Nicola Headlam

Postgraduate Research Seminar27th November 2009

Structure of presentation

Part One : The process (5 mins)– All advice is useless !?

Part Two : My doctoral research (25 mins)1. Introduction2. Methodology, conceptualisation, ethics (turning

Literature into concepts you can work with…)3. Some Results4. Conclusion5. Questions

Part One : The Process

My First Year

First Year … doubts, lack of certainty, direction, confidence

First Year…juggling too many plates

First Year … drowning in literature

By the second year…

Second year…getting over fear of chapters

Second year…dealing with the media!!

2nd year lessons… here she is again!!

Third Year / Writing Up (!)

Third Year... Light at the end of the tunnel

Third Year... Next strategic move?

Third Year... Personal development and reflection

specific advice / tactics• Use Scopus, Endnote, Zetoc• Use RSS feeds for policy and journalism• Methodological experimentation – What you are doing and why…• Keep your resume/CV up to date!!• Review Progress (do this!!)• ESRC CASE conference / GRIP conference • Period of secondment to House of Commons (KTP)• Volunteering, which then feeds back into research ideas• Consultancy contracts and etc. for CLES, CASE Partner• Researcher Showcase and media training Humanities Skills • E-tutoring on the MLP ; seminars and blackboard practice• Involvement in MA Urban Regeneration - lectures on topic. • Mplan fieldtrip• Papers to early career network /RSA seminar series / Conference papers • Vitae session on academic careers…• ESRC KTP/KE speaking and contacts• Awareness of funding streams etc. Eligibility/ appropriateness• Build networks to support you all the way through

Part Two ‘Re-scaling the state’ Through Local andMulti Area Agreements(LAAs and MAAs)The governability of the Greater ManchesterCity Region

1. Intro2. Methodological,conceptual and ethicalreflections3. Some Results4. Conclusions5. Questions?

My supervisors and funders

Iain DeasYasminah Beebeejaun

Neil McInroy CLES, Industrial PartnerESRC CASE Award

(Jon Coaffee now at Birmingham)

Aims and objectivesAim; To explore how far LAA/MAAs as emergent, hybrid second generation

governance mechanisms manifest both the properties and the dysfunctions of markets, hierarchies and networks, to assess how they are brokered, how ‘scope at scale’ is constructed in order to explore the “governability” of the Greater Manchester City Region.

Objectives• To explore modes of governance, the effect of refracting regeneration and

economic development policy through shuffling/shifting scales. • To assess the ‘new partnership governance architecture’ operating at sub-national

scale in the UK and the resultant implications for central-regional-local relationships.

• To explain the evolution of LAA/MAAs and track their changing purpose through development of a typology.

• To develop and apply a mixed method evaluation framework incorporating Social Network Analysis [SNA] in order to treat governance networks as complex networks

• To unpack the roles and functions of the LAA/MAA brokers within partnership governance structures by interrogating questions of “scope at scale”

• To consider the impacts of LAA and MAAs on regeneration policy and practice

Aim : to explore how far Local and Multi -Area Agreements [LAAs and MAAs] as emergent, hybrid governance mechamisms manifest both the properties and dysfunctions of markets, hierarchies and networks, how these are brokered within localities and to what effect.

LAA/MAA = policy instrument

LAA/MAA operational reality

. To explore the relationships between national-regional-local scales (structure) as they affect economic development and regeneration governability

3. To make recommendations for policy and practice

4. To unpack the role of the LAA broker or city-regionalist within partnership governance (agency – scope at scale)

5. To develop an evaluative framework using SNA to map differing models of LAA/MAA

6. To use these models for assessing specific LAA/MAAs

1.To establish what the LAA/MAA are now and what they are for.

Methods.

Socio-spatial biographyIntegrative Mixed methods data, documentary, participant observation, qualitative generation of SNA maps.

Fig. 1 Overall Research Strategy (April 2009)Objectives & Methods

Methods.

