Rereading urban regime theory: a sympathetic critique

Pergamon Grof~/rum. Vol. 27. No. 4. pp. 427-438, 1996

Copyright @ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved

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Rereading Urban Regime Theory: a Sympathetic Critique

KEVIN WARD,” Manchester, U.K.

Abstract: This paper examines recent theoretical exchanges around urban politics that have taken place between U.S. and U.K. academics and policy makers. Urban regime theory is outlined, its development in the U.S. traced and its initial application in the U.K. considered. Using urban regime theory two problems are isolated and interrogated: first the difficulty in theoretical transfer, in this case from the U.S. to the U.K. and, second, the problems of empiricism and localism embedded in the way urban regime theory has been constructed. The realist work of Kevin Cox is incorporated into a critique of the current formulation of regime theory. In conclusion, the paper notes the benefits of constructing idealized typologies but advocates the further theorizing of regime theory, not around concrete examples but through those socially embedded processes that result in the observ- able typological outcomes. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

Introduction

We need a special kind of leadership in today’s society to revitalise our institutions and organisations. From our smokestack industries, high tech firms, governmental agencies and our educational systems, we hear clarion calls for leadership to change, to innovate and to revitalise (Roberts. 1985, p. 1023).

Those who hold high positions of authority are inclined to see themselves in heroic roles, struggling to do what is best in an uncertain and dangerous world (Stone, 1987. p. 241).

What makes governance . effective is not the formal machinery of government, but rather the informal partnership between City Hall and the downtown business elite. This informal partnership and the way it operates constitute the city’s regime; it is the means through which major policy decisions are made (Stone. 1989, p. 3. emphasis added).

With the continued deepening of urban competition, the establishment of a new orthodoxy of city boosterism and the rise to prominence of local movers andshakers (Trounstine and Christenson, 1982; Hay,

*School of Geography, University of Manchester, Man- chester Ml3 9PL, U.K.

1994; Peck. 1995; Peck and Tickell, 1993, so a search has begun for a theory to explain newly changing city politics. Given the special relationship between the two countries, while U.K. policy makers have looked across the water in search of innovative policies it is perhaps not surprising then that U.K. academics have looked to U.S. theories in their attempts to explain phenomena such as the hollowing out of the state, the de-statization of politics and the shift from government to governance (Jessop, 1994). This ‘searching’ is particularly acute given the growing exchange of urban initiatives between the U.S. and the U.K.: the Reagan administration embraced the Enterprise Zone concept first implemented in the United Kingdom, while the Thatcher administration emu- lated U.S. policy with the creation of the Urban Development Corporations and the Training and Enterprise Councils (Audit Commission, 1989). The 1980s witnessed attempts to import to the U.K. an ‘American’ philosophy, culture and ideology that actively seeks to incorporate the business sector into urban regeneration. The role of the visible hand of central government in moulding the urban policy landscape. to the point where urban areas are no

427

Critical Reviews

longer privileged (Robinson and Shaw, 1994; Rob- son, 1994) has led to a degree of institutional convergence between the two countries (Harding, 1994), at least to a point where concrete outcomes are similar. To reiterate, institutions or organizations have been created and policies put in place that makes local economic development appear a similar activity in both the U.S. and the U.K. It is perhaps not surprising then, that since the late 1980s U.S. theories have been examined and, often somewhat hastily, imported as a means of explaining U.K. urban restructuring and politics. However, the transfer of theory across national boundaries must be undertaken with care. In order to explain new institutional forms and the apparent rise of local coalitions, the theory must be sensitive to differences between nations as well as similarities. This paper argues that urban regime theory has been generalized out of concrete case-studies and, while U.K. academics have been sensitive to the problems of comparative studies, they have failed to address the broader issue of the empiricist and localist tendencies of the regime approach.

Accordingly, in this paper I aim to explore those problems inherent in wholesale theoretical transfer from the U.S. to the U.K., and, second, to highlight the empiricist and localist nature of the urban regime theory literature. The first section outlines urban regime theory and traces its development. In the second and the third sections, the paper builds a critique around the two key points; that the theory is locally grounded and empiricist by design. Drawing from the existing literature, the inadequacy of urban regime theory is shown to result from its grounding in U.S. case studies not its application in the U.K. By developing the argument that the regime approach must be linked to more abstract theories, this paper seeks to move away from privileging one spatial scale as a site of study and suggests regime theory may usefully be linked to theories at other scales.

