Place, identity and local politics: analysing initiatives in deliberative governance

Abstract

There is widespread agreement across Europe on the need for innovation in the forms and practices of contemporary governance. Within the neo-liberal discourse, this is sometimes cast as the need for 'less government' overall, justifying practices of privatization and deregulation. However, as the introduction to this book makes clear, the pressures for governance change are much more fundamental than this. They reflect both the contemporary reconfiguring of state–economy–civil-society relations and a shift in how societies and polities are understood. The challenge being experienced across Europe atthe beginning of the twenty-first century is to recast governance agendas and practices around new foci and new relations. This chapter explores the micro-social relations of such transformative efforts through a particular case of 'partnership' relations to promote 'place qualities', analysed through an evaluation framework developed within the tradition of interpretative policy analysis.