Local governance under austerity : hybrid organisations and hybrid officers

Using the case of Cardiff, Wales, we argue that the hybridisation of local governance forms is exacerbated by the downscaling and offloading of austerity politics. Conceptualising hybridity as a process which operates across governmental scales, at the organisational and at the individual level helps understand the growing complexities of local governance under austerity and the tensions which arise in seeking to assemble locally appropriate ideas and practices. Conceptualising hybridity as practice, we consider how 'hybrid officers' at the frontline experience austerity, their situated agency, and the implications for higher levels of governance

The ‘in/formal nocturnal city’: updating a research agenda on nightlife studies from a Southern European perspective

During the last three decades, nightlife policies in Southern European cities have been directed towards promoting the night as a space–time for tourism-oriented promotion. At the same time, highly precarious, often racialised migrant actors performing informal activities during the night have been (re-)criminalised, put under surveillance and persecuted by public discourse and policy-making. The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the centrality of ‘the night’ as a fundamental cornerstone for urban governance. However, analysis of how debates on urban nightlife dialogue with frameworks on urban in/formality, security and governance during the day require a more systematic analysis. In this commentary, we call into question the role of the in/formal urban night in ordering neoliberal cities in Southern Europe. By focussing on informal workers during the night as exemplar cases of how in/formal nocturnal governance is produced, we propose an approach to incorporate deeper explorations in future nightlife studies along three avenues: (i) contradictory public discourses encompassed by ‘the night’, and how they are affected by long-term cultural, neo-colonial legacies and ‘darkness’ archetypes; (ii) survival and resistance strategies conducted by precarious/subaltern nocturnal actors during the day and night; and (iii) urban governance arrangements shaping and being shaped by the in/formal night in contemporary ‘Fortress Europe’. The research agenda suggested in this critical commentary aims to be a provocation, not only for nightlife scholars, but also for broader urban studies to take into deeper consideration how the criminalisation of ‘In/formal Nocturnal Cities’ is used in governance processes in contemporary (post-)pandemic cities

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

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

Contracting for Social Cohesion: Can Local Area Agreements Make a Difference?

Summary. Under the Labour government, Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) in England were responsible for the delivery of Local Area Agreements (LAAs) – agreed targets between central and local government. This paper uses statistical techniques and local authority case studies to explore the impact of LAAs on LSPs’ efforts to promote social cohesion. The results suggest that LSPs with an LAA for social cohesion experienced a better rate of improvement in community cohesiveness than those without, and that tougher targets resulted in stronger improvement. The impact of changes in LSPs approaches to promoting social cohesion appears to be responsible for this finding

Public management reforms and emerging trends and effects on social cohesion in Europe

__Abstract__ During the past thirty years or so, governments across Europe have grown ever more accustomed to developing initiatives to enhance the performance of key institutions and organizations. At the same time as being subject to the introduction of wide-ranging management reforms, many of those institutions and organizations are now increasingly charged with responding effectively to complex and intractable social problems. Amongst the so-called “wicked issues” public organizations are expected to address is the cohesiveness of the societies that they serve. In fact, European governments have implemented a swathe of initiatives designed to prompt public organizations to devote more energy to addressing the supposed centrifugal tendencies associated with globalisation and the breakdown of traditional social structures. In this context, the main objective of this report is to analyse emerging trends in social cohesion, beginning with socio-economic influences on social solidarity and social order in Europe before evaluating whether public management matters. To do so, the report draws upon primary and secondary research carried out in the COCOPS Work Packages 1-5, and blends this with analysis of Eurobarometer data and interviews with European policy-makers carried out specifically for Work Package 6. The findings of the report suggest first that social cohesion is largely determined by socio-economic disadvantage and that the economic strain associated with the financial crisis has also had a detrimental effect on the cohesiveness of European societies. At the same time, public management also matters, with some reforms and practices found to have beneficial effects for social solidarity and social order – though some others were found to have a negative effect. Since it seems that public management can make a positive difference to the cohesiveness of society, there is good reason for the countries of the EU to continue to invest in developing better policies aimed at promoting social cohesion

Infrastructures, processes of insertion and the everyday: towards a new dialogue in critical policy studies

This forum argues that the complex assemblages of infrastructures, and their reproduction in our everyday worlds, offer a privileged lens through which to explore the practices of much of what critical policy studies holds dear. It draws attention to processes of insertion that reproduce infrastructure in everyday lives, arguing that such processes cast new light on the work of the state, governance, and democratic struggles. It discerns three avenues as a means of exploring such infrastructural processes: first, an invitation to transcend the physical form and reflect on infrastructural temporalities; second on the transformation of spatial governance and policy through infrastructure; and third, a re-assessment in the relationship between infrastructures and the ‘modernist ideal’. Through these avenues, light can be shed on the often ‘hidden’ practices of policymaking. We conclude by calling for a dialogue across diverse disciplines, side-stepping embedded divides between academics-activists, cities-towns, and the global south-north

Toward a reconfiguration of mining infrastructure in Mexico: norms, resistance, and governance

This paper offers an analytical framework to identify how communities that have been negatively affected by mineral extraction and its infrastructure can begin to transition toward an emancipatory approach to overcome their marginalization, which has been accentuated by the socio-environmental conflicts caused by mining. We argue that through the extractivism–infrastructure nexus, alternative options to overcome these conflicts can be unveiled and unpacked. By comparing two Mexican mining cases—the Sonora River region in the northwest of the country and the Oaxaca highlands in the southeast—we identify the instances of everyday resistance, struggle, and contestation that are important to assessing emancipation. The cases show how non-Indigenous communities, inspired by Indigenous groups, can begin to think differently and move toward a transition that is more socio-environmentally just. Building on interlegal and municipalism debates, we argue that this transition can be accomplished through a focus on narratives, practices, and norms within four analytical factors: normative frameworks, legacies of social movements, local governance, and alternative economies. Our argument offers an alternative way to investigate the function infrastructural projects have in municipal policy-making

Public management reforms and emerging trends and effects on social cohesion in Europe

status: publishe