Urban Regime Theory: the Conceptual Context

I speculate that the political and economic essence of virtually any given locality, in the present American context, is growth. I further argue that the desire for growth provides the key operative motivation towards consensus for members of politically mobilised local elites, however split they might be on other issues, and that a common interest in growth is the overriding commonalty among people in a given locale-at least insofar as they have any important local goals at all.

Further, this growth imperative is the most important constraint upon available options for local initiative in social and economic reform. It is thus that I argue that the very essence of a locality is its operation as a growth machine (Molotch. 1976, pp. 309-310, original emphasis).

Regime theory attempts to situate the city in a wider economic, political and spatial context (Peterson, 1981; Mollenkopf, 1983). It endeavours to link the community-power paradigm that was in vogue in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s (see Hunter, 19.53; Dahl, 1961) but which became academically sterile, due to irreconcilable methodological and epistemolo- gical differences between key proponents of the approaches (see Fasenfest, 1993) and attempts to set the local economy in a wider political-economy context (see Fainstein and Fainstein, 1983; Fainstein, 1991, 1994). In his influential book, Regime Politics (1989), Stone sets out the clearest statement of what consti- tutes regime theory. Stressing the importance of “the interplay of change and continuity” (Stone, 1989, p. 6), a regime is defined as “the informal arrangements by which public bodies and private interests function together in order to be able to make and carry out governing decisions” (p. 6). It is not public agencies using electoral power to coerce the business sector to work alongside it; nor is it the business sector riding ‘roughshod’ over the public authorities to service the needs of capital. The emphasis is on the management of interests. The regime forms through this ‘meshing of interests’, involving a number of groups co- operating together behind a negotiated agenda to achieve a set of policies. Not all the members need have the same ‘wants’ from the regime. All agencies perceive that it is in their interest to remain inside the coalition. This perception may be the result of competitively-awarded grants, where institutional co-operation is a pre-requisite for submitting bids, or the plethora of institutions now active in local economic development which makes action less effective if not undertaken through a strategic organization. The regime members use this uncertainty, both to bring-on-board new institutions and to lessen the likelihood of unsettled members leaving the fore. Underlying the stress placed on business interests is the principle that it is necessary “to encourage business investment in order to have an economically thriving community” (p. 7). The importance of politics is emphasized on the premise that electoral legiti- macy is necessary for policies to be successfully implemented. It is at the margin of these two interest groups, where partisanship leads to a common con-

Critical Reviews 429

sensus, that regime theory stresses civic co-operation. This co-operation is theorized in Stone’s social- production model of urban governance. Here governing power is a means to accomplish certain kinds of outcomes. This is clearly distinguishable from the community power paradigm’s social-control model, where the emphasis is on exerting control over the public.

By contrasting social production with social control, . . [it is] emphasised that urban regimes do not involve comprehensive efforts to control local communities or even the belief systems of local publics; influence yes, control no (Stone. 1989, p. 231).

Alliances are formed, acting as power structures within the urban institutional environment (DiGae- tano and Klemanski, 1994). Conceptualizing power structures this way is important as governance is seen as purposive, wherein city leaders are seen as agents who attempt to achieve certain goals. In contrast to the community power paradigm, regime theory posits that the form of the power structure depends upon who it is that governs; decisions are not reduced to a pluralist account based on elected decision-making or an elitist account based on those controlling resources. According to this perspective power structures are not homogenous (i.e. pluralist or elitist) but are contingent upon the specific circumstances and participants involved in the process of governance (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1994). This agency- focused account seeks to overcome the rigidity of both the pluralist and elitist accounts of local power.

Problem of Application I: Theoretical Transfer, U.S. to U.K.-style

Comparative work: an overview

The mix of participants varies by community, but that mix is itself constrained by the accommodation of two basic institutional principles of the American political economy: (1) popular control of the formal machinery or government (2) private ownership of business enterprise (Stone, 1989. p. 6, emphasis added).

It is important to point out that local authorities in Britain are more constrained in their ability to undertake local economic development activities than are local governments in most US states (Wolman and Goldsmith, 1992, p. 201).

