The limits of local politics: local socialism and the local economy in the 1980s; a case study of Sheffield's economic policies

The analysis of local politics has too often been partial and one-sided. Dominant approaches to its study have tended to emphasise either the institutions of local government, or the logic of the local state, or (more recently) its relationship to localities. This thesis seeks to bring together a range of different approaches in ways which make it easier to explore the processes of local politics, acknowledging that no single approach is likely to provide all the answers. But it argues that those debates which build links between politics and geography, around the notion of locality , are particularly helpful, as long as they do not lose sight of politics within the state (as expressed, for example, in Rhodes' discussion of policy networks), and (following Duncan, Goodwin, Halford, and Savage) as long as localities are not understood as coherent expressions of underlying relations. Following a critical discussion of the locality debates (associated with the ESRC's Changing Urban and Regional System programme), it is suggested that notions of local growth coalition (as developed by Cox and Mair) and urban corporatism (as developed by Harvey) may be helpful in analysing change at local level. This suggestion is taken further through a case study of the development of 'local socialism' and of local economic policies in Sheffield in the 1980s. The concluding chapter seeks to set out the lessons which can be drawn from the Sheffield experience, relating back to the earlier arguments, as well as suggesting ways of integrating those conclusions with the analyses of the state developed by Jessop at a more abstract level