NEOLIBERALISM AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE – CROSS-NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES AND SPECULATIONS

Abstract

In recent years the 'shift from local government to local governance' has apparently become a pervasive phenomenon across the advanced world and beyond. This shift is frequently associated with the tendential convergence of policy paradigms around neoliberal principles. The article draws on cross-national research and other evidence from the UK, the EU and other countries to argue that the shift towards local governance, and the prominent emergence of institutions such as local partnerships, is indeed a pervasive phenomenon but one which is taking place to different degrees, at different speeds, and in somewhat different ways. The article draws on the welfare regimes literature to help explain such differences.