Comparative work has been undertaken by both U.S. and U.K. academics. Initially using concrete case

studies from both countries to exemplify its application, there have also been a small number of positive contributions to unpacking the basics of

urban regime theory. Developed during the last five years, this work overlaps with studies still being undertaken on 1J.S. cities. Taking the form of comparative theoretical analysis (DiGaetano and Kle- manski, 1994; Harding, 1994; Stoker and Mossberger, 1994) and case study analysis (DiGae- tano and Klemanski, 1993a, 1993b; Orr and Stoker, 1994) both strands have sought to identify and apply the main theoretical tenets developed in the U.S. Three themes from the U.S. work have been identified as being of particular importance: regime formation (the processes lead to regimes forming), sustenance (how and why regimes form/fail) and ‘characteristics’ (the outcomes of regimes, which have been identified through the construction of ideal types). Understanding the processes that lead to regime formation and regime sustenance is important if urban regime theory is to be successful applied in the U.K. These will highlight the specificity of the U.S. studies, problematizing applications of regime theory in the U.K. which have not been sensitive to difference. It is the mechanisms underpinning the forming of regimes rather than superficially similar concrete outcomes which will provide urban regime analysis with theoretical power.

Regime formation

Although analysis of regime formation does seek to understand why institutions become involved in inter-organizational partnerships this insight is often neglected, as the foci becomes how regimes manage once in position. Urban regime theorists have used empirical observations to build a classification of characteristics. DiGaetano and Klemanski (1993a), for example, break down regime formation into four factors: context (economic conditions that afford opportunity or constrain the coalition), formation (those linkages between coalition building and political orientation), leadership capacity (the formal and informal arrangements for governing) and organizational capacity (those financial and staffing resources that are necessary to implement any strategy). Within the literature two of the main criteria for regime formation are that private resources and the motivation to participate (using those resources) are unevenly distributed (Stone, 1989; Stone etaf., 1991). The result is that regimes are heterogeneous (cf.

430 Critical Reviews

Harvey, 1989); their configuration attributed to ‘local’ forces.

The specific ‘bottom-up’ nature of the work carried out in the U.S. would appear to run counter to the urban landscape in the U.K. Where previously the primacy of local government meant that business-led organizations and community groups did not generally become involved in local economic development, the recasting of the local state over the last fifteen years has undermined this position (see Cochrane, 1993). Where previously local government was a deliver of services, it is now reduced to facilitating and servicing customer (whoever they may be) wants. There are now both local arms of national organizations active in local economic development and specific local organizations. As I argue that centrally- driven urban initiatives have created the local conditions from which regimes may form, so it is a regime’s very existence, and why they may form in one context and not in another, that should be of interest to those academics applying urban regime theory in the U.K. This is in contrast to the work in the U.S., where the regime’s existence appears almost taken-for-granted. Regimes are portrayed as appearing out of specific local circumstances, but circumstances which appear in every U.S. city studied. As the U.S. local state tends to play a lesser role than its U.K. counterpart, so there has been the institutional and political-economic spaces in which business-led organizations or private-public partnerships can operate. Only over the last two decades has the situation altered in the U.K., to the point where regimes may be beginning to emerge. Yet the local situation in the U.K. is the outcome of national programmes which are specific to the U.K. Are regimes able to be successfully created out of such a context and from such a differing set of institutional circumstances? Stone goes as far to say that,

the creation of a regime from scratch is imaginable but not likely. The cost of co-ordination would be enormous hence the strong relevance of the problem of collective action to formation . the problem can be solved, but this means that existing collectivities (or better yet, alliances of collectivities) are especially attractive, more so if they, in turn, can contribute resources to the overall task of co-ordination and governance (Stone, 1989, p. 236, emphasis added).

A second issue drawn out of the U.S. literature is how and why regimes survive. To understand the limits of regimes (in terms of power rather than in terms of territory), the wider political economic context needs

to be considered (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993b). In the U.K. it is important to go a stage further than making the observation that extra-local forces will affect whether a regime exists and the form it takes: the wider political economic context maybe actually be driving regime formation (or at least institutional coalitions). Processes such as the competitive allocation of regeneration funds, increasing global competition for overseas investment and the creation of local neoliberal institutions have forced groups into coalitions. Often constructed around local boosterist discourses, these coalitions prepare the ‘place’ for both discursive and material ‘consump- tion’. It is against this backdrop that the forming and sustaining of regimes in the U.K. maybe occurring.

