English Sub-Regional Planning: Governance, Institutions and Outcomes in East Anglia
After successive experiments with top-down and formalised regionalism, the current phase in English local governance is considerably more mixed, and includes flexibly defined and bounded sub-regional institutions. If regional institutions shaped by national actors have proved to be brittle as a consequence of being not arenas for political contestation but objects of it, is it possible that sub-regions shaped by local actors might be more durable and more capable of delivering national and local objectives? Starting from Bhaskar’s realist approach and Jessop’s insight that agential actors and the structures within which they operate are mutually constitutive, and making use of tools and terms from Third Wave Institutionalism, this research creates a framework to show how the narrative, practices and rules constraints of institutions used for sub-regional planning both shape, and are simultaneously shaped by, the varied strategic ambitions of local actors. The research focus is Eastern England, specifically the three major urban areas of Ipswich, Norwich and Cambridge. Eastern England had the lowest level of regional identity during the New Labour period of regional governance, and has a long history of defying efforts to clearly define what the region consists of. By contrast these three urban areas have a clear identity, but are all significantly ‘underbounded’, with major parts of the built up areas of each sitting outside the formal boundary of their respective local authorities, and insufficient capacity within these boundaries to address pressures for housing supply, infrastructure investment and economic growth. Any attempt by local actors to address planning problems such as these requires a sub-regional approach, and in each case study different approaches have been taken. A key finding from the research is that when actors perceive an existential threat, whether real or imagined, to the institution through which they access power, they put a greater relative emphasis on strategies that promote or preserve that institution. This increased emphasis is associated with negative narratives, uncooperative behaviours and a decline in institutional stability. This pattern can be seen limiting strategic ambitions in Ipswich, at the heart of negative discourse and behaviours in Norwich, and in growing tensions and challenges in Cambridge.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations