M. Laffin
Central-Local Relations in an Era of Governance: Towards a New Research Agenda
Laffin, M.
Authors
Abstract
Over recent years central-local relations has been a neglected topic for research in England. Local government research has mostly focused on political and institutional changes at the local level. The aim of this article is to set out a future research agenda on central-local relations which recognises how the spread of new 'governance' arrangements has changed those relations and how insights from the governance literature can shed light on those relations. The article stresses the need (1) to understand local policy processes and outcomes within the context of a wide range of non-local factors and actors, and (2) how those processes and outcomes have changed as governance arrangements have grown in significance. The contemporary politics of the welfare state involve both a greater central reliance on governance arrangements but also a rejection of the formerly highly institutionalised national local government system, dominated by service-based policy communities. Instead, the national-level policy processes now involve more diverse types of actors and, in many cases, cut across service-based boundaries. The key question is the extent to which these changes have modified the policy systems within which local government is embedded and whether they are more pluralistic or open than the old policy communities which once dominated local government policy-making at the centre.
Citation
Laffin, M. (2009). Central-Local Relations in an Era of Governance: Towards a New Research Agenda. Local Government Studies, 35(1), 21-37. https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930802574698
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Feb 1, 2009 |
Deposit Date | May 22, 2009 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 29, 2024 |
Journal | Local Government Studies |
Print ISSN | 0300-3930 |
Electronic ISSN | 1743-9388 |
Publisher | Taylor and Francis Group |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 35 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 21-37 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930802574698 |
Keywords | Central-local relations, Local government, Local governance, Policy-making. |
Files
Accepted Journal Article
(370 Kb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
This is an electronic version of an article published in Laffin, M. (2009) 'Central-local relations in an era of governance : towards a new research agenda.', Local government studies., 35 (1). pp. 21-37. Local government studies is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/03003930802574698
You might also like
Local Government Modernisation In England: A Critical Review of the LGMA Evaluation Studies
(2008)
Journal Article
British devolution and the Labour Party: How a national party adapts to devolution
(2007)
Journal Article
The new sub-national politics of the British Labour Party
(2007)
Journal Article
A prehistory of the best value regime
(2005)
Journal Article
Is regional centralism inevitable? The case of the Welsh Assembly
(2004)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search