Restructuring and urban regimes

In developing a comparative approach to regimes, it is important to recognize that differences in local institutional relations exist (DiGaetano and Kle- manski, 1993a; Harding, 1994; Stoker and Moss- berger, 1994). The diffuse nature of power in the U.S. is illustrated by the relative strength of cities. In the U.K., by contrast, the rhetoric of decentralization has far outstripped real change. This difference in centre- local relations between the two countries is coupled with a long-standing tradition of business involve- ment in U.S. local development. It is beyond the scope of the paper to say why this difference has emerged, but the U.K. central government has sought to plug this institutional space through ‘top- down’ policies.

Yet as I argued above, an apparent institutional convergence underlies U.K. interest in U.S. theories, such as the urban regime concept. Collinge and Hall (1995) argue that institutional differences between the U.S. and the U.K. merely influences the way that regimes develop and operate: the acquisition and use of local political power is common to all liberal democracies. This claim, however, concentrates on the outcomes rather than the processes which empower regimes. The groups with local power and autonomy are not the same in the U.S. and the U.K. The U.S., for example, has a strong and independent public sector, where fiscal rather than planning autonomy is prevalent and where the business sector has a long-standing history of participation. Most importantly the structure of the state is more decentralized in the U.S. than in the U.K., which


means that localities are used to acting as relatively autonomous and competitive agents (Cox and Mair, 1988,1989). In the U.K., on the other hand, there has been a centralization of power during the 1980s (Cochrane, 1993). Local authorities have been ‘capped’ (or had restrictions placed on spending), services have been privatized, quasi-markets have been introduced into public provision, as part and parcel of the dismantling of the Keynesian welfare state (Jessop, 1993, 1994). In contradiction to some claims, then, this suggests a widening of the local terrain between the U.S. and the U.K. Harding (1994) argues that the U.S. work assumes a fixed set of institutional characteristics and relationships. In the U.K. assumptions of fixity are ill-founded, as the last fifteen years has been witness to a ‘sea change’ in institutions/policies active in local economic development. Yet, while there may now be institutional similarity, it is the differences in the way these institutions interact that make concrete studies of wider theoretical interest. If, as Harding suggests, the U.S. literature does assume the fixity of institutional interaction then the analysis of regimes is reduced to listing characteristics. Examining the problems of comparative studies, Harding advocates the adoption of a dual, ‘global-local’ approach which ‘teases-out’ the institutional change due to global restructuring, drawing out implications for urban change and considering the localized effects of economic restructuring. This may prove problematic, being at least partially based, as it is, on the assumption that local change is able to be read off from global change. The intermeshing of the different scales and the way ‘change’ is mediated through the national and regional level is more complex and opaque than this approach suggests. In order to move from what Hard- ing calls ‘local government to urban governance’ he advocates the prior identification of ‘influentials’ (’ d’ ‘d 1 /g o m IVI ua s r ups) within the sphere of urban development. Harding suggests that this would move the foci of study away from the assumption that local government and the business sector are the principal regeneration partners, the aim being to examine the extent to which the agendas, aims and actions of influential actors in the business community rep- resent a measure of the range and inclusiveness of urban governance (Harding, 1994).

Managing interests

A shared opportunity by itself is not specific and compell- ing enough to account for the extraordinary effectiveness

and durability of the city’s governing coalition. Policies that make particular incentives available stand a better chance of being sustained than do policies that simply further a generally desired goal . . . use of particular, material benefits may not be the only way to co-ordinate the efforts of a governing coalition and reinforce its norms of co-operation, but it is an effective way (Stone, 1989, p. 195).

The formation and existence of regimes is presented as testament to the benefits, both substantive and symbolic, that accrue to those within the regime. Survival is said to be based upon achieving relatively manageable tasks rather than being underpinned by ideological dogma. Yet, while this may be true in the U.S., in the U.K. urban regimes are a result of the national neoliberal agenda. The scope of the public sector in the U.K.and the extent of the local state’s control over planning has meant that there has been little co-operation between local government and business elites (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993a, 1993b). As the U.K. local state is recast and local relations between institutions remade so, according to this argument, business elites will become more involved in development and co-operation between the two major local stakeholders will increase.

