Against Localism: Does Decentralising Power to Communities Fail Minorities?

The continued decline in levels of political engagement among British citizens has led many politicians, commentators and academics from across the political spectrum to advocate a move toward a more direct form of democracy via some kind of localism. The claim is that citizens feel increasingly estranged from the democratic process, and from those organisations on which they have historically relied to represent them within the political system. Consequently, localists argue, there now exists a gap between the people, the institutions which are supposed to work on their behalf, and the decisions made in their name, so the system needs to be reformed in such a way as to give individuals and local communities more of a direct input into the decision-making process. Calls for a more direct form of democracy via localism are popular among members of the progressive left and the 'new Conservative' right, and have become so dominant in political discourse that it is often suggested that 'we are all localists now'. This article raises questions about the localist agenda, and suggests that the adoption of a more direct form of democracy in Britain may not only fail to address the decline in political engagement, but may also result in the exclusion, marginalisation, and oppression of minority groups.     

Local actors and international regionalism: The case of the Sea of Japan zone

The Sea of Japan Zone (SJZ) is an area that has been shaped essentially by transnational relations between the localities of western Japan, northeastern China and the Russian Far East. The emergence of this new type of space, based on interlocal cooperation, is a significant aspect of what could be called the ‘new’ regionalism, i.e. the polymorphous and multicen‐tred movement that is affecting international relations today as opposed to its more rigid version of the late 1950s. The shape of the new regionalism reflects the transformation of international relations in general: this particular regionalization process, that gave shape to the SJZ, is linked to the transnationalization of local actors. The idea of creating the SJZ, in the late 1960s, was first an external answer (interlocal cooperation) to an internal problem (uneven development in Japan). It became a reality some twenty years later as Russian and Chinese localism eventually converged with Japanese localism. Despite important domestic differences the need for local actors around the Sea of Japan to look outside for better development conditions made the synergy possible. It produced a new regional entity that needs to be defined and, for that purpose, that could be compared to other transnational zones in East Asia or even in Europe. Their common characteristic appears to be a functional approach to regional cooperation.     

Non-normative political extremism: Reclaiming a concept’s analytical utility

ABSTRACT

Political extremism suffers from a definitional deficiency. This article proposes an analytical definition of the term, which avoids using extremism in a pejorative way. This definition also avoids exclusive focus on violence. This definition encourages the analyst to explicitly make the case for defining an action or an actor as extremist by comparing the action or actor to its political context. The article then explores several dimensions of an extremist political identity that can help observers understand extremist behavior and goals. It uses this conceptual framework to consider three examples of political extremism. Finally, the article concludes with some limitations and strengths of this definition of political extremism.     

Local Governance under the Coalition Government: Austerity,Localism and the ‘Big Society’

The Coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, formally created on 11^th 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 announcements of the Coalition's first year and analyses the underlying themes and trends which are emerging. It argues that the Coalition's reforms do show traces of an ideological commitment to localism and a new understanding of local self-government; there is an ideological agenda which has the potential to deliver a radically different form of local governance. However, the reform process is far from coherent and the potential for radical change is heavily constrained by: conflicts in Conservative thinking and the failure of the Liberal Democrats to assert their own ideology; the political expediency of budget cuts during an era of austerity and; the problems of implementing an apparently radical agenda after 13 years of New Labour.     

An Era of Continuing Change: Reflections on Local Government in England 1974–2014

Abstract

This article sets the current position of local government in a longer historical perspective. It begins with a discussion of the 1974 local government reorganisation and argues that many of the principles and assumptions determining the ways of working of local authorities remained unchanged after this reorganisation. However, the next 40 years were ones of continuing change, much of it imposed by central government, and the article discusses the often piecemeal implementation of individual changes and the resulting atmosphere of uncertainty and instability. This is followed by an analysis of the cumulative impact of the changes and identifying key problems, and the article concludes by drawing on this analysis to set out the challenges that have to be met if the full potential of the local government is to be realised in the future.     

New localism or fuzzy centralism: policymakers’ perceptions of public education and involvement in education

This research examines local authority involvement in education as a function of local policymakers’ perceptions of education as a public service – namely, whether public education is for the benefit of society as a whole, or for individual students and parents. Perceptions of education and involvement in education were assessed through 107 questionnaires returned by mayors and heads of local education departments in Israel. The results show that (1) local policymakers tend to perceive public education as a general public service, and (2) the relationship between this perception and involvement in education varies with the locality’s centre-periphery status. In peripheral localities, perceiving education as a general public service and an understanding of ‘society’ as the local community leads to greater involvement in education. In central localities, involvement rose with a more individualised perception. Implications of the findings are discussed in line with viewing education in the spirit of new localism.     

STATE-SOCIETY CONFLICT RADICALIZATION IN HONG KONG: THE RISE OF ‘ANTI-CHINA’ SENTIMENT AND RADICAL LOCALISM

Hong Kong has been facing an increasingly strong “anti-China” sentiment in recent years. More people are worried that existing Mainland-Hong Kong integration actually provides more opportunity for Beijing to exercise political control over Hong Kong, resulting in the loss of local identity. Political parties of the pan-democratic camp, which has been at the forefront of political activism since the 1980s, used to adopt a “milder” approach to oppose intervention from Beijing. However, with more Hong Kong people, especially localists, becoming sceptical towards this tactic, they have resorted to escalating things into “radical” protests or even bloody clashes with the authorities. During Chinese Lunar New Year 2016, a few hundred protesters joined the “Mong Kok Riot” and violently pelted police officers with bricks and glass, leading to more than 120 people being injured. The clashes may on the surface have been about hawker management issues, but, in fact, were fuelled by a growing discontent against the Chinese and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region governments. With more protesters prepared to take more radical actions against the authorities, state-society relations in Hong Kong are likely to enter an unprecedented period of tension.     

‘Managing’ the Middle Classes: Urban Managers,Public Services and the Response to Middle-Class Capture

There is a longstanding concern about middle-class capture of the benefits of public service provision, although relatively little evidence exists on the exact nature of any advantage or on the processes by which this comes about. Using a framework developed from Gal (J. Gal, 1998. Formulating the Matthew Principle: on the role of the middle-classes in the welfare state. Scandinavian Journal of Social Welfare, 7, 42–55), and via two case studies of street cleansing services in the UK, the article explores the ways in which middle-class service users assert influence in relation to service design, resource allocation and practice on the ground. It explores how urban managers respond to middle-class influence, revealing the ways in which influence is accommodated and the benefits of this to middle-class service users. It also evidences how urban managers attempt to resist aspects of middle-class advantage, and the challenges such resistance presents. The article concludes that the need to ‘manage’ middle-class influence permeates the routine institutional policies and practices of this key public service.     

Between Globalism and Localism,Italian Style

Survey and historical evidence reveal that Italians have emerged as the European masters of multiple loyalties, balancing relatively weak levels of state nationalism with strong affinities for sub-state, continental and global identities and institutions. These distinctive patterns can be traced to elite opinion leadership, the perceived material and psychological benefits derived from the European movement, and the legacy of the First Republic's party system.