state' (quoted in Baker & McGuirk, 2021, p. 1340)-is a 'philanthropic complex' (Martin, 2015) swollen by austerity, increasingly resembling the American 'non-profit industrial complex' (INCITE!, 2017), whose shape I outline in the next section.…”

“…Not dissimilar policies were rolled out in Sheffield—the ‘People's Republic of South Yorkshire’ (Beveridge & Cochrane, 2023)—working ‘in and against the market’ (Cochrane, 1988) to move towards ‘planned production for social need’ (Benington, 1986). Municipal radicals used the then substantial roles of local government—as major employer, investor, producer and purchaser of goods and services—as powerful levers for generating, multiplying and circulating collective wealth (Benington, 1986), prefiguring community wealth building today (Manley & Whyman, 2021).…”