Abstract
The devolution of power and responsibility from central to sub national levels of governance over the past half century marks a paradigm shift in forces shaping social policy across much of Western Europe. Scholarship in this field is often concerned with a binary analysis of before and after the advent of devolution, with insufficient attention paid to transitory changes over time. Through attention to Wales’ flagship community regeneration programme, Communities First, a striking instance of divergent devolved social policy, we highlight the need to attend to the dynamics of devolution across time. Drawing on empirical data charting the programme’s conception, implementation, evolution, distortion and eventual demise, we argue that a moment of alignmentbetween ideology and policy design was visible at conception but eroded over 16 years, as the programme increasingly came to bear the hallmarks of neoliberalism. Using this case study, we consider the extent to which newly devolved states can implement ideological policy visions that resist the restraints put upon sub-state governance on the one hand and forces of central state ideologies and logics on the other.
Highlights
The devolution of power and responsibility from central to sub national levels of governance over the past half century marks a paradigm shift in forces shaping social policy across much of Western Europe
Drawing on the case of Wales, and the flagship community regeneration programme Communities First, we address this dimension by charting the programme’s history; from an initial, albeit momentary, alignment between devolved ideology and policy design to a dissonant implementation strategy, which, over time, came to bear the hallmarks of neoliberalism
We contribute to the study of social policy making in a devolved context (Birrell, 2009), and the extent to which newly devolved states can implement ideological policy visionsthat resist the restraints put upon sub-state governanceon the one hand and forces of central state ideologies and logics on the other
Summary
The devolution of power and responsibility from central to sub national levels of governance over the past half century marks a paradigm shift in forces shaping social policy across much of Western Europe. Scholarship in this field is often concerned with a binary analysis of before and after the advent of devolution, with insufficient attention paid to transitory changes over time. Drawing on the case of Wales, and the flagship community regeneration programme Communities First, we address this dimension by charting the programme’s history; from an initial, albeit momentary, alignment between devolved ideology and policy design to a dissonant implementation strategy, which, over time, came to bear the hallmarks of neoliberalism. The moment used in this way allows us to attend to the processes and practices associated with the ‘ongoing territorialization of social policy’ (Chaney and Wincott, 2014: 774), or the rescaling of social policy responsibilities and powers upward, downward and outward to supra- and sub-national levels of government
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