‘The Old is Dying and the New Cannot be Born, in this Interregnum a Great Variety of Morbid Symptoms Appear.’ How Can Local Government Survive this Interregnum and Meet the Challenge of Devolution?

Abstract

Local Government in England has long bridled at the restraints on its activities imposed by an over centralised state. Yet now, with the Government proposing to devolve powers and responsibilities to newly established city region governance arrangements, is it a case of be careful what you wish for? In this paper we argue that the devolution from central government to local city regions marks the end of the old 'politics as usual' approach that has underpinned the resilience and effectiveness of the local government institution but failed to engage and energise local politics. In this context we pay particular attention to the Manchester model as the 'poster city' for devolution yet we question if even this model is sufficient to re-cast local relationships between market and state and state and citizen to enable devolution to bring real economic and social benefits to all in the city region. We conclude by suggesting there are empirical and theoretical grounds for alternative governance approaches more suitable to these times of interregnum.

Metro Mayors: Devolution, Democracy and the Importance of Getting the ‘Devo Manc’ Design Right

“…Compared to areas operating a leader/cabinet model where the leader was indirectly elected, respondents to surveys of councillors, officer and local stakeholders in mayoral authorities agreed more strongly that there was quicker decision-making, that the mayor had a higher public profile, that decisionmaking was more transparent, that the council was better at dealing with cross cutting issues that relationships with partners improved and disagreed more strongly with the statement that political parties dominated decision-making 2009). However the evidence base for improved performance under mayoral governance is weak (Hambleton 2015;Harding et al 2014;Hepburn and Headlam 2016;Schaap et al 2009b) and the elected mayoral model in the UK both the Greater London version and the city mayor model have been subject to critique.…”

The Contours of State Retreat from Collaborative Environmental Governance under Austerity

“…This is due to the mixed private-public-voluntary ownership regimes of protected natural environments, and the attendant requirements for stakeholder engagement in environmental management decision making [36]. Whilst there is a small literature accounting for the effects of austerity programmes on governance modalities [37,38], there is little exploring its effects on environmental governance [39]. These are important if the full implications of austerity programmes on the national natural environments are going to be understood.…”

Metropolitan and city-regional politics in the urban age: why does “(smart) devolution” matter?

“…Claims such as "I want my country back" (Penny, 2016;Airey and Booth-Smith, 2017) (as voiced during the Brexit debates in the United Kingdom) or, by contrast, the "right to the city for all" (in reference to refugees, newcomers, and immigrants) are expressions of a growing awareness of metropolitan and spatial differentiation between "winners" and "losers", which undermines the notion of the cohesive nation-state (Hirschman, 1970;Calzada, 2015;Ariño and Romero, 2016). Particularly in England, where territorial regionalisation has become politically eschewed, a subdivision between metropolitan areas and the "rest" has become an alternative approach that relies on patterns of economic performance and relevance (Mitchell, 2002;Sandford, 2002;O'Brien et al, 2004;Bentham, 2007;Leyland, 2011;Keating, 2014c;Headlam and Hepburn, 2015;Willett, 2015;Centre for Cities, 2016;Pike et al, 2016). However, as West (2015: 9) notes, "many people who experience the downsides of diversity simply do not understand why they should be forced to live in alien surroundings as part of some grand social experiment in which they had no say".…”