<p>1</p><p>‘LOCALISM’: THREE COMPETING MEANINGS AND POLITICS</p><p>Jamie Gough</p><p>Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, England</p><p>[email protected]</p><p>Notes for a talk given at ICOSS, Sheffield University, June 2012</p><p>Section 2 given as a talk at the Historical Materialism conference, London, November 2012. </p><p>What are the meanings of ‘localism’ in England in recent decades?</p><p>‘Localism’ is the rage.</p><p>Subsidiarity: ‘Take decisions at lowest possible level’.</p><p>But quite different meanings and substantial implications.</p><p>Discourse often involves ‘community’ - also different meanings.</p><p>Sections:-</p><p>1. Descriptive history</p><p>2. Three ideal types of localism and community: their political-economic-spatial logics</p><p>3. New Labour’s different localisms: complementary, contradictory.</p><p>1. DESCRIPTIVE HISTORY</p><p>1979 – 1997 Conservatives</p><p>Government training programme => sub-regional Training and Enterprise Councils</p><p>Enterprise Zones: tax cuts</p><p>Urban Development Corporations: massive state intervention</p><p>1990s National programmes for poor areas (CC, SRB): involve local authorities and communities. 2</p><p>New Labour </p><p>Promise of localism –</p><p>- better planning, efficiency - holism, joined up government - democracy, participation - citizenship, civic duty - community</p><p>= Third Way ideology.</p><p>Initiatives at regional, local and neighbourhood level -</p><p>* From UK to Scotland, Wales governments - ethnicity, cultural community</p><p>* From England to regions –</p><p>- Learning and Skills Councils (formerly TECs) - English Regional Development Agencies - Regional Spatial Strategies, Regional Housing Strategies - Regional Assemblies</p><p>* From national to local – </p><p>- Local Strategic Partnerships - Community Strategies - Local Development Frameworks = more strategic - mandatory citizen input into the above - councils right to ask national government for new powers, after community consultation - Local Area Agreements, MAAs - strengthening council leadership through cabinet, mayors.</p><p>In cities: - ‘Urban Renaissance’ - priority to brown field development.</p><p>* From national and local to neighbourhoods</p><p>- Neighbourhood Renewal Programme - Housing Market Renewal Programme - ‘Double-decentralisation’ to area and neighbourhood committees, which have input into services - Neighbourhood right to consultation on council services (Charters) - Neighbourhood right to buy assets. 3 4</p><p>ConDem Coalition</p><p>Promise of localism –</p><p>- less state - more cost efficient - more participation, freedom - citizenship, ‘Big Society’ - community.</p><p>* Abolish the regional structures</p><p>=> their powers effectively devolved to local authorities and LEPs.</p><p>* More powers to local authorities – </p><p>More discretion for local authorities in budget heads (i.e. in what to cut)</p><p>Power of local authorities to operate in markets as they see fit (‘power of competence)</p><p>Power of LA to cut the national business rate (and pay Treasury for the difference!)</p><p>Mayors ‘for strong local government’</p><p>* Local differentiation in the public sector</p><p>Continued contracting out locally</p><p>Public service workers have right to set up own enterprise to run their unit</p><p>Public services: wages to vary by locality</p><p>* Devolution from councils to neighbourhoods, ‘communities’ and enterprises (private, social)</p><p>Contracting out of LG services to social enterprises, voluntary organisations, unpaid community groups as they demand</p><p>Transfer of assets to community groups</p><p>Each ‘area’ or ‘community’ to get its own budget (most of LA budget), decide what to spend it on = ‘choice’ </p><p>Decentralisation of land use planning to ad hoc neighbourhood groups; Community Infrastructure Levy on developments goes to the neighbourhood</p><p>Weakening of the national planning framework: any ‘sustainable development’</p><p>More power for firms regarding – - land use planning 5</p><p>- environmental regulations - health and safety - employment law etc. </p><p>Activist left</p><p>Local collective organisation against business or the state</p><p>‘Think globally, act locally’</p><p>- trade union actions - public services (schools, hospitals...) - housing - public transport - environment (roads, airports, power stations) - global finance: Occupy in 900 cities.</p><p>2. THREE POLITICAL APPROACHES</p><p>A. Neoliberal</p><p>* Maximum fragmentation of decision making, to firm and individual/household level => </p><p>- end national pay bargaining, fragment industrial relations</p><p>- fragment the state to smallest scale.</p><p>* Maximum mobility of capital and labour between territories at each scale, including localities</p><p>Capital to low cost locations, labour to high wage locations</p><p>=> equalisation of territories.</p><p>* Localities compete on price, not quality of factors of production => </p><p>- lower wages in poorer places</p><p>- reduce local taxes and council spending (including through national government control!)</p><p>- weaken local authority regulation of business to allow cost reductions.</p><p>* Competition between territories, which increasingly fragmented, drives down costs:</p><p>- competition between local authorities for inward investment on basis of low cost</p><p>- competition between neighbourhoods for services, for inward investment (Tesco!) 6</p><p>- competition between service providers (state, third Sector, private) through contracting out. </p><p>* ‘Choice’ for communities, individuals of services</p><p>=> fragmentation of provision. </p><p>Neoliberal project for space and locality – </p><p>* divide and subdivide space * measure each locality by its costs * maximise mobilities between localities, no embedding, no commitments.</p><p>Neoliberal project for ‘community’</p><p>A group formed ad hoc in order to further a shared interest, including financial, in competition with other groups = Public Choice Theory. </p><p>Overall neoliberal localism = ConDems Part of New Labour.