The U.S. work on the formation and sustenance of regimes illustrates the difficulties of trans-national theoretical transfer. The U.S. work has been shaped by that country’s specific institutional characteristics. Attempting to export such a grounded construction has proved problematic. While British academics, such as Gerry Stoker and Alan Harding, have made positive contributions to understanding the difficulties of comparative studies, a more fundamental problem with urban regime theory is that as a theory it is flawed almost by design. Social mechanisms which might explain why and if regimes form are ignored for more easily studied observations. Within the regime, the emphasis on management stresses the role of agency but fails to consider the structural positions of different partners.

Problem of Application II: Theorizing Urban Regimes

Despite the innovative work of U.K. academics, regime theory is underpinned by two theoretical weaknesses; it is both localist and empiricist (see also Cox, 1991a). That is, regime theory has focused attempts to study the mediating of power through


local economic development and negated considering structural factors and over-simplified the problem of scale in either regime formation or regime sustenance. Urban regime theory instead has sought ex- planation through empirical observations, which have themselves limited explanatory power, even in the context of U.S. regime formation. While the transfer of urban regime theory from one context to another has been addressed (Harding, 1994; Stoker and Mossberger, 1994; Stoker, 1995), this work has still attempted to operationalize what remains a theoretically flawed concept. This is because urban regime theory does not get to grips with the processes underlying power in the contemporary city. Although the construction of typologies is useful, there needs to be a ‘theoretical leap’, to an approach which outlines the abstract preconditions for U.K. regimes forming and which sensitizes the studying of urban regimes to actions at other scales.

Urban regimes and localism

Harding (1994) addresses the localized nature of the U.S. studies and suggests that any form of national or central government is excluded from the U.S. work, which tends to focus on the interaction between different local interests. Yet, as Mollenkopf (1983) shows in the 1950s and 196Os, pro-growth coalitions in the U.S. aimed to secure federal monies (see also Fainstein and Fainstein, 1983; Clarke, 1995). This apparent contradiction is a result of (i) the starting point of some of the U.S. studies and (ii) a method- ology which stops at city boundaries when seeking local power (Table 1). This highlights an epistemolo- gical weakness of the approach. Put simply, regimes may appear ‘bottom-up’ because that is the way they have been studied.

[R]egime theory approaches city governance from the bottom up. The local polity, not the nation state, is the object of analysis. In short. regime theory posits that the configuration of power at the local level, which may indeed entail forming alliances with non local leaders, should be the point of departure for the study of urban governance (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993b. p. 381, emphasis added).

Urban regimes and empiricism

Attempts to theorize the regime approach have focused on the construction of ideal types. Academics such as DiGaetano (1989), DiGaetano and Kle-

manski (1993a, 1993b), Elkin (1985, 1987), Fainstein and Fainstein (1983), Lauria (1994, forthcoming), Sanders and Stone (1987), Stone (1989,1993), Stone et al. (1991), Orr (1992), Orr and Stoker (1994) and Whelan et al. (1994) have all constructed typologies, based on local studies. While the more recent work has neatly illustrated the form taken by policies, behind which regimes form, the paper argues that the factors upon which these studies are constructing typologies are the very same ones that need to be peeled away, if we are to be able to establish why regimes form.

The emphasis on ideal-typical work fall into two categories: historically contingent regimes and spatially contingent regimes. The former views U.S. regime formation as homogenous across cities within a historical period of urban politics. Table 2 shows that in these studies, comparison is made according to the policy outputs of the regimes. Elkin (1987), for example, identifies three phases of regime formation-privatist, pluralist and federalist. How- ever as Lauria (forthcoming) points out, because of their construction upon discrete time periods, there is a failure to account for variation within a historical period. The spatially contingent studies, on the other hand, stress the heterogeneity between cities (Table 2). These studies have moved beyond the national boundaries to undertake international comparisons (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993a, 1994). Rather than developing a historical typology this approach develops a spatial typology, with each city being classified according to a number of criteria (Table 3). Like the historical analysis, these ideal-type focus on the different outcomes of the regimes.

