Vivien Lowndes

• PhD
• Professor at University of Nottingham

Street-level bureaucrats shape policy through using discretion in their interactions with citizens and service users in delivering public services. Discretion allows street-level bureaucrats to bridge between public policy and the complex, individual, human situations they encounter. Drawing on insights from feminist institutionalism, this article...

Participatory governance is institutionalised to the extent that it shapes the behaviour of decision-makers and citizens. Participation policies that do not change established behaviour have limited, if any, impact. But what are the mechanisms whereby participatory governance becomes institutionalised? Using a case study of Barcelona, the paper ana...

Introduction Across much of Europe local government is facing a dramatic decrease in resources alongside a sharp increase in citizen demand. In England, the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review proposed a 27% cut in local government budgets, alongside major reductions in other funding streams that impact local communities. The cuts are being experien...

In recent years the nature of policy and politics has witnessed significant transformations. These have challenged perceptions about the ways in which policy is studied, designed, delivered and appraised. This book -the first in the New Perspectives in Policy and Politics series – brings together world-leading scholars to reflect on the implication...

With the growth of network governance, non-electoral forms of representation are of increasing significance. The claims of non-elected representatives are potentially more specific, explicit, and flexible than those of their elected counterparts. The quality of such claims can be assessed in relation to ‘authenticity’, rather than traditional crite...

English local authorities face a combination of deep budget cuts and sharp increases in citizen demand, linked to the costs of recession and demographic changes. Evidence from case study research shows the dominance of cost-cutting and efficiency measures, as in previous periods of austerity. But creative approaches to service redesign are also eme...

Massive cuts in public spending are demanding a new era of collaborative working among partners in English local governance. Partnerships have the capacity to pool assets, share scarce resources and leverage new forms of social and human capital. City-wide partnerships are also ideal vehicles for public service creativity. Action research in Sheffi...

The Coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, formally created on 11 May 2010, has introduced a range of initiatives which affect local governance, from the announcement of a new Localism Bill through to the abolition of the Audit Commission and the arrival of the ‘Big Society’ agenda. This article reviews the key policy announceme...

Often portrayed as a struggle between 'multiculturalism' and 'assimilation', the community cohesion agenda actually connects with broader currents in the New Labour policy programme. Three contrasting, yet overlapping, 'modes' of community cohesion are identified: communitarian, republican and neoliberal. These prioritise, respectively, moral, poli...

Networks are central to both the practice and understanding of contemporary governance. But there is a tendency to conflate and confuse different concepts. Concepts of ‘policy network’ (PN) and ‘governance network’ (GN) are often used interchangeably, with an assumption that the latter has evolved from the former. Such indiscriminate borrowing fail...

This article assesses the government's claim that the White Paper, Strong Local Leadership - Quality Public Services (2001), reverses the centralising trend of the previous 20 years. It is argued that the 'confessions and concessions' of the White Paper do not actually represent a reduction of centralism or any enhancement of local government auton...

‘Neighbourhood’ is a long standing concept in local governance which was re-energised as part of the post-1997 New Labour policy paradigm. This paper builds on the work of Lowndes and Sullivan which identified four distinct rationales for neighbourhood working – civic, social, political and economic. The utility of the framework is explored through...

Non-elected faith representatives are increasingly involved in public policy decisionmaking. Yet, little is understood about who they represent and on what basis. Drawing on political theory and primary research data, this article examines what, in democratic terms, is going on when a faith leader sits on a local strategic partnership, a service ad...

The place of faith in the public realm has been one of the contested issues over a long period, involving conflicts that resonate across a spectrum of public feeling and thought. Some of these conflicts are embodied in the public imaginations or events such as the Reformation, the Crusades and the Inquisition which remain alive for many in a distan...

Introduction Academics, policy makers and practitioners are grappling with the emphatic return of faith to the public table, and seeking to make sense of its implications. Many have observed a surprising ‘political revitalization of religion at the heart of Western society’ (Habermas, 2007, p 2) and some have expressed concern about the renewed ‘tu...

Faith groups are increasingly regarded as important civil society participants in British urban governance. Faith engagement is linked to policies of social inclusion and “community cohesion,” particularly in the context of government concerns about radicalization along religious lines. Primary research is drawn upon in developing a critical and ex...

Associated with innovation in both democratic practice and service design, neighbourhoods are high on policy agendas across Europe. Drawing upon classic debates about size and devolution, the article identifies four distinct rationales for neighbourhood governance: civic, social, political and economic. In England, the ‘new localism’ agenda gets ne...