</p><p>B. Social democratic, Keynesian, communitarian, associationalist</p><p>1. Decision making by firms and individuals but also collective, collaborative decisions within economy and social life, for efficiency and equity</p><p>2. Some mobility of capital and labour but also some embeddedness within a territory, commitment to it, to increase quality of production and products.</p><p>=> territories are sites for internal collaborations, discussion, and collective actions.</p><p>* Local policies to increase quality of production and products, through collaboration firms- labour-state </p><p>* Welfare and social services within localities to improve labour power, overcome social disadvantage</p><p>* State policies to ensure infrastructures needed by business and residents</p><p>=> build political commitment of population ‘to the locality’ </p><p>=> local partnerships of business, workers, residents and state</p><p>Scales of partnership = determined by - - efficiency of production of goods and services - equity between social groups and areas 7</p><p>= national, regional, subregional, local, ‘area’, neighbourhood (workplace/ home) as appropriate. </p><p>Collaboration within area  competition of the area with others.</p><p>Social democratic project for space and locality - </p><p>* a (partially) bounded territory * production and social ties within the territory (as well as outside) * quality of production and reproduction (not only price/cost).</p><p>Social democratic project for ‘community’</p><p>A group with strong internal daily interactions. Reciprocity, even altruism. Long lasting.</p><p>= Part of New Labour. </p><p>C. Socialist</p><p>Capitalism serves human need poorly. The state benefits ordinary people mainly when pushed from below. </p><p>=> Populations need to organise collectively to oppose and make demands on capital and state</p><p>Need to overcome social divisions within population.</p><p>* Locality as a site of popular collaboration </p><p>* In economy, social life, and their inter-relations</p><p>* Build on - </p><p>- daily contacts and friendships between people locally - traditions, especially of collectivity - local knowledge</p><p>Socialist project for space and locality – </p><p>* Locality as a site of solidarity, face-to-face collaboration, and resistance</p><p>* But avoiding localism, competition with other local populations. Aiming to build solidarity with them.</p><p>Socialist project for ‘community’</p><p>Community of people, not business or state Based on daily contacts, caring. Reciprocity and altruism. 8</p><p>Oppositional community.</p><p>3. THE AMBIGUITIES OF NEW LABOUR’S LOCALISM</p><p>Overall neoliberal strategy. </p><p>Suppression of socialist resistance: maintenance of anti-trade union laws; no support for resistance to capital; police repression of union, environmental and urban campaigns.</p><p>* But localism attempts to deal with the manifest failures of neoliberal markets </p><p>Organise non-market socialisation of production and social reproduction.</p><p>Uses social democratic localism.</p><p>At the local, non-national level, to avoid politicisation. </p><p>- RDAs attempt to organise industrial clusters</p><p>- CBD strategies attempt to promote FBS employment, associated commercial property development and public space, and yuppy flats</p><p>- RSSs and HMRs attempt to organise housing provision in growth and decline regions</p><p>- New Deal for Communities attempt to organise the social, physical and environmental underpinnings in poor areas of useful labour power, and head off riots</p><p>- Housing Market Renewal to improve housing of poor? OR create private housing market in poor neighbourhoods?</p><p>- Priority to brown field sites attempts to reduce costs of new infrastructure, waste of existing infrastructure</p><p>- State-led corridors of expansion of housing in south east, to ease housing shortage and prices.</p><p>But many failures of these programmes, because of the neoliberal environment</p><p>- Failure to create jobs in the weak regions, spatially redistribute economic growth</p><p>=> inflationary growth in south east requires massive house and infrastructure building in the green belt</p><p>- Central controls and restrictions on local authorities and on NDCs limits their ability to be holistic</p><p>=> failures to engage population, generate political engagement</p><p>=> from 2006 attempts to engage populations at neighbourhood level. 9</p><p>- New Deal for Communities: little social housing; no new jobs. </p><p>* Social democratic localism ends up having neoliberal effects </p><p>- RDAs end up competing for inward investment</p><p>- LSCs concentrate on basic skills training, not high-level skills</p><p>- neighbourhood empowerment fragments councils’ regulation and services...leading to the ConDem’s reforms</p><p>- Housing Market Renewal ‘for poor’ evicts working class inhabitants, and new housing too expensive for them <= gentrification is hidden aim. </p><p>* Overall</p><p>Contradictions between social democratic localism and national/local neoliberalism:-</p><p>- SD localism supports, patches up neoliberalism</p><p>- neoliberalism undermines SD localism</p><p>- SD localism ends up serving neoliberal aims.</p><p>CONCLUSION</p><p>‘Localism’ and ‘community’ </p><p>= politics </p><p>= class relations. </p><p>The ideologies of localism rely on a spatial fetishism: fragmentation and decentralisation give popular empowerment. </p><p>BIBLIOGRAPHY</p><p>Eisenschitz, A. and Gough, J. (1993) The Politics of Local Economic Policy Basingstoke: Macmillan: Chs 8 - 10</p><p>Eisenschitz, A. and Gough, J. (1998) Theorising the state in local economic governance, Regional Studies 32 (8) 759-68 </p><p>Gough, J. and Eisenschitz, A. (1996) The construction of mainstream local economic initiatives: mobility, socialisation and class relations, Economic Geography, 76, 2, 178-95</p><p>Gough, J. (2002) Neoliberalism and socialisation in the contemporary city: opposites, complements and instabilities, Antipode, 34 (3), 405-26 10</p><p>Gough, J. (2004) ‘Changing scale as changing class relations: variety and contradiction in the politics of scale’, Political Geography, 23 (2) 185-211</p><p>Gough, J. and Eisenschitz, A. (2006) Spaces of Social Exclusion, Abingdon: Routledge: Part III</p>