Joanna Howard

Place-Based Leadership and Public Service Innovation

Abstract This article discusses two matters that are becoming increasingly important in debates about local government: place-based leadership and public service innovation. The troubling international economic outlook means that many local authorities are focusing on ‘efficiency savings’ and the prevailing mantra in public policy circles is ‘do more with less’. This article questions this approach. It aims to contribute to what one chief executive described to us as ‘more with more’ thinking. This approach strives to release the community and business energies of a locality. If this can be achieved the total resources available to improve the local quality of life can be increased, even if state spending is shrinking. A conceptual framework for studying place-based leadership is presented. This distinguishes three, overlapping realms of leadership in any given locality – political leadership, managerial/professional leadership, and community and business leadership. It is argued that the areas of overlap between these realms can be viewed as innovation zones – spaces in which established approaches can be questioned and new trajectories developed. These zones can, however, also become conflict zones with little learning and exchange taking place. Place-based leadership can influence whether such political spaces are used to promote creative problem solving or whether they become arenas for dispute and friction between sectional perspectives. By drawing on a study of the current Digital+Green initiative in Bristol, UK, the article suggests that an imaginative approach to place-based leadership – one that accepts intelligent risk taking – offers potential for improving the local quality of life as well as strengthening local democracy.

Addressing the legitimacy of the council-manager executive in local government

Abstract This article uses the concept of legitimacy to contribute to the debate about leadership change in local government. It focuses on the council-manager form of executive, used in Australia, Ireland, Finland, New Zealand, the US, and was an option for English local authorities in the Local Government Act 2000. After reviewing the central features, underlying values, and variations that the council-manager model displays cross-nationally, the article draws on research carried out in Stoke-on-Trent, England, a city which adopted a variant of the council-manager form. The analysis assesses the model operating there in terms of legitimacy, and argues that some of its shortcomings are addressed by the introduction of a form of decentralised, deliberative, neighbourhood governance.

Citizen Participation and Civic Activism in Comparative Perspective

Global interest in community and civic participation has been well documented. In particular, it has led to the creation of new governance spaces in which civil society actors have been invited to participate. This article draws on Crossleys concept of ‘radical habitus’ to explore the challenges that new opportunities pose to civic activism, and the ways in which different cultural and political environments enable or constrain the capacity of civic activists for autonomy and critical agency.

New governance spaces: what generates a participatory disposition in different contexts?

This paper examines developments in governance and non- governmental public action in three diverse contexts. It is based on comparative international research that examined the role of non-governmental actors involved in partnership working with state actors in the UK, Bulgaria and Nicaragua. The paper draws on Crossley’s (2003) development of Bourdieu’s (1977) ‘theory of practice’ to examine the contextual factors that influence the participation of non-governmental actors in ‘new governance spaces’. It highlights three very different responses to the ‘opportunities’ governance offers, which illustrate how historical processes mould civil society relation’s vis-a-vis the state in highly significant ways. Although governance presents many obstacles to change, the paper concludes that the new forms of participation that are appearing in these spaces may be the foundations from which more significant change emerges.

Toward a typology of civil society: Understanding non-government public action

In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the move from government to governance has been well documented (Stoker, 1998; Rhodes, 1996, 1997). In the global North, governance is understood as a response to complexity and a recognition that many problems cannot be solved by government alone, whereas in democracies across the North and South, there is a concern to address the democratic deficit and [re]legitimize the state. In both contexts, new governance spaces and opportunities have emerged for non-governmental actors to engage in the process. Interest in community or “third sector” participation has spread around the globe, albeit with very different expressions in different contexts, and in many cases at the insistence of international financial institutions. Deacon (2007, p. 15) describes such global trends as “the contested terrain of emerging global governance” in which he includes both international non-governmental organizations and transnational social movements. Although this shift represents new opportunities, the extent to which the spaces for participation offer a new vision of the public domain is contested (Fung & Wright, 2003; Cornwall & Coelho, 2007).

Tackling community leadership in the confined spaces of local governance in England

1. Introduction and main findings 2. Sustainability and policy challenge: the cases of economic competitiveness and social inclusion 3. Measuring institutional performance in achieving urban sustainability 4. New urban leaders and community involvement: The Italian case studies 5. Between urban leadership and community involvement: Impacts of EU policies and strong mayors in Greek local government 6. Traces of Governance: Policy networking in Norwegian local government 7. The interplay of central and local: Social inclusion policy from above in Swedish cities 8. Uneven partnerships: Polish city leaders in search of local governance 9. Tackling community leadership in the confined spaces of local governance in England 10. Strong mayors and policy innovations - lessons from two German cities 11. Between vision and consensus: urban leadership and community involvement in the Dutch cases 12. New Zealand: articulating a long-term vision for community well-being 13. Community involvement and legitimation in urban governance: an empirical analysis 14. Local leadership in multi-level governance in Europe 15. Restrictions, opportunities and incentives for leadership and involvement 16. City political culture - what is expected from policy actors? 17. Institutional conditions for complementarities between urban leadership and community involvement 18. The role of political leadership in the promotion of legitimation in urban policy: opportunities and constraints.

Surviving the ‘Civil Society Dilemma’: Critical Factors in Shaping the Behaviour of Non-Governmental Actors

In market-based economies it will always be difficult for those non-government organisations that espouse non-market values to flourish without being compromised in ways that have a damaging impact on their objectives and credibility. Positioned within civil society between state and market, non-governmental actors are permanently trapped between a desire to enhance community well-being and an inability to shape the context in which to do so. Thus they find that, although recent policy developments have provided opportunities for greater influence in a number of countries, taking advantage of such opportunities, whilst appearing to fulfil their mission, can lead to co-option and a betrayal of core values. Finding solutions to this ‘civil society dilemma’ is further complicated by adaptations to the shifting demands created by economic and political change. In this chapter, we focus on recent developments in the relationship between the state and civil society in two countries, examining the ways in which, in different contexts, non-governmental actors have attempted to address this dilemma.