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Durham E-Theses Leadership and decision making in the Tyneside conurbation Woodhead, David John How to cite: Woodhead, David John (1972) Leadership and decision making in the Tyneside conurbation, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7939/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk LEADERSHIP AND DECISION MAKING IN THE TIliESIDE CONURBATION Submitted by David John Woodhead for the degree of PhuD. in the University of Durham* December 1972„ The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. ABSTRACT After examining some of the concepts central to the subject of community decision-making, notably power, leadership, elites, and participation, this study goes on to look at the literature on community power with special reference to the conflicting methodologies that have been developed. Of particular significance is the distinction between the ' reputationalists' and the 1decisionalists'; the former believing that community power can best be approached by discovering who have reputations for leadership, while the latter believe that the main focus of interest should be concrete cases of decision making,, The conclusion reached is that both methodologies have their advantages and disadvantages and that, therefore, a combination of the two probably offers the best hope of advancement„ As a result the study both examines seven issues with which Tyneside has been faced in recent years and, by means of questionnaires and interviews, seeks to discover who are considered to be the influentials in Tyneside politics. The seven issue studies were local government re-organisation, the building of the Tyne Tunnel, the development of the airport, the establishment of the Port of Tyne Authority, the re-organisation of police areas, the merger of shipbuilding interests on the river Tyne, and the establishment of a Passenger Transport Authority. The general conclusion was that effective participation in the decision making process was confined to a small group of individuals who owed their importance normally to their positions in the local authorities. The survey by means of questionnaires revealed that local leaders differ from the population as a whole in terms of socio-economic characteristics and that, therefore, what is essentially a traditional working class, Labour-dominated area is in fact not led by a representative leadership group. ii. PREFACE In recent years there has been a considerable resurgence of interest in local government and politics. The initial impetus came from America where the problems of the cities in the fields of transportation, urban decay, pollution and race relations attracted the interest of a considerable body of academics. Of the political scientists involved a substantial number attempted to construct theories and models about the political systems of communities,, A considerable debate developed which was at times bitter but ultimately proved constructive in so far as it launched a somewhat staid and traditional branch of political science in new directions. Eventually the shock waves of these activities reached Britain where they united with a growing interest in the reform of local government structure and management to produce a renaissance in the study of British local politics. With the help and support of the Social Science Research Council a number of universities set up research projects to study the local government and politics of particular areas of Britain. One such research project was based on the University of Durham and its area of study was Tyneside. This thesis is the result of one part of this research project. The aim of the Durham project was to examine the topic of participation in government on Tyneside and the particular part with which this thesis is concerned is participation in decision-making on a conurbation wide scale,, The particular significance of this subject is that the period of study coincided with a time of official concern with the reform of local government which culminated in decisions to radically reduce the number of authorities in the country and consequently substantially increase the size of the remainder. Tyneside was an obvious candidate for reform with a large number of authorities of different types, many of which were too small to adequately perform the functions expected of them. It was possible, therefore, to Regard the decision-making process over Tyneside "as a whole as being in some ways an indicator of that which might occur in a post-reform situation. Because of the co-operative nature of the Durham project the work on which this thesis is based owes a great deal to others. A number of members of staff at the Universities of Durham and Newcastle were extremely helpful, but in particular mention must be made of Henry Parris, Geoffrey Atkinson, and Richard Batley, My thanks go to them all. I must also not forget Norah Hope whose help and support was invaluable. Finally I would like to express my appreciation to all those busy men and women who found the time to complete questionnaires and submit themselves to interview. Needless to say, any faults and omissions are entirely my responsibility. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No Abstract i Preface ii Gont ent s PART ONE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Chapter 1 „ Theories, concepts and assumptions 1 Chapter 2„ The study of community power structures 30 Chapter 3° Methodology and research setting 57 PART TWO: THE ISSUES Chapter 4« Preview of the issues 64 Chapter 5° The re-organisation of local government areas 66 Chapter 60 The Tyne tunnel 77 Chapter 7° The development of the airport 83 Chapter 8. The Port of Tyne Authority 91 Chapter 9° The re-organisation of police areas 99 Chapter 10o The shipbuilding merger 107 Chapter 11. The passenger transport authority 113 Chapter 12. Summary of the issues 120 ?ART THREE: THE LEADERS Chapter 13. The survey and the questionnaire 122 Chapter 14. The characteristics of the leaders 126 Chapter 15« The leadership groupings 13& Chapter 16„ Reputational leaders and London influentials 152 Chapter 17« The issues and the leaders ;168 Chapter 18„ Top leaders, other leaders, and the led 196 PART FOUR: CONCLUSIONS Chapter 19o The power structure of Tyneside 208 Appendix 1„ Maps 222 Appendix 20 The questionnaire 234 Appendix 3» List of potential leaders-:-: 240 Appendix 4* Election results 247 PART QBE: T H EGRET I C A LFEAMEWO RK CHAPTER ONE THEORIES. CONCEPTS AMD ASSUMPTIONS The study of decision-making in the local community has occupied the attention of many sociologists and political scientists in recent years, particularly in the United States. This has not only led to a great d.etaate on the methodologies which ought to be used but also to a re-examination of many of the central concepts of political theory and political Bociology. In fact the relationships between methodology and definitions of concepts have in many cases proved to be so close that it is necessary to examine these concepts before proceeding to a discussion of the various methodologies. The Meaning and Measurement of Power. The concept of power is of fundamental importance in many aspects of social analysis and has been one of the primary concerns of ail the great political theorists of the past„ Yet it still remains vague and unspecific Many investigators in this field have commented on this lack of clarity; for example, Kaufman and Jones coinjjlained that: "there is an elusiveness about power that endows it with an almost ghostly quality* „„. »e 'know' what it is, yet we encounter countless difficulties in trying to define it. We can 'tell' whether one person or group is more powerful than 1 another, yet we cannot measure power."' This elusiveness lias led to a great deal of confusion with arguments being waged by social scientists on completely different wavelengths. Particularly important in this respect is the dichotomy between those who see power as being primarily a structural feature of a society or group and those who regard power as being a more individualistic property belonging to an actor without much reference to the particular social situation. It has even been suggested that the former view is 2. that of sociologists while political scientists tends to prefer the latter. ^ If we turn to the writings of a number of authorities on the subject of power, the variety of approaches is immediately obvious. For Max Weber power was "the chance of a man or of a number of men to realise their own will in a communal action even against the resistence of others who are participating irin the action*" ^ This definition raises a number of the questions which are at the heart of the subject of power. By including the word 'chance' Weber clearly does not envisage the group getting its way all the time. This leads on to a distinction between potential for power and the actual realisation of will which is of crucial importance in many of the arguments that have taken place in the field of community studies.