The challenges of mainstreaming local government

Although local government has faced huge challenges – even challenges to its existence and its rationale – since Local Government Studies was established, the journal has survived and flourished. From an external perspective, however, the discipline of local government studies seems to remain the Cinderella of political science in the UK. Only a few specialist study centres exist; modules within political science courses are few and far between; the flow of new textbooks has almost entirely halted. This marginal status reflects the status of local government within UK political culture. The UK’s political system tacitly conceives of local government through the ‘benefit model’ – a multi-purpose service deliverer, funded by fee and subsidy. It lacks the dimension, more visible in many other European countries, of local government as an expression of citizenship and democratic choice. In turn, ‘local government policy’ typically comprises a collation of second-order concerns, hemmed in by central accountability mechanisms. Can the discipline provide the intellectual foundation for a shift in this culture, to complement any jump in status for local government within UK politics?