Austerity Localism Research Articles

Leveraging the potential of local government scrutiny: a case study of Southampton City Council scrutiny inquiry into its private rented sector

ABSTRACT Drawing on the authors’ experience of being involved as technical experts in Southampton City Council’s interrogation of the private rented sector, the paper considers the potential and the limitations of local government scrutiny inquires as a mechanism for assisting in the achievement of social justice. Scrutiny Inquiries are a relatively new democratic initiative introduced to provide a counterbalance to the greater concentration of powers in the council executive brought about by the Local Government Act 2000. The paper contributes to the literature on local government scrutiny, which is currently driven by public administration scholarship, by developing a holistic socio-legal analysis that seeks to embed a single case study within the wider complex legal, political and social environment. Although Scrutiny Inquiries empower back-bench local councillors and, to a lesser extent, promote community engagement in local government decision making, the paper identifies how austerity localism and reforms to the broader accountability environment have exposed gaps in the system of oversight of local government performance. Nonetheless we found there was political potential in the scrutiny inquiry process because it mobilised landlords and tenants in the city and provided a template for local action on private renting.

Austerity's afterlives? The case of community asset transfer in the UK

AbstractIn the UK, community infrastructure and the care that it provides has been at the sharp end of swingeing government cuts brought about through austere economics and politics. One local manifestation, and legacy, of austerity is the rise in Community Asset Transfer (CAT), a practice whereby local authorities transfer the ownership of public assets to community groups. CAT may predominantly be understood through the lexicon of austerity localism where the state—driven by fiscal pressures—offloads publicly owned buildings onto community groups. However, narrowly applied this interpretation leaves little room for the possibility and/or recognition of other politics which may exist on the ground. In response, this paper sets out a non‐foundational approach to CAT practice that involves in‐depth ethnographic analysis of three CAT community centres in a Welsh local authority. Following Gibson‐Graham's (2006, A postcapitalist politics) call to read for difference rather than dominance, and conscious of the ambivalent politics of CAT, I trace ways in which care is practiced in these new spaces through momentary acts and even explicit political engagement. CATs are experiments in care that allow us a glimpse into the life of community infrastructure after the passing of direct state support. Exploring the afterlives of these assets—and their relational and emotional geographies—reveals an affective politics and orientation not necessarily aligned with neoliberal rationales. Indeed, despite their fragile configuration, CAT practices must be acknowledged, questioned, and considered as part of the wider debate on the future(s) of post‐welfare care.

Shared projects and symbiotic collaborations: Shenzhen and London in comparative conversation

This paper presents ‘shared projects’ and the ‘symbiotic’ relations they engender to capture accounts of state and society actors collaborating to turn individual constraints into collective opportunities for pursuing urban experiments which are institutionally-shaped but also institution-shaping. The concepts are developed through a sequential and recursive comparison – that is, a ‘comparative conversation’– between a case of urban village upgrading in Shenzhen and Community Land Trust Development in London. The paper uses a pragmatist approach to capitalist transformation as a starting point for comparison between these supposedly ‘incomparable’ cases. I build both heterogeneous and generalisable accounts of the pathways and progressive potential of collaborations on shared projects by recursively composing analytical proximities across the cases and their contexts of state entrepreneurialism and austerity localism. Theoretically, this paper contributes to scholarship which focuses on the contingency and complexity inherent in urban transformation. State and society actors are seen as potential collaborators working pragmatically to solve systemic problems without necessarily targeting wholesale systemic change. Methodologically, it contributes to ongoing attempts to demonstrate the positive relationship between experimental comparisons and conceptual innovation through staging a ‘comparative conversation’.

The Guardians of the Welfare State: Universal Credit, Welfare Control and the Moral Economy of Frontline Work in Austerity Britain

Ongoing processes of ‘austerity localism’, including the state’s withdrawal from local communities, have created heightened pressures at the frontline. Sitting in local authorities, third sector bodies and community organisations, frontline workers come to act as the de facto guardians of a much-diminished welfare state. Yet, in a situation where needs outweigh resources, they also allocate support based on moral hierarchies of deservingness. This Janus-faced role of frontline workers as both a bulwark against, and an enabler of, neo-liberal welfare control is examined through the framework of a moral economy of frontline work. I argue that the tensions reflect a deeper struggle over competing notions of citizenship, and of the state’s responsibilities towards its citizens, in austerity Britain today.

Governing the Circular Economy in the City: Local Planning Practice in London

ABSTRACTThere is interest in the circular economy as a framework for transition from a linear take-make-dispose model of production and consumption, to a circular model which decouples economic growth from resource consumption. However, there is limited understanding of how that applies to the city through governance lens. This paper examines evidence from 28 municipalities in London to unpack the ‘government’ and ‘governance’ of circular economy in the city. It examines the ‘governmentality’ of circular economy in planning practice and reflects on what austerity localism and scalar politics might mean for the planning and governance of circular economy in cities.

The limits to openness: Co-working, design and social innovation in the neoliberal city

This article examines the emergence of ‘open’ urban economic projects that promote the transformative potential of social innovation and civic enterprise. By putting the burgeoning literature on an open paradigm of work and innovation within cultural economic geography into dialogue with scholarship on open cities, I problematize the inherently progressive framing of openness. The paper makes two contributions. First, it emphasises how open narratives encourage entrepreneurial communities that manifest as individualization-masked-as-collectivism. It argues efforts to design new spaces of social innovation through the blurring of boundaries simultaneously reproduce social and material exclusions. Second, it demonstrates how the championing of open ecosystems of social innovation intersects with austerity localism. New modes of state withdrawal are facilitated through co-creation, crowdfunding and social enterprise. Illustrated through research into a co-working space in London set up in response to the 2007–2008 economic crisis, I reveal the geographies of exclusion, enclosure and exploitation embedded in the pursuit of openness. Against the claims of enabling conditions for progressive civic futures, I establish the limits to openness whereby such ideas are easily assimilated into the processes of neoliberalisation that they seek to reject.

The nowtopia of the riverbank: Elder environmental activism

Degrowth imaginaries offer alternative ways of envisioning future societies. Those, predominantly working age and working class people, seeking to purposefully enact degrowth in the here and now are termed ‘nowtopians’. Based on empirical work undertaken along the River Adur valley in West Sussex, UK, this paper argues that dynamic examples of nowtopian initiatives can develop from alternative and overlooked demographics, such as rural community elders. Explored through a series of interlinking activist narratives, orientated around collective responses to changing riverbank environments, this paper argues that the genesis of this elder activism is a desire to re-assert agency in older age that can be linked to degrowth sensibilities. Contending with the new realities of living under ‘austerity localism’, many of these elders have undergone a personal, if not political, epiphany and have turned to forms of environmental activism to articulate their agency and demonstrate solidarity with fellow humans across generations. This paper argues that these elder nowtopians champion direct action, conviviality and living well. Ageing and place connectivity are the motivators which underpin one of the key nowtopian concepts: ‘redefining life's purpose’. Reflecting back, projecting forward, but operating in the ‘now’, these elders help us to consider a ‘politics’ of degrowth through grassroots activism along a rural river catchment.

The everyday local state? Opening up and closing down informality in local governance

ABSTRACT Seeking to understand local governance under austerity localism raises questions about changing state-civil society relations. Polarised debates have resulted in different disciplines that can be bridged by considering the practice. We use the case of Cardiff, Wales, to consider how the practice is reshaping local governance, focusing on community service delivery and the role of the Council and of third sector organisations in creating new ways of coping, doing and working together and apart. Drawing from understandings of informality as a top-down as well as bottom-up process, we argue that both sides of (local) state-society relations got better at opening up informality and navigating its contradictions as austerity localism rolled out, underlining the mutually constitutive nature of the ‘everyday local state’. But over time we find that the ongoing strictures of funding cuts have closed down informality, constraining the creativity engendered, as the local state centralises in response.

When rhetoric does not translate to reality: Hardship, empowerment and the third sector in austerity localism

Austerity localism powerfully explains dynamics of (dis)empowerment at the local level, especially regarding the autonomy and accountability of local authorities and third sector organisations (TSOs) in the UK. Yet these dynamics at institutional level have also a clear impact on individuals, especially the socio-economically vulnerable. This is especially true in a time of cost-containment and welfare retrenchment. This article addresses a gap in the literature by focusing not only on TSOs but also on the experiences of vulnerable individuals under austerity localism. The discussion is centred on two types of TSOs: foodbanks and advice/advocacy organisations. Drawing upon primary qualitative data from three locations in England and Wales, the article argues that the emphatic rhetoric of empowerment within austerity localism, which others have shown to be problematic at the institutional level, does not translate into real-world empowerment for service users and other vulnerable individuals. In making the argument the article contributes to work on expanding the analytical scope of austerity localism, as well as further exploring the roles and prospects of TSOs in the current long period of austerity in the UK.

