Between coercion and consent: the politics of “Cooperative Governance” at a time of “Austerity Localism” in London

Joe Penny

doi:10.1080/02723638.2016.1235932

Abstract

ABSTRACTAt a time of “austerity localism”, this paper explores how local authorities in London, England, are simultaneously addressing the dual pressures of delivering fiscal retrenchment and of enrolling citizens in new participatory public service arrangements, asking whether “these trends pull against one another, in opposite directions, or whether they are the tough and tender dimensions of a singular process: austerian management” Drawing on empirical research into the London Borough of Lambeth’s Cooperative Council agenda, as well as Foucauldian and Gramscian critiques of participatory network governance theories and practice, this paper shows how participatory forms of governance can be folded into the logic of hierarchy and coercion through various governmental technologies of performance and agency (consent), and through tactics of administrative domination (coercion). As budget cuts continue to affect local government in England, this paper concludes that although small experiments in participatory governance may persist, the dominant mode of governance is likely to shift towards more hierarchical and coercive forms.

Highlights

For the past five years, England has been at the vanguard of self-imposed austerity
Local government has been at the heart of this restructuring process as both “site and target” (Ward et al, 2015, p. 443) of fiscal retrenchment and a renewed emphasis on localism
Local authorities increasingly find themselves in the uneasy position of “agents of austerity”; tasked on the one hand with administering unprecedented budget cuts and on the other with catalysing economic growth and coordinating local welfare programmes which meet “new demands that public services should empower citizens and communities, develop partnerships, collaborate with ‘civil society’ groups, and foster ‘co-production’ arrangements with service users” (Newman & Clarke, 2009, p. 6)

Summary

Introduction

For the past five years, England has been at the vanguard of self-imposed austerity. Soon after its formation in May 2010, in an attempt to “pay down the national deficit”, the Coalition Government embarked on “the most far-reaching and precipitate attempt to achieve fundamental restructuring in an established welfare state. . . in recent years” (Taylor-Gooby, 2012, p. 61). Drawing on critical discourse and policy analysis, as well as 48 interviews with local actors, I explore the ways in which the pressures of “austerity localism” (Featherstone, Ince, Mackinnon, Strauss, & Cumbers, 2012) are being managed in the London Borough of Lambeth through their “Cooperative Council” agenda—an attempt to enrol citizens, community groups and private-sector partners in new network governance arrangements and service configurations—and ask, at a time of seemingly permanent austerity (Pierson, 1998), how the balance between hierarchic and coercive (or Roll-with-it 1) and horizontal and consensual (or Roll-with-it 2) modes of governance is shifting, and with what implications for processes and politics of urban neoliberalisation after the crash. I suggest that as austerity deepens in England we are likely see a shift towards the more coercive “authoritarian, capital-oriented, market-serving policies and political constellations” (Keil, 2009, p. 239) associated with “roll-with-it neoliberalization 1”

Theorising consent and coercion in network governance and localism

Whatever is happening to local government and governance in England?

Findings

Conclusion: towards ‘Roll-with-it 1ʹ?