State rescaling and democratic transformation

Abstract

This article is concerned with the rescaling of the state and with the impact of this rescaling on processes of democratisation and empowerment and, in particular, on the growth potential of movements for local urban and rural social justice. State rescaling is defined, and then explained, using a distinction between state functions and state strategy and, correspondingly, between political governance and metagovernance. An initial attempt is made to make sense of rescaling processes by reference to historical changes in political regime, characterised in terms of shifts in the mix of governance modes. The movement of perspective to metagovernance, however, suggests an alternative approach to understanding state rescaling, in terms of the strategies of regime cores and the resistance offered to those strategies. The New Labour regime in the UK is analysed as an illustration of the general argument of the article, which concludes, in more normative mode, with an assessment of the prospects for the development of more democratic governance in the future.