Despite different characteristics, the majority of the regimes studied are portrayed as favouring economic rather than community development. This, of course assumes that there is a non-necessary relationship between the two (on which, see Jonas, 1995). Although these two forms of development may stra- tegically overlap, Stone et al. (1991) suggests that the privileging of economic development stems from the problems of co-ordinating community development. For economic development, consensus between just a few peak organization representatives is required; co- ordination at the top level. For community development, however, grass-roots mobilization is also required. This involves a substantial commitment and can lead to instability within the regime (Stone et al., 1991; see also Nevin and Shiner, 1995).

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Table 2. Historical phases of U.S. regime formation

Period Characteristics

Privatist (1880-1.930) Regimes facilitated the pro-growth agenda by building infrastructure and integrating workers into the newly forming industrial order.

Pluralist (1950-mid Concerned with downtown development, these regimes used state money in order to 1960s) maintain the tax base and stem the out migration of upper-income workers to the suburbs. Federalist (mid 196Os- A more integrated approach in response to civic mobilization against the inequalities borne

mid 1970s) out of the pluralist era. Community urban development programmes were supported. Conserving (mid 197Os- Attempting to service capital at the lowest cost the aim is to maintain the fragile alliance

early 1980s) between city politicians and land interests.

Source: After Fainstein and Fainstein (1983) and Elkin (1987).

The construction of typologies does contextualize urban politics, placing action in its specific-local context. However, there are a number of theoretical difficulties with this approach. While the construction of typologies deepens the understanding of the breadth of possible policy alternatives, they do not, in themselves, say anything about the material processes that underpin regime formation. At what level are these processes operating and how do they interact with other processes operating at different scales? In an illuminating paper, Stoker and Mossberger (1994) set out to resolve some of the problems of theoretical transfer by constructing typologies to explain difference. Noting wider factors that influence the formation and sustaining of regimes: institutional arrangements, economic differences, history, political culture, partisanship and so on, they do not indicate how these factors feed into the typologies that have been constructed. The focus on empirical case studies, from which ideal-types can be constructed, has a tendency to be theoretically weak and reduces the effectiveness of comparative studies. Whilst concrete studies have an important place in research, attempts to theorize regime theory have so far fallen some way short of what is required. More recently Stoker has stressed that the ‘groundedness’ of regime theory is an advantage that shouJd not be overstated, given that causal relationships underlying policy development are very complex. Consequently, regime theory offers a broad framework with which to guide analysis (Stoker, 1995). This is a valid point. Yet, if attempts to theorize urban change are not to be reduced to the construction of ever more sophisti- cated typologies there must be a concerted attempt to address these more complex questions.

A Sympathetic Critique

The most useful way of re-theorizing urban regime theory is to set it in its broader theoretical context.

The New Urban Politics represents a means of conceptualizing the urban (local) in the process of globa- lization and is grounded in the notion that the local is a site from which change can effected (cf. Cox, 1993b). Urban development is now in such a position of academic hegemony that Cox (1993b, p. 433) writes,

In the. . literature on urban politics over the last decade or so, there is a clear and growing interest in the politics of urban development, or what is sometimes referred to as local economic development . [Ulrban development, for many scholars, is now what the study of urban politics is about.

So, the NUP hinges on two points; first that urban politics is about local economic development and second that cities must be placed within a changing global environment. Kevin Cox, who has consistently criticized this conceptualizing of the ‘local’ (1991a, 1991b, 1993a, 1993b, 1994), reduces the analysis to a salient explanatory framework, following a logical order:

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

cities are positioned in economic space which is subject to change; the reason for this change is the mobility of capital; within cities there are a number of interest groups which due to various levels of immo- bility are dependent upon the state of the urban economy; these groups together constitute ‘cities’ or ‘communities’; changes in the broad economy provide oppor- tunities and challenges for those groups; these groups use local government to attract investment; this ‘channelling’ brings cities into competition with each other.

Drawing upon Cox’s insight, this broad framework can be used to point a way forward for the theorizing of urban regimes. Cox’s underlying concern is that

Critical Reviews

Table 3. City typologies

435

Typology Aims Examples

Entrepreneurial (Stone, 1987; Elkin, 1987) Instrumental (Stoker and Mossberger, 1994) Business-Centred Activist (Stone et al., 1991) Pro-Growth Market-led (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993a) Pro-Growth Government-led (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993a) Growth Management (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993a) Progressive (Stone, 1987) Symbolic (Stoker and Mossberger, 1994) Middle-Class Progressive (Stone et al., 1991) Lower-Class Opportunity Expansion (Stone et al., 1991)

Encouraging growth by selling the locality, through both marketing and subsidies. Can be both long-term coalitions or ‘one-off partnerships. Success is measured in tangible results, often, although not always, in terms of physical regeneration.

Moderating development in order to preserve certain land uses. Concentrates on community development rather than economic boosterism. This often requires a change of direction for the regime.

Social Reform (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993a, 1993b) Caretaker (Stone, 1987, 1989; Stone etal., Reducing governance to the maintenance of the 1991; DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993a) status-quo. Economic developments problems Organic (Stoker and Mossberger, 1994) are left to others to solve.

Atlanta, U.S.’ Birmingham, U.K.2 Dallas, U.S.3 Lille, France4 Baltimore, U.S.4.5 New York City, U.S.4

Bristol, U.K.”

Detroit, U.S.“’ Glasgow, U.K.4 Boston U.S.4.” San Francisco, U.S.4 Santa Cruz. U.S.4

New Orleans, U.S.4

‘Stone (1989). 50rr (1992). 2DiGaetano and Klemanski (1993a). ‘Stone and Sanders (1987) and Elkin (1987).

60rr and Stoker (1994). ‘DiGaetano (1989).

“Levine (1994). ‘DiGaetano and Klemanski (1993b)

the NUP is mis-specified, identifying taxonomic groups essentially by their economic roles, rather than by what Cox describes as ‘local dependency’. This concept is used by Cox in order to explain the necessary conditions for regime formation. Some firms are embedded within a locality and, in turn, a locality is embedded in both scale and spatial div- isions of labour. Cox claims that the NUP work tends to focus on contingent factors, rather than identifying the necessary conditions and the underlying causal processes which lead to regime formation and from which abstraction can be made. Second, Cox argues that concepts, such as regimes or coalitions, need to be rooted in a theoretical construction of the relationship between state, society and consciousness under capitalism. Third, Cox warns against the empiricist nature of the NUP and argues that there has been an over reliance on case studies. Fourth, the under- theorizing of regimes analysis is indicated, according to Cox (1993b), by the abundance of dualities (Sayer, 1991), an example of which is the much coined, global-local expression. This leads to such statements being over-used and going unchallenged. The re- duction of the economic to the global and the political to the local (or urban) leads to a notion of un- contested local activity.

Although Cox’s work itself has not gone unchallenged (see Fainstein 1991, 1994; Stone, 1991;

Lauria, forthcoming), the problematic nature of theory construction around concrete studies has been acknowledged (Fainstein, 1991). The use of case studies is defended on the grounds that it allows the studying of a dynamic process. Yet the mechanisms that underpin regime formation may be dynamic; social relations are not static and while structural frameworks can be restrictive, the explanatory power of case studies can also be constraining. In order to develop regime theory it is essential to move away from the U.S.-specific definition and obtain a clear idea of what the concept is and what it actually says about studying local elites. Similarly what regime theory actually explains needs to be clarified.

Towards a Conclusion

The difficulties of theoretical transfer and the empiricist and localist weaknesses of the regime approach have been delineated in this paper. The two are not unrelated. The theoretical inadequacies of urban regime theory heighten the difficulty in its application out of the U.S. context. In the U.K., cities are more open to central (and European) policy discretion than their counterparts in the U.S. It is these influences that have shaped the regime culture of the 1990s. While academics have noted that the recent urban restructuring, which has seen an Americanization of U.K. policies, has moved the characteristics of the


U.K. towards the U.S. situation (Harding, 1994), U.S. urban regime theory stresses the ‘bottom-up’ aspect of coalitions. If anything, the destatization (Jessop, 1994) of politics has shifted power to the centre, reducing the autonomy of the local state. This divergence, between the discursive and material gains of the local, undermines any suggestion there now exist greater similarities between the U.S. and U.K. governmental systems.

The acknowledgement of the role of the national and supranational state in the formation of regimes may allow the theory to close the gap between micro-level locality studies and more macro-level approaches, such as regulation theory (see Lauria, forthcoming). Regime theory needs to move away from just studying ‘local’ players and incorporate higher-level authorities who participate in ‘local’ economic development (Harding, 1994). In the same way that the local level may be an important element in regional, national or supranational accumulation stra- tegies, so these different levels will impact within a ‘locality’. The different levels of interest may be articulated through entrepreneurial individuals, not necessarily from the business sector, who are operate in a “governance-space” (see Jessop, 1995) created by central government policies, and adopt the ‘mayor of a U.K. city’ approach. The highly centralized mode of government in the U.K. suggests that a more structural ‘top-down’ approach may be valid.

Perhaps more informative is to examine the forces that provide the power for the individual to act as cause cklPbre in regeneration. These ‘forces’ limit the types of coalitions that can be sustained, acting as a metaphor for the power relationship between the local and the global during the present phase of neoliberalism. Grounded in the U.S. institutional character, where U.S. firms are more mobile and local states afforded a greater degree of autonomy, this concept centres around the idea of embedded- ness. However, what rationale is there for local dependence being the (only) necessary factor in U.K. regime formation? If the processes at work are different in the U.S. to those in the U.K. then evidence must be sought to substantiate the claims over local dependence. Even where global processes are active, and where similarities between the two nations might be expected, the ‘acting upon’ the processes may lead to different concrete outcomes, reified through different conjunctural contingencies. The emphasis on taxonomic groups, which characterizes most

regime studies, fails to highlight causal mechanisms or to identify the underlying processes. There is no a priori reason to expect that the elite and the way they interact will be the same in all cities. There is a tendency of the work on the NUP to fail to distinguish between the necessary and the contingent, negating to explain the causal mechanisms between contingent conditions. This lack of clarity of regime theory’s position undermines any attempt to either, operationalize it in the study of cities or to link it with other theories. In order for a regime analysis of the political and economic conditions within a city transitional conditions must be linked to structural processes, such as the Thatcherite project in the U.K., globaliza- tion and the increased role of the European community in urban regeneration (Robson, 1994). By theorizing between the different scales the impact of extra-local conditions on the local can be conceptua- lized and the privileging of one scale above another is avoided. These constraints suggests that regimes may have a shorter life in the U.K. than in the U.S. The question that must be addressed is ‘how long is a regime likely to survive when the funding dries up?’

For a more theoretically insightful regime approach to the studying of power in local politics there needs to be a two-stage refinement. First, the peculiarities of the U.S. institutional fabric need to be rolled back, to allow the theoretical tenets of regime theory to be rolled forward. This means that the specific institutional context of regimes in the U.S. needs to be considered. How much of regime theory’s explanatory power is due to its grounding in the U.S. and what does that suggest about its relevance in the U.K.? Second, these principles need to be theorized in conjunction with other, more abstract theories, such as regulation theory and uneven development, in order that macroeconomic changes are not simply read off at the local level. What are the abstract conditions which foster regime formation? How have social relations been effected by political and economic change in the U.K. over the last two decades? Is there any ‘common ground’ between regime theory and regulation theory that suggests a synthesis of some form (on which, see Jessop et al., 1996; Jonas, forthcoming; Painter, forthcoming). It appears that it is indeed time for the scripting of a new form of urban politics.

Acknowledgements-1 am grateful for the ESRC for their support of this research (award RO0429434350). Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell have both invested a great deal of time


and effort in reading earlier drafts of the paper, for which I Elkin, S. (1985) Twentieth century regimes. Journul of am heavily indebted, while Kevin Cox and Alan DiGaetano Urban Affairs 7, 11-28. both gave me the benefit of their lucid insight. Peter Elkin, S. L. (1987) City and Regime in the American Dicken, Adam Holden, Martin Jones and Fiona Smyth Republic. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. have all given considerable encouragement, while at Geo- Fainstein, S. S. (1991) Rejoinder to: questions of abstrac- forum the comments of three referees and Andrew Leys- tion in studies in the new urban politics. Journal of hon have allowed me the opportunity to develop my ideas Urban Affairs 13, 281-288. further. I remain-f course-responsible for the contents Fainstein, S. S. (1994) The City Builders: Property, Politics of the paper. and Planning in London and New York. Blackwell,

Oxford.

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Rereading urban regime theory: a sympathetic critique

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