Qualitative : Elite InterviewingParticipatn ObservationQuantitative : Formal SNA

multi-scalar methods

c. NW Regional Context

d. Gtr Manchester City RegionDocumentary, Participant Observation SNA, Interviews

f. Stockportnon- NRFunitarySNA analysis+ Area Committees

e. WiganNRFunitarySNA analysis

+ Townships

LAA/MAA= operational reality

Increasing in specificity

Mixed methods: documentary, background datasets, participant observation, qualitative generation of SNA maps

Sub-regional scale

a Interviews with decision makers – civil servants –politicians .

b Interviews with policy people

National scaleLAA/MAA = Policy instrument

Thesis structure 1. Introduction 2. Modes of Governance (12k)3. The Urban Policy Laboratory and central-local policy processes

(7,500)4. Second generation mechanisms : LAA-MAA policy review chapter

(7, 500)5. Conceptual Framework and Methodology : Treating governance

networks as networks (7,500) 6. The spatial shuffle : Manchester and City Regions. (12k) 7. ED/R structures in the recession (9k)8. MCR I : the reification of the city-region (9k)9. MCR II : ‘from below’ LAA-MAA links in Wigan and Stockport (9k) 10. Recommendations for policy and practice : How LAAs/MAAs are

working in practice within studied areas; issues and themes. (12k)11. Conclusions

Scholarly Contribution / Originality

1) Developing Policy models: Analysis / Synthesis of Regeneration Urban Policy - ‘Loops and Stages’ of the LAA

2) Importing ‘governability’ into urban governance literature 3) interrogating ‘scope at scale’ connecting conceptual insights with

empirical activity4) Methodological innovation : mixed integrative methods using

SNA and elite interviewing. 5) Ethical Positioning : research encounter with elites in KTP/KE

environments = different to other forms of knowledge production.

6) Made a contribution to the Greater Manchester Governance Literature - part of a story.

7) Policy recommendations re: shuffling of scale and UK subnational polity.

treating networks for economic development and regeneration as networks

Glamorous? Fundamental!

“Fundamental questions of constitutional structures, centre-region relations, institutional co-ordination, and public expenditure… are addressed as the perhaps unglamorous dimensions of sub-national government and governance.” (Pike and Tomaney 2004)

Police

Duty on local councils and other local partners to work together to agree a single set of priorities through a Sustainable Community

Strategy and a Local Area Agreement

Three year delivery plan:Local Area

Agreement (LAA)

Council

Local Neighbourhoods

Local Strategic

Partnership

Long term Sustainable Community

Strategy (SCS)

Service Charter

Service Charter

Health Private sector

Community sector

Local Neighbourhoods

Local Partnership governance architecture

Conceptual framework

• ‘Second generation’ governance mechanisms• ‘Re-scaling the state’• ‘Scope at Scale’• ‘Governability’• ‘Socio-spatial biography’• Networks • LAA and MAA specifically UK sub-national

mechanisms

In Chapter 2...Contents

2.1 Introduction

2.2 After the turn to governance

2.2.1 Governance ; the “UK school”

2.2.2 Neo-liberalism and Re-scaling

2.2.3 Complexity ,

2.2.4 Governability, Governmentality,

2.2.5 Re-cursivity

2.3 Market / Hierarchy Orders in the Muddled Middle.

2.4 The Network Order; from “light” to “heavy” explanatory use.

2.4.1 network - ing

2.4.2 policy networks

2.4.3 networked governance

2.4.4 Governance Networks

2.5 Hybrid Formation and Governance Failure.

2.5.1 Trust

2.5.2 Scope at Scale

2.6 Chapter Summary

Chapter 5…5.1 Introduction : Innovative, Integrated Methods

5.1.1 Networks in Urban Governance Studies 5. 2. Scope of Research

5.2.1 Socio-spatial biography5.2.2 Governability5.2.3 Scope at Scale 5.2.4 Researching change

5.3 Specific Methodological considerations5.3.1 Qualitative Methods5.3.2 Elite Interviewing5.3.3 Access and positioning : Ethical and practical considerations 5.3 .4 Quantitative Methods

5.4 Social Network Analysis 5.4.1 Use of SNA5.4 2 SNA stages 5.4.3 Pajek and Centrality 5.4.2 Limitations of SNA

5.5 Use of Case Studies5.5.1 Selection of LAs in Greater Manchester and Lancashire5.2.2MCR ; Wigan and Stockport, Lancashire; Burnley and Pendle

5.6 Summary : Methodological Contribution of thesis

Scope at Scale (1)

• Our concern with the `scope' ….involves analytical attention to both how and why the parameters and preferred modus operandi of a particular policy sector are constructed, as manifest in how issues and actors are constructed as legitimate or not, central or not, and then how the mechanisms are put in place to ensure that there is some degree of coherence across closely linked policy domains, such as economic development, transport, housing, and spatial planning

Scope at Scale (2)

