New localism, old retrenchment:
The Big Society, housing policy and