Jonathan S. Davies

Understanding Policy Transfer: A Multi-Level, Multi-Disciplinary Perspective

At the same time that comparative and international political scientists have been confronting the problems of analysing state behaviour under conditions of uncertainty, state-centred political scientists are attempting, somewhat belatedly, to deal with the increasing complexity and uncertainty which underpins modern governance. Yet despite similar research agendas these disciplines have continued to speak past each other. This article contends that policy transfer analysis can provide a context for integrating some key concerns of these disciplines. Further, we argue that the process of policy transfer should be examined through a structure and agency approach with three dimensions: global, international and transnational levels, the macro-level and the interorganizational level. This three-dimensional model employs the notion of a policy transfer network as a middle-range level of analysis which links a particular form of policy development (policy transfer), microdecision making in organizations, macrosystems and global, transnational and international systems. It is hoped that this approach will stimulate an empirical research agenda which will illuminate important policy developments in domestic and world politics.

The Governance of Urban Regeneration: A Critique of the ‘Governing Without Government’ Thesis

This paper offers a critique of the concept of governance as networks. Using the complementary concept of regime governance, it argues that networks are not the primary mode of governance in the politics of urban regeneration in the UK. Drawing on primary and secondary material, it is argued that Central Government is becoming more influential in the local policy arena. In the ‘mix’ of market, hierarchy and network, hierarchy is more pervasive than network. It is therefore argued that partnerships should be treated as a distinct mode of governance. These conclusions demonstrate that despite the fashion for copying urban policies from the USA, local politics in the UK remain very different. Ironically, the transfer of policies developed in the USA has tended to entrench divergent practices and outcomes. The UK does not, therefore, appear to be moving toward the US model of regime politics. It is concluded that the partnership and network/regime models of governance should be subjected to rigorous comparative studies.

Urban Regime Theory: A Normative-Empirical Critique

Over the past 10 years, urban regime theory has become the dominant paradigm for studying urban politics in liberal democracies. Yet there is disagreement about how far it can help us to understand urban political processes. This article argues that regime theory is best understood as a theory of structuring with limits in its analysis of the market economy. These limits undermine its ability to explain the importance of political agency—the scope of individual or collective choice in political decisions and the impact of those choices in the evolution of US cities. It is further argued that there are important normative dimensions to urban regime theory, most fully articulated in Elkin’s commercial republic, which academic commentaries have not acknowledged. However, the empirical analysis developed in regime theory contradicts its normative objectives. The absence of a conceptualization of market dynamics, in the light of pessimism about the prospects for equitable regime governance, not only limits it as a theory of structuring but it also renders it unable to explain how the commercial republic can be realized. Regime theory is, therefore, unconvincing for two reasons. It cannot explain how much local politics matter, and it fails to demonstrate that its normative goal—more equitable regime governance—can be achieved, given the realities of the US market economy. Regime theory needs a more developed understanding of structuring. It may be fruitful, therefore, for regime theorists to re-engage critically with variants of Marxism, which unlike Structuralism, recognize the possibility of agency.

The Limits of Partnership: An Exit-Action Strategy for Local Democratic Inclusion

The challenge of enhancing the ‘democratic anchorage’ of partnerships has become a central concern in policy studies. Radical reform proposals designed to level the deliberative playing field include community veto powers and the appointment of neutral arbiters. Welcome as they would be, however, it is questionable whether such reforms would overcome power asymmetries in the partnership arena. A study of the local politics of social inclusion in two UK cities, Dundee and Hull, suggests that managerialism, driven by national governments, is eroding the prospects for partnership democratisation. But more significantly for the reformist agenda, public managers and community activists think in incompatible frames about the role of partnerships and in ways that are not understood by the other party. Non-communication undermines the prospects for an equitable democratic consensus. Insights from Bourdieu suggest that even in environments more favourable to equitable democratic discourse than those in Dundee and Hull, subtle manifestations of power in culture, discourse and bearing would undermine the potential for a Habermasian consensus between radically unequal actors. In a radical departure from the network governance paradigm, it is therefore argued that empowerment may depend less on enhanced network democracy than on strong independent community organisation capable of acting separately and coercively against governing institutions and elites – an exit-action strategy. These preliminary conclusions point to a substantial research agenda on the politics of the state–civil society nexus.

