Political Parties and District Council Economic Policies, 1978-90

Abstract

Strong political party effects have previously been found in local government economic policies in London. This paper assesses whether the same holds true for the 333 non-metropolitan district councils in England and Wales, as well as assessing whether the 1980s brought significant changes to linkages between socio-economic conditions and policy variation. Political party effects are found to be weak and, while the 1980s did see significant transformations in expenditure patterns, these were not translated into distinctive trends in policy co-variation. Among the few relationships of note, a clear urban centrality effect was recorded for spending on environmental enhancement and, for the same policy, Labour councils had distinctive expenditure patterns. The absence of consistent relationships is suggested to be a product of increasingly heterogeneous styles of policy enactment and the more homogeneous socio-economic compositions of district councils which encourage locally-grounded policy solutions.