Chris Collinge

Self-organisation of society by scale: a spatial reworking of regulation theory

The scaling of social systems gives rise to a ‘vertical’ ordering that combines with the more familiar ‘horizontal’ ordering by place. But so far this phenomenon has been examined mainly from a political standpoint, and has not as yet received an adequate regulationist treatment. The regulation approach is at heart a systems theory, whereby innovations in accumulation and regulation—whatever their origins—will tend to be selected and woven into a stable pattern if they contribute to the expanded reproduction of capital. It is argued here that the viability of regimes of accumulation, and of modes of regulation, depends in part upon whether an appropriate scale division of labour is established between their component activities. It is suggested from the analysis that it is possible on this basis to develop a regulationist account of the fundamental tendency towards the integration and division of societies at different scales, and the emergence of dominant societal units in each epoch.

Connecting place, policy and leadership

This first article in this issue provides a broad introduction to the theme of leadership and place for the case studies that follow. The article is an opening review which aims to achieve three things: first, to explore the idea of place as a distinct setting for leadership; second, to summarise the contemporary debate around the need for integrated policy approaches for the shaping and re-shaping of place(s) in advanced economies; and, third, to point up some of the implications for leadership practice that flow from this. The authors argue that there is a need to re-examine the contribution of formal political and executive leadership in the context of the continuing integrated and sustainable development of neighbourhoods, cities, subregions and regions. This is done by presenting a range of insights around leadership and place-shaping that have not yet fully penetrated the academic literature or the policy-maker community.

The Différance between Society and Space: Nested Scales and the Returns of Spatial Fetishism

By using a framework of spatial categories to illuminate social change, scale analysis intersects with a series of arguments that have been put forward over the years regarding the relationship between society and space. The coherence of scale analysis and its contribution to our understanding of this relationship are examined here, with a focus particularly upon the influential writings of Swyngedouw. It is argued that these writings are haunted by a spatial fetishism that has deconstructive consequences, confounding the distinction between society and space upon which their composition depends. But this conclusion points (through a sort of ‘spectral logic’) towards a wider deconstruction, which suggests that the distinction between these terms or realms is itself the product of a kind of ‘scaling’. Despite its centrality to the development of geographical thought, and its congruence with other dualisms such as culture/nature, the juxtaposition of society and space remains the unexamined ground of much contemporary writing. Recent efforts by feminists and others to rework the notion of ‘space’ and indeed of ‘society’ would benefit from addressing these together in their articulation through the in-between-ness of scale.

Managing strategy in local government

Explains the process of strategic management based on the existing literature and fits these concepts within the domain of local government. Develops a tentative model of the development of a strategic process for local government and reviews aspects of current practice. The desire to be more strategic increases as resources get tighter and politicians insist that priorities are met.

Place-making and the limitations of spatial leadership: reflections on the Øresund

The concepts of place-making and place-shaping have grown in prominence over recent years, and have been taken up increasingly into public policy discourse. As used by many commentators, these concepts assume that places are amenable to purposive control under the leadership of local agencies of one sort or another including, for example, local authorities. The present article explores this assumption by sketching out a framework for the investigation of place-making and shaping, a framework that focuses particularly upon its governance and leadership. It is argued in this context that place-making is an ordering process that combines two modes of governance – spontaneous and purposive – only one of which (the second) is directly amenable to deliberate control and so to leadership of any sort. It is also argued that leadership is a relational phenomenon, and that the leadership relationship will on any occasion be located somewhere between two poles – between leader-dominance and follower-dominance – only one of which (the first) is consistent with leadership as this is conventionally understood. Drawing upon the findings from a case study of the Øresund cross-border region, it is concluded that a less conventional sense of leadership is required in the context of place-making and shaping, one that acknowledges the importance of spontaneous governance, and that embraces the possibility of follower-dominance.

Platforms of Innovation

This ground-breaking book offers a coherent theoretical analysis of contemporary industrial knowledge flow dynamics. Furthermore, it advances wide-ranging and varied empirical findings from international comparative research which demonstrate that knowledge cross-pollination, often from industrially unrelated business sectors, is now commonplace in the economics of innovation. This, the authors argue, represents the rise of an externalized ‘matrix’ of knowledge flow dynamics among firms and industries. The book also examines related economic governance research that reveals the catalytic role that leading innovation policy agencies play in animating knowledge flow dynamics, particularly at the regional level. The chapters address various sectors including food and drink, biotechnology, ICT, new media, the automotive industry and tourism.

Positions without Negations? Dialectical Reason and the Contingencies of Space

The dialectical tradition that derives from Hegel and Marx has been very influential within social science, flowing into human geography from the early 1970s through the work of Lefebvre and Harvey. In their different ways these two scholars sought to extend dialectical logic to encompass the contingencies of space, and it is in this context that their seminal contributions to scale analysis can be understood. Since the 1980s, however, confidence in the dialectical tradition has been undermined by poststructural philosophers such as Derrida—who (whilst being careful to avoid simply negating Hegelian dialectics) has exposed the nontotalisable structure of contingency that both subtends and subverts dialectical reason. In this paper I draw upon Derridas treatment of contingency, and explore the nondialectical ‘foundations’ of dialectical logic through a reading of Neil Smiths 1984 book on Uneven Development (Blackwell, Oxford), a classic text from Marxist geography which was the first to articulate a fully theorised scale framework.

The Dynamics of Local Intervention: Economic Development and the Theory of Local Government

A theoretical approach to the large-scale dynamics of local government is derived from Marxian political economy. This is then probed and developed by reference to the history of local authority intervention in the sphere of production over the last 100 years. The historical evidence reveals a pattern of periodic change in the stance of local government towards the local enonomy, a pattern that is broadly correlated with the main phases of economic change which have occurred since 1880. This observation is consistent with the theoretical position indicated at the outset, and supports the view that progress towards a macroscopic theory of local government will depend upon the continued investigation of the long march of local history.

A Network Paradigm for Urban Governance

It has been argued over recent years that we are now witnessing the emergence of a new approach to local and regional governance based upon institutional networks and partnerships (see, for example, Cooke and Morgan 1993; Stoker and Young 1993; Benington and Harvey 1994; Castells 1996; Cooke and Morgan 1998; Todtling 1999; Morgan et al. 2000). It has, in particular, been suggested that public authorities in successful cities and regions are following the private sector in adopting a ‘network paradigm’, and forging strategic alliances which transcend existing territorial or sectoral boundaries in the pursuit of economic development. Apparently this new paradigm is part of a more general movement away from hierarchical relationships, towards flatter structures and more flexible methods of working.

Political Power and Corporate Managerialism in Local Government: The Organisation of Executive Functions

The history of British local government since the 19th century reveals two opposite organisational tendencies. On the one hand there has been the entrenchment of a decentralised political structure based around the committee system; on the other hand there have been recurrent expressions of concern at the absence of executive unity within councils, and the development of a number of reintegrative corporate initiatives. Sometimes these initiatives have taken a political and sometimes a managerial form; the most prominent managerial expression of the pursuit of corporate cohesion is the post of chief executive, but this post is to varying degrees disabled by the absence of a cohesive political structure in those authorities where politicians actively seek to govern. It is only where politicians are relatively weak, and where local democratic accountability is attenuated and power transferred to the officers, that the post of chief executive can live up to its corporate expectations. The perpetuation of these circumstances reflects in part a reluctance amongst councillors to concentrate local political power in a centralised political executive; a reluctance which, in practice, plays into the hands of those who favour a managerialist future for local governance.