• Thinking about how the boundaries of policy sectors are continuously being reworked, including the varying levels of porosity across sectors, suggests that the recent academic work on state rescaling and subnational economic governance might usefully engage more with issues of `scope' for action (ibid)

Governability (Kooiman)

TYPE I TYPE II

general-purpose jurisdictions task-specific jurisdictions

non-intersecting memberships intersecting memberships

jurisdictions organized on a

limited number of levels

no limit to the number of

jurisdictional levels

system-wide architecture

flexible design

Governance ‘entitites’

Type II entities can be…

• Clubs

• Agencies

• Polity-forming

(Skelcher, 2007)

Regeneration – Governance

4 phases

Co-ordination

Retrenchment

Proliferation

Consolidation

Governance networks

are about power, authority, legitimacy, accountability, efficacy (?)

both emerge and are designed (partially) cannot be viewed simply as “technocratic”

processes or “design problems” combine

Messy complex informal relationships Institutions, organisations and agencies

Granovetter

This work can be situated within a sociological tradition exemplified by Granovetter whose influential article “the strength of weak ties” (1975) narrates the importance of roles within networks such as brokers, bridges, early adopters, boundary spanners, centrality and periphery and the effect of cliques, on change, innovation and diffusion.

“significance within networks is given to individuals that act as connectors within a network, boundary spanners who connect networks, information brokers and people who are peripheral to the network” (Granovetter, 1975)

[SNA] Social Network Analysis

“Network methods are seen as a means of mapping roles comprehensively, so allowing “real” qualities of social structures to be delineated …the basic presumption of SNA is that sociograms of points and lines can be used to represent agents and their social relations. The pattern of connections among these lines in a sociogram represents the relational structure of a society or social group” (Knox, 2006)

Different types of networks

My Methodological approach

It is useful to approach areas/places by analysing the governance networks within them

It can be useful to approach themes by exploring the governance networks established around them

Formal, Quantitative Social Network Analysis [SNA] adds value as part of an integrated mixed method approach in combination with both interviewing elites and participant observation in context

Methodological limitations?

• In these networks nodes are always individual people

• Institutions “appear” through the formal connections/relationships between them

• Qualitative techniques elicit informal relationships

Are these descriptive/heuristic devices or something more powerfully analytical?

multi-scalar results

c. NW Regional Context

d. Gtr Manchester City RegionDocumentary, Participant Observation SNA, Interviews

f. Stockportnon- NRFunitarySNA analysis+ Area Committees

e. WiganNRFunitarySNA analysis

+ Townships

LAA/MAA= operational reality

Increasing in specificity

Mixed methods: documentary, background datasets, participant observation, qualitative generation of SNA maps

Sub-regional scale

a Interviews with decision makers – civil servants –politicians .

b Interviews with policy people

National scaleLAA/MAA = Policy instrument

multi-scalar results

c. NW Regional Context

d. Gtr Manchester City RegionDocumentary, Participant Observation SNA, Interviews

f. Stockportnon- NRFunitarySNA analysis+ Area Committees

e. WiganNRFunitarySNA analysis

+ Townships

LAA/MAA= operational reality

Increasing in specificity

Mixed methods: documentary, background datasets, participant observation, qualitative generation of SNA maps

Sub-regional scale

a Interviews with decision makers – civil servants –politicians .

b Interviews with policy people

National scaleLAA/MAA = Policy instrument 1, 2

Findings...

1. New structures for Economic Development and Regeneration in the recession in the core executive. (proliferation)

2. “A last throw of the dice” for regional economic co-ordination : the role of the jecs (co-ordination)

multi-scalar results

c. NW Regional Context

d. Gtr Manchester City RegionDocumentary, Participant Observation SNA, Interviews

f. Stockportnon- NRFunitarySNA analysis+ Area Committees

e. WiganNRFunitarySNA analysis

+ Townships

LAA/MAA= operational reality

Increasing in specificity

Mixed methods: documentary, background datasets, participant observation, qualitative generation of SNA maps

Sub-regional scale

a Interviews with decision makers – civil servants –politicians .

b Interviews with policy people

National scaleLAA/MAA = Policy instrument

3

findings

• MAA-LSP links at locality level

multi-scalar methods

c. NW Regional Context

d. Gtr Manchester City RegionDocumentary, Participant Observation SNA, Interviews

f. Stockportnon- NRFunitarySNA analysis+ Area Committees

e. WiganNRFunitarySNA analysis

+ Townships

LAA/MAA= operational reality

Increasing in specificity

Mixed methods: documentary, background datasets, participant observation, qualitative generation of SNA maps

Sub-regional scale

a Interviews with decision makers – civil servants –politicians .

b Interviews with policy people

National scaleLAA/MAA = Policy instrument

4

the re-ification of the Greater Manchester City Region

Central-local relations (!?)

