IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v42y2024i2p215-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Serial adapters? Local government chief officers and the navigation of space and time

Author

Listed:
  • Neil J Barnett
  • Arianna Giovannini
  • Steven Griggs

Abstract

This article analyses the everyday practices of ‘doing’ socio-spatial relations, drawing upon a series of in-depth interviews with local authority chief officers from across the UK. It argues that for chief officers ‘thinking spatially’ is played out in and through the practice of leadership on the move as they navigate the multiple spaces and temporalities that constitute the landscape of local government. Such leadership on the move resonates in part with predominant explanations of boundary spanning in studies of public governance. But importantly, boundary spanning suffers, our evidence suggests, from a temporal deficit, a ‘thin’ account of time which fails to address the constitutive function of boundaries and the complex politics of fluidity and fixity that follow. Articulating a ‘thicker’ approach to time, we argue that chief officers experience everyday socio-spatial relations less as boundary spanners and more as serial adaptors, who persistently reproduce sedimented boundaries and perform different modes of governance as they move from one arena to another. Serial adaptation, we conclude, challenges the potential managerialist bias of boundary spanning, in which the quest for harmonisation and unity masks over the irreducible complex reality of fragmentation and political conflict within which chief officers move.

Suggested Citation

  • Neil J Barnett & Arianna Giovannini & Steven Griggs, 2024. "Serial adapters? Local government chief officers and the navigation of space and time," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(2), pages 215-230, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:42:y:2024:i:2:p:215-230
    DOI: 10.1177/23996544231223618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23996544231223618
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/23996544231223618?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles Conteh & Brittany Harding, 2023. "Boundary-spanning in public value co-creation through the lens of multilevel governance," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 104-128, January.
    2. John Allen & Allan Cochrane, 2007. "Beyond the Territorial Fix: Regional Assemblages, Politics and Power," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(9), pages 1161-1175.
    3. Williams, Paul, 2019. "Middle Managers as Agents of Collaboration," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9781447343004, Febrero.
    4. Allan Cochrane, 2020. "In and beyond local government: making up new spaces of governance," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 524-541, July.
    5. Neil Barnett, 2020. "English local government and the local trap," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 604-621, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rodrigo Caimanque, 2023. "The life and death of the ‘Baron mall’: The shifting politics of urban regeneration in Valparaiso," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(5), pages 884-902, August.
    2. Janet Newman, 2014. "Landscapes of antagonism: Local governance, neoliberalism and austerity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(15), pages 3290-3305, November.
    3. Stephen M McCauley & James T Murphy, 2013. "Smart Growth and the Scalar Politics of Land Management in the Greater Boston Region, Usa," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(12), pages 2852-2867, December.
    4. Jacob Salder, 2013. "Redeveloping local economic strategy for the post-regionalist era: A contextual benchmarking approach," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 28(7-8), pages 752-769, November.
    5. I-Chun Catherine Chang, 2017. "Failure matters: Reassembling eco-urbanism in a globalizing China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1719-1742, August.
    6. David Clelland, 2020. "Beyond the city region? Uneven governance and the evolution of regional economic development in Scotland," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(1), pages 7-26, February.
    7. Jennifer Robinson & Katia Attuyer, 2021. "Extracting Value, London Style: Revisiting the Role of the State in Urban Development," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 303-331, March.
    8. Sabine Dörry & Olivier J Walther, 2015. "Contested ‘Relational Policy Spaces’ in Two European Border Regions," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(2), pages 338-355, February.
    9. Roger Keil, 2011. "The Global City Comes Home," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2495-2517, September.
    10. Pauline McGuirk & Robyn Dowling, 2021. "Urban governance dispositifs: cohering diverse ecologies of urban energy governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(4), pages 759-780, June.
    11. Xiaobo Su, 2014. "Multi-Scalar Regionalization, Network Connections and the Development of Yunnan Province, China," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 91-104, January.
    12. Andrew E. G. Jonas & Andrew R. Goetz & Sutapa Bhattacharjee, 2014. "City-regionalism as a Politics of Collective Provision: Regional Transport Infrastructure in Denver, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2444-2465, August.
    13. Jean-Paul D. Addie & Roger Keil, 2015. "Real Existing Regionalism: The Region between Talk, Territory and Technology," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 407-417, March.
    14. Hanna Hilbrandt, 2019. "Everyday urbanism and the everyday state: Negotiating habitat in allotment gardens in Berlin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(2), pages 352-367, February.
    15. Xiaobo Su, 2012. "Transnational Regionalization and the Rescaling of the Chinese State," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(6), pages 1327-1347, June.
    16. Jennifer Robinson, 2015. "‘Arriving At’ Urban Policies: The Topological Spaces of Urban Policy Mobility," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 831-834, July.
    17. Nicolas Lewis & Laurence Murphy, 2015. "Anchor organisations in Auckland: Rolling constructively with neoliberalism?," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 30(1), pages 98-118, February.
    18. Mavrozacharakis, Emmanuel & Lavdas, Kostas, 2014. "Räume der Übertragung: Die neue transnationale Politik der säkularen Stagnation [Spaces of Transference: The New Transnational Politics of Secular Stagnation]," MPRA Paper 61688, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. John Harrison & Darren P Smith & Chloe Kinton, 2016. "New institutional geographies of higher education: The rise of transregional university alliances," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(5), pages 910-936, May.
    20. Allan Cochrane, 2012. "Making up a Region: The Rise and Fall of the ‘South East of England’ as a Political Territory," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 95-108, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:42:y:2024:i:2:p:215-230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.