Tracing the Democratic Narrative: Big Society, Localism and Civic Engagement

Buser, Michael

doi:10.1080/03003930.2012.693077

Cited by 43 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Local authorities are meant to support local communities in developing the plans, however as they lose staff it is likely this support may not be forthcoming. The neighbourhood planning proposals therefore benefit those communities that can organise most successfully and those that can draw on their own expertise and cultural capital (Buser, 2012).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Conservative Party, 2009: 2) That this could lead to a reduction in new development was implicitly incorporated into the argument of Open Source Planning -after all many Conservative MPs, including the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer -had to contend with vocal opposition to new development in their constituencies. Under the Localism Act (2010) in England, communities were given the power to develop a neighbourhood plan, led by either the local Parish Council or a Neighbourhood Forum (Buser, 2012). If a simple majority of residents in a local referendum supported the plan, and it was aligned to broader local and national policy, then it would be adopted as the development plan for the area.…”

Section: Do Not Cite Without Permissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Homo Economicus in a Big Society: Understanding Middle-class Activism and NIMBYism towards New Housing Developments

Matthews

Bramley²,

Hastings

2014

Housing, Theory and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Problems of housing supply and affordability in England have long been recognised by policy-makers. A key barrier to supply is seen to be community activism by socalled NIMBYs (not-in-my-back-yard). The localism policy agenda, or devolving decision-making down to the local level, is central to how the UK Coalition government seek to overcome this opposition. This conceives NIMBYism as a demonstration of homo economicus -of the rationality of economic beings seeking to maximise their utility. In this view, residents would not accept large urban extensions in suburban areas because they took on localised costs with no obvious benefits, unless incentivised appropriately. In this paper we use analysis of British Social Attitudes Survey data as well as the results of the first review of middle-class activism in relation to public services to identify the likelihood of residents being incentivised by this version of localism to accept new housing. We conclude that the evidence on the individual and collective attitudes suggests that it is unlikely that localism will deliver new housing. Importantly, the political power of affluent and professional groups means they can ensure that their opposition is heard, particularly in the neighbourhood plans delivered through localism. The paper argues that planning for housing needs to understand communities as homo democraticusas actively engaged in negotiating between complex interests with respect to support for new housing.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Do Not Cite Without Permissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Homo Economicus in a Big Society: Understanding Middle-class Activism and NIMBYism towards New Housing Developments

Matthews

Bramley²,

Hastings

2014

Housing, Theory and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Wollmann ( ) Humboldt University Berlin , Berlin , Germany frontrunners, the provision of public utilities (water, sewage, waste, public transport, energy) in their early, basic forms was seen mainly as a responsibility of local authorities (the 'political community' 1 ) and was labelled (sometimes for polemical purposes) as municipal socialism (see Kühl 2001 ). By contrast, the provision of elementary personal social services was largely left to the 'social community', 2 in other words, to the 'informal sector' (are Munday 2010, Buser 2013 consisting of charitable, not-for-profi t organisations, philanthropists, workers' organisations, societal self-help groups and so on.…”

Section: Hellmut Wollmannmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Public Services in Italy: Still Fragmentation

Citroni

Lippi

Profeti

2016

Public and Social Services in Europe

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Whilst the ideological nature of localism and the Big Society has been noted (Bednarek 2011;Buser 2012;Sage 2012) a continued criticism of these policies at a local level is that austerity has meant they are simply not resourced sufficiently to be successful. Analysis of where the cuts to the local government budget in England are falling have demonstrated that those areas that are seeing the biggest cuts are those which received substantial quantities of discretionary regeneration, economic development and sports and cultural funding under the New Labour governments.…”

Section: The Unequal Nature Of Localismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connecting community to the post-regeneration era

Matthews¹,

O’Brien²

2015

After Urban Regeneration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

(2015). Chapter 3 -Connecting community to a postregeneration era. After Urban Regeneration: Communities, policy and place. D. O'Brien and P. Matthews (Eds.) Bristol, Policy Press: 27-44. Chapter 3 Connecting community to the post-regeneration era. Peter Matthews and Dave O'BrienThis chapter aims to bridge the discussion of the history of community in urban regeneration with the rest of the book. It does this by advancing a central argumentthat urban policy has entered a post-regeneration era-along with a specific discussion of the Connected Communities programme. The chapter begins by outlining how and why the era of urban regeneration came to an end, building on the discussion in chapter two, with a specific focus on the combination of broader socioeconomic structures and ideological decisions that have shaped urban policy since 2010. The ideas of localism, city mayors, big society and de-centralisation are all considered, along with practical developments such as the National Planning Policy Framework. These agendas and events are then used to understand the Connected Communities programme and the way that its focus, specifically on co-production and co-development with communities, has come to represent the leading edge of academic research in this area. The chapter concludes by looking forward to the rest of the book, noting the caution struck by chapter 12.

show abstract

Tracing the Democratic Narrative: Big Society, Localism and Civic Engagement

Cited by 43 publications

References 26 publications

Homo Economicus in a Big Society: Understanding Middle-class Activism and NIMBYism towards New Housing Developments

Homo Economicus in a Big Society: Understanding Middle-class Activism and NIMBYism towards New Housing Developments

Local Public Services in Italy: Still Fragmentation

Connecting community to the post-regeneration era

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About