In Britain the formal institutional framework within which local leadership takes place has been transformed since 1997 - through new arrangements for executive decision-making and the introduction of 'comprehensive performance assessment'. The article looks at how such changes have affected the relationship between political and managerial leaders...

Government statements on civil renewal identify a role for faith groups in building the skills and confidence of their members to play an active role in society (Home Office, 2003a). UK policy in other areas also identifies a role for faith groups in: service provision (education, housing); governance (at neighbourhood, LSP and regional level); con...

This article argues that political participation is shaped by locally distinctive ‘rules-in-use’, notwithstanding the socio-economic status or level of social capital in an area. It recognizes that the resources available to people, as well as the presence of social capital within communities, are potential key determinants of the different levels...

Drawing on extensive research, the article proposes a diagnostic tool for assessing official schemes to encourage participation and discusses remedial measures that might be taken to tackle problems. According to the CLEAR framework, people participate when they can: when they have the resources necessary to make their argument. People participate...

Governments across the world, especially at the local level, are experimenting with different ways to engage citizens in decision-making (Smith 2005). The nature and purpose of these initiatives varies greatly but they are united in so far as they "aspire to deepen the ways in which ordinary people can effectively participate in and influence polic...

Local governance is conceptualised as an ‘institutional matrix', comprising distinct (but interacting) rule-sets, in which forces for change and continuity coexist. Different rule-sets change at different rates and in different directions, reflecting power relationships and the ‘embeddedness' of local governance in specific historical and spatial c...

Despite Labour's clear vision of a new form of local political leadership, the impact of the Local Government Act 2000 has been limited - but at the same time diverse. Local authorities have overwhelmingly selected the 'least change' option, but have elaborated the new models in a variety of ways. Drawing on case study data and a new institutionali...

Partnership and participation have co-evolved as key instruments of New Labour's agenda for the ‘modernisation’ and ‘democratic renewal‘ of British local government. It is often assumed that partnerships are more inclusive than bureaucratic or market-based approaches to policy-making and service delivery. This article argues that partnership workin...

This article considers the utility of the concept of social capital in explaining differences in patterns of political participation among women and men, with particular reference to local politics and governance in Britain. It investigates whether women have access to the same quantity of social capital as men, whether their social capital is of t...

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This article focuses upon one particular aspect of new institutionalist thinking – that which analyses the scope for, and constraints upon, deliberate interventions in institutional change. New institutionalist insights are used to illuminate the challenges faced by the British Labour government in its programme for modernizing local government. Th...

The findings reported below are drawn from 30 focus group discussions carried out with citizens in 11 contrasting local authority areas. Particular attention was paid to recruiting citizens from traditionally excluded groups, including people from minority ethnic groups and from disadvantaged areas. Each focus group involved ten participants (each...

Multi-organizational partnerships are now an important means of governing and managing public programmes. They typically involve business, community and not-for-profit agencies alongside government bodies. Partnerships are frequently contrasted with competitive markets and bureaucratic hierarchies. A more complex reality is revealed once partnershi...

The sub-discipline of 'urban politics' has been constructed in opposition to a traditional version of 'institutional theory'-an approach that collapsed the political processes affecting urban communities with the workings of elected local government. Attention has shifted towards the broader influences on local decision-making and to the growing fr...

This article argues that Robert Putnam's social capital thesis is too society-centred and undervalues state agency and associated political factors. It explores the role of institutional design in explaining how governments can shape the development of social capital and its potential influence upon democratic performance. New Labour's programme of...

Hall's interesting article contains the bold, but undeveloped, argument that ‘social capital has been sustained in Britain largely by virtue of the increasing participation of women in the community’. 2 Hall's statement draws attention to the curious silence within the social capital debate about gender dynamics. Hall modestly notes that his analys...

This article argues that both central and local government are serious in their desire to rebuild trust. Tensions have arisen, however, because each 'side' is working with a different conception of trust. Central government sees trust as emerging out of a bargaining process - greater local autonomy will follow only when local authorities prove thei...

The article argues that, despite the coherence implied by many analyses, there is no one ‘new management’ nor one process of management change within local governance. ‘New management’ is made up of different, and potentially contradictory, streams of ideas and practices. These elements are combined by different organisations into relatively stable...

This article continues an evaluation of a radical decentralisation initiative in the london Borough of Tower Hamlets by looking at the scheme from the perspective of staff and councillors. Decentralisation clearly presents different advantages and disadvantages to the various stakeholders involved in its introduction. In a concluding section we mov...

This article presents an evaluation of a radical decentralisation initiative undertaken by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It considers the degree to which the initiative has improved service delivery and involved residents in decision-making. Decentralisation emerges not as a 'cure-all' for the problems of local government but as presenting s...