Governing Massachusetts: Uneven Development and Politics in Metropolitan Boston

Abstract

This paper analyzes governance and politics in Massachusetts in the 1980s and 1990s. Using a regulationist analysis of the “mode of social regulation” as well as urban regime theory’s emphasis on governing coalitions, we show how spatial restructuring has transformed governing coalitions, governance structures, and local politics. Empirically, we note the importance of the Greater Boston area to the Commonwealth’s recent economic recovery but point to the lack of regional governance capacity. Political fragmentation and territorial conflict continue to frustrate the development of more coherent governing coalitions and governance structures at the state, regional, and local levels. Theoretically, we stress how conditions internal to local economies contribute to their structural incoherence. This contrasts with the regulationist emphasis on external conditions, including globalization and the failure of national states to manage uneven development.