Public value, institutional logics and practice variation during austerity localism at Newcastle City Council

ABSTRACTThis article outlines how a local authority, Newcastle City Council (NCC), employed a public value strategy to address austerity localism. Borrowing from neo-institutional theory, it traces how organizational change constituted also a variation of democratic deliberation practices. Legitimation of budget decisions against central government cuts involved such practice variations as public consultations to change NCC’s vision and mobilize support, building operational capacity beyond the organization, and new accountings for measuring public value. Insofar as such organization changes constituted instances of institutional entrepreneurship of local government as a key democratic institution, our article refines existing theorizing of public value accounting.

Energy policy under austerity localism: what role for local authorities?

ABSTRACTIn the UK, local authorities (LAs) have been placed at the forefront of domestic energy-reduction strategies as the responsible actors for coordinating policy in this sector. Yet, there has been little research regarding the role of LAs in this policy agenda, and their abilities to bring together stakeholders in the successful design and implementation of strategies to reduce energy demands. The paper aims to fill this gap by highlighting the relevance and importance of the energy policy sphere to local government studies, building on the idea of resilient LAs within the context of tensions between the localism agenda and the actual implementation of energy efficiency polices. This is achieved through multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews with LA officers. Our findings reveal that LAs, operating under a localism agenda, lack the freedoms and resources from central government to meet the needs of multiple stakeholders, resorting to short-term policies.

Localism and the Big Society: the asset transfer of leisure centres and libraries – fighting closures or empowering communities?

This paper critically examines the ‘asset transfer’ of leisure services from the public to the voluntary sector. Asset transfer might be theorised as ‘austerity localism’, in which volunteers are obliged to fill the gaps left by retreating public provision, or as ‘progressive localism’, which represents new opportunities through the localism and Big Society agendas to develop more locally responsive, cooperative and mutualist visions. In this way, asset transfer might overcome the limitations of the United Kingdom policies in which ‘Big Government’ is replaced by civic society. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel (volunteers, managers and local authority officers) at 12 leisure facilities, a grounded assessment of the nuanced balance between ‘austerity localism’ and ‘progressive localism’ is provided, including three observations. First, the main impetus for transfer was cuts in local authority budgets which stimulated the emergence of local groups of volunteers. Secondly, the transfers themselves required interaction between local government and the volunteer groups; however, the nature of the relationship and support given varied and support was limited by austerity measures. Thirdly, volunteers do not automatically fill a gap left by the state: without support transfer viability relies on the financial and social capital among volunteer groups, and this is unevenly distributed. These findings suggest that the capacity for a ‘progressive localism’ to emerge through asset transfer is limited. However, where transfer has occurred, there are some progressive benefits of volunteer empowerment and a more flexible service.

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

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.

Localism and austerity: a gender perspective

Austerity localism was adopted as a dominant political narrative by the last coalition government in order to restructure the public sector according to a normative, long-standing and politically conservative model of middle-class voluntarism and social responsibility. The new Tory government will complete the work they started by implementing further cuts. This article discusses the impact austerity will have on the already weakened women's voluntary and community sector, which will be more heavily affected than other areas as changes in funding make it more difficult for smaller organisations to compete for limited resources. Nancy Fraser argues that feminist anti-economism has collapsed into a politics of recognition that privileges identity politics over claims for redistribution and economic justice. Neoliberal rule has also helped depoliticise feminist claims. This article uses Fraser's theoretical framework to look at the contradictions inscribed in the localism agenda and points to the strategies that are being enacted for the survival of the women's voluntary and community sector in the UK, using London as a case study.

Distancing and limited resourcefulness: Third sector service provision under austerity localism in the north east of England

Drawing on the concept of ‘austerity localism’, (Featherstone et al., 2012) this paper explores the impact of recent spending cuts and a revitalisation of the localism agenda on the work of locally embedded third sector organisations who work with marginal communities in the north east of England. In three key areas there exists a problematic relationship between the progressive language of empowerment, as set out in contemporary localist discourse, and the experiences and perceptions of service providers and service users. These relate to involvement in decision-making processes about the allocation of squeezed funding; the ability and desirability of voluntary groups to become autonomous; and the restricted resourcefulness of third sector organisations in a context of austerity. What comes through our data in all these cases are forms of social and spatial distancing, between third sector organisations and local decision makers, between organisations and their service users and also across the sector itself. Such distancing is facilitated by contexts in which resources, trust and empathy are undermined. The paper concludes that understanding the challenges faced by marginalised communities, and the third sector agencies working with them, requires recognition of the existing capacities within places, the importance of situated power relationships as well as wider connections of dependence and responsibility.