Bua, Adrian, Davies, Jonathan, Blanco, IsmaelORCID: 0000-0003-2191-5712, Chorianopoulos, Ionnis, Cortina-Oriol, Mercè, Feandeiro, Andrés, Gaynor, NiamhORCID: 0000-0001-5645-7032, Griggs, Steven, Howarth, David and Salazar, Yuni
(2018)
The urban governance of austerity in Europe.
In: Kerley, Richard, Liddle, Joyce and Dunning, Pamela T.ORCID: 0000-0003-2085-5797, (eds.)
The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government.
Routledge International Handbooks
.
Routledge (Taylor & Francis), Abingdon, UK.
ISBN 9780367659806
The 2008 financial crash and ensuing austerity have brought critical perspectives on political
economy into academic debates in democratic theory and public administration. One
important area of contention regards “collaborative” and “network” forms of governance.
Advocates argue that these comprise an epochal shift that resolves many pitfalls of state
and market oriented governance, a consensus that was especially popular during the 1990’s
and early 2000’s. This chapter reports research carried out in five cities in Europe (Athens,
Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Nantes) exploring the impact of austerity politics on the
ideology and practice of collaborative governance – would it endure, or be unravelled by,
post-crash exposure to austerity and distributional conflict? The chapter concludes that
severe austerity erodes the foundations for strong collaborative governance. The inability to
survive the return of distributional conflict leads us to conclude that collaborative
governance is fully functional only in times of growth.