“What we have found is that there is one box with ‘Government’ marked on it and then lots of other boxes with different parts of government, and yet they want one agreement from us” LAA broker, NW, NRF authority

1: ED/R before the reshuffle

• New Economic Development Structures National-Regional (BERR/Treasury/ No. 10/ Cabinet

Office)

• CLG’s LAA-MAA mechanisms

New National Economic Development Infrastructure

• [NEC] National Economic Council (Cabinet Sub-committee replacing EDX)• [REC] Regional Economic CouncilGovernance Structure – Partnership • [CRM] Council of Regional MinistersCo-ordinated by the Cabinet Office • 9 Regional Committees/ CommissionsRole for the Regional Ministers• [EPBs] Economic Prosperity Boards• [RSC] Regional Select Committees

The Government (publicwhip.org.uk)

Centrality

Scope at Scale within the core executive I

Centrality within core executive structures for ED/R

• Liam Byrne• Hazel Blears• Nick Brown• Yvette Cooper• Alistair Darling• Tony McNulty• Peter Mandelson

PSA match to ministers (2007)Scope @ Scale within the Core Executive II

Number of PSAs for which each Cabinet Minister is operationally responsible.• Minister Department Number of PSAs• Ed Balls DCFS 5• Jacqui Smith Home Office 4• John Hutton DBERR 3• Hazel Blears DCLG 2• Peter Hain DWP 2• Alan Johnson DH 2• John Denham DIUS 2• Hilary Benn DEFRA 2• Alistair Darling HMT 1• Jack Straw MoJ 1• Ruth Kelly DfT 1• James Purnell DCMS 1• Ed Miliband Cabinet Office 1• Douglas Alexander DFID 1• David Miliband FCO 1• Harriet Harman Government Equalities Office 1

The North West Joint Economic Commission (JEC)

North West Joint Economic Commission

Regional Economic Council

AGMA

SNA Greater Manchester MAA-LAA (accountabilty)

SNA with local government decentred

Scope @ Scale in MCR

• Type II / Second generation governance required “policy entrepreneurs” who re-ified (neo-liberally !) and created a governance story to play with the treasury about agglomeration economics.

• Type I caught up with them - structures, processses and the “reticulated brokers” took over - New AGMA structure emphasises accountability and scrutiny.

Governance Entity Type Type I Type II

Partnership Model / moment New Governance Model for

GMCR adopted by AGMA in

Autumn 2009

Operation of Manchester

Enterprises from 2005-2009

Skills required to work model reticulated brokerage policy entrepreneurialism

To what end Democratic Process

Management

Reification –

Conceptualisation

Construction of Evidence Base

Political oversight Built in including scrutiny Obscure – Executive only?

Role of private sector Built in Majority on ME Board

Central government connections ? Intense, sporadic, improvised

Mechanisms framing activity SCR – GM Strategy MAA development

MIER

Defined by Comprehensive, inclusive,

organisational relationships

Small, tight, personal networks

Future role Assured

Emergent

Stable

Small element of large structure –

subsumed.

Future funding – too “grade-rich”?

Unstable - Obsolete in current

form?

Governability within MCR

Early, experimental LAA and Manchester Enterprises were Type II governance entities of a particular “polity forming type”

Both mechanisms have been tamed and incorporated

Both may still have some ability to surprise !?

Governability in Core Executive

Continuity (of Brown) belies frantic/frenetic organisational – administrative -constitutional experimentation

Future of PSA regime far from assured (even 2008 crop weakened)

MOG change fundamental but opaqueSub-national interest dead with BIS/Mandelson

Governability of regions

• REC, JEC CRM etc marginalised by reshuffle and now virtually obselete

• RSC desperate attempt to inject oversight into operation of regional tier

• Regional Ministers going the way of Green ministers – problems of co-ordination

• Whole area highly politicised• Highly unstable entities

• Junctures and change… • Scope @ scale for other forms of policy

entrepreneurs… progressive??• Emergent research agenda • Lots more ideas • Hard to handle x-sectoral MLG without this

methodological approach• Papers in preparation• On with KTP post doc...

Questions?