Two cheers for the urban white paper

In November 2000, the government finally published its Urban White Paper. Our Towns and Cities: The Future appeared over a year after the Rogers’ Urban Task Force report, to which it provided an indirect official response, and no less than 23 years after the last such statement of government urban policy

Prospects for local co-governance

British local authorities and their partners are increasingly developing new ways of working together with local communities. The nature of this co-working, however, is complex, multi-faceted and little understood. This article argues for greater clarity of thinking on the topic, by analysing this co-working as a form of political co-governance, and drawing attention in particular to issues of scale and democracy. Using evidence from a study of 43 local authority areas, 16 authorities are identified where co-governance is practised, following three main types of approach: service-influencing, service-delivering and parish council developing. It is concluded that strengthening political co-governance is essential for a healthy democracy

Playing with the Rules of the Game: Social Innovation for Urban Transformation

Innovation is perhaps the buzzword in local economic development policy. Associated narrowly with neoliberal ideas, conventional notions of innovation—like its capitalocentric counterparts, enterprise and entrepreneurialism—may promise higher productivity, global competitiveness and technological progress but do not fundamentally change the ‘rules of the game’. In contrast, an emerging field reimagines social innovation as disruptive change in social relations and institutional configurations. This article explores the conceptual and political differences within this pre‐paradigmatic field, and argues for a more transformative understanding of social innovation. Building on the work of David Graeber, I mobilize the novel constructs of ‘play’ and ‘games’ to advance our understanding of the contradictory process of institutionalizing social innovation for urban transformation. This is illustrated through a case study of Liverpool, where diverse approaches to innovation are employed in attempts to resolve longstanding socio‐economic problems. Dominant market‐ and state‐led economic development policies—likened to a ‘regeneration game’—are contrasted with more experimental, creative, democratic and potentially more effective forms of social innovation, seeking urban change through playing with the rules of the game. I conclude by considering how the play–game dialectic illuminates and reframes the way transformative social innovation might be cultivated by urban policy, the contradictions this entails, and possible ways forward

"‘Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated’: The Continuing Role and Relevance of Election Petitions in Challenging Election Results in the UK"

An election petition is the only mechanism through which a UK election result can be challenged. In its current form, the election petition dates back to the Victorian period, when electoral outcomes were routinely challenged on the grounds of corruption. During the twentieth century, the petition mechanism was widely assumed to have become redundant and no records were kept of its use to challenge election results. However, there has been a renewed interest in election petitions over the past decade and a half, triggered by cases of large-scale electoral fraud and instances of significant failings in the running of elections. Growing calls have been made for the reform of the petition mechanism but these have typically been unable to draw on anything more than the details of a few dozen petitions that have been tried. Using a new dataset of 302 election petitions from 1900-2016, and detailed study of 167 petition cases from 1977-2016, this paper seeks to fill this gap. In doing, so it lends clear weight to the case for reform, with a particular emphasis on the need for a more effective mechanism to investigate and, where appropriate, correct results affected by administrative problems such as vote counting errors

Something old, something new: personation, photographic voter identification and the Elections Act 2022

The requirement to show photographic identification in order to vote at English local authority elections and UK general elections took effect in 2023. The reform was designed to prevent the offence of personation, where one person assumes the identity of another and casts their vote. We consider the relationship between this new requirement and the duty to hold “free and fair” elections under the European Convention of Human Rights. Insights from the two decades of experience with photographic voter identification rules in Northern Ireland are also put forward