Partnerships Versus Regimes: Why Regime Theory Cannot Explain Urban Coalitions in the UK

ABSTRACT: This study compares and contrasts urban regeneration partnerships in the UK with urban regimes in the US. Regime theory, as developed by Elkin and Stone, neither describes nor explains the contrasting forms of collaboration in the UK. The development of urban regeneration partnerships has been driven by a combination of two main factors: the development of an ideological perception within local government elites that urban regeneration depends on market led growth, and a series of central government regeneration initiatives. These initiatives, designed to encourage, and where necessary coerce, local authorities into cooperative arrangements have resulted in highly bureaucratized, but symbolic, partnerships with local business elites. Business activity in these partnerships thus far has been marginal. It is unlikely to be fruitful, therefore, for scholars to seek Stonean regimes in the UK. On the other hand, to describe such partnerships as regimes is misleading and results in a lack of conceptual clarity. Despite the fashion for copying urban policy from the US, the institutions of urban politics in the UK are likely to remain resolutely different.

LOCAL GOVERNANCE AND THE DIALECTICS OF HIERARCHY, MARKET AND NETWORK

This article seeks to bring the study of conflict into analysis of the new institutions of urban governance. Neither the orthodox nor the sceptical literatures on the proliferation of autonomous, self-organising networks in urban governance pay sufficient attention to the role of conflict in defining the relationship between market, hierarchy and network, although they recognise that conflict occurs. Conflict is a constitutive and animating feature of market societies. The core argument is that where conflict manifests in networks, the exercise of authority often becomes necessary to sustain them. However, the exercise of authority can undermine trust and reciprocity, further undermining networking. These findings suggest that where conflict manifests itself, hierarchical intervention, which may simultaneously be necessary for networking, but undermine it. Conflict therefore places proponents of governance as networking in a dialectical bind, when the centre does not wish to intervene but has to, and such intervention undermines local networks, in turn prompting the further exercise of state authority. The article concludes, however by highlighting factors that limit network conflict and it puts forward a model for comparative research, positing a set of relationships between conflict and cooperation and network openness or closure.

The Social Exclusion Debate: Strategies, Controversies and Dilemmas

This article explores the UK governments approach to combating social exclusion since 1997. It considers the philosophy and political economy underpinning New Labours approach, and explains the policy prescriptions that follow from these principles. The governments social exclusion agenda has provoked a wide range of controversies and debates in the academic and political communities and the article explores key areas of contention. The story of New Labours political economy of social exclusion is interspersed with discussion of eight controversies and dilemmas, representing a range of critical responses to Third Way thinking about social inclusion. It is concluded that New Labours approach to social exclusion is contractarian, offering conditional access to the mainstream to outsiders. It is distinct from and in opposition to traditional socialist and social democratic politics.

Network Governance Theory: A Gramscian Critique

Influential governance theories argue that we live increasingly in a world of networks either relegating hierarchy to the shadows or dismissing it altogether. This paper develops a Gramscian critique of these currents, advancing two key arguments. First, drawing on Gramscis concepts of hegemony and passive revolution, it reinterprets the cultivation of networks as a prominent element in the hegemonic strategies of Western neoliberalism, exemplified by UK public policy. Second, however, governing networks struggle to cultivate trust, relying instead on hierarchy and closure. It is argued that network governance can therefore be understood as a form of Gramscis integral state, a concept which highlights both the continuing centrality of coercion in the governance system and the limits of the networks project. It is concluded that conceiving of urban governing networks as micro configurations of the integral state offers a distinctive way of overcoming the ‘government to governance’ dualism.

Evaluating Local Strategic Partnerships - Theory and Practice of Change

Abstract Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are a major recent innovation in English local governance. As the ‘partnership of partnerships’ in a locality, the ability of the LSP to provide an arena for community leadership and joined up service delivery is vital to the Local Government Modernisation Agenda. Drawing on material from the national evaluation of LSPs, this paper assesses their progress. A theory of change (ToC) approach was adopted in the evaluation, and the paper shows how this approach was developed and utilised. The main findings from the evaluation are then presented and discussed. In conclusion, the article draws some wider conclusions both about the strengths and weaknesses of the ToC approach and about LSPs themselves.

Hollowing Out Neighbourhood Governance? Rescaling Revitalisation in Baltimore and Bristol

The neighbourhood has been a prominent terrain for revitalisation in recent times, and also for studies by scholars debating the significance of networked governance as the means of public service co-ordination, democratic voice or social control. This study of the governance of neighbourhoods in Baltimore and Bristol suggests that there may be a need to rethink these perspectives, as Bristol begins to converge with Baltimore on the terrain of exclusionary city governance, neighbourhood disinvestment and self-help. If the study is representative, it may point to a retreat from neighbourhood governance and the possibility that, in the era of austerity, economically ‘unviable’ neighbourhoods face abandonment.