Civil society and the governance of city region economic development

Beel, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1146-229X, Jones, Martin and Jones, Ian Rees (2022) Civil society and the governance of city region economic development. In: Civil Society in an Age of Uncertainty: institutions, governance and existential challenges. Policy Press, pp. 33-53. ISBN 9781447353454 (ebook); 9781447353416 (hardback)

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Abstract

Within the UK and as well as further afield, the spatial delineations of the ’city region’ have seen a renaissance as the de-facto spatial political units of governance for economic development (Clarke & Cochrane, 2013, Sykes et al. 2021). In the UK, successive Governments have sought to reshape the ways in which economic development takes place, and although this shift in governmental delivery began under New Labour, it has been much vaunted by the UK Coalition Government (Deas, 2013), and subsequently by the continuing Conservative administration (Conservative Party, 2015) and the Welsh Labour Party (Bristow, 2015). This chapter, therefore, addresses the (re-)positioning of civil society within these new structures of city region governance. Based on stakeholder mapping and semi-structured interviews with key actors operating across each city region, the chapter illustrates how this has created several significant tensions as well as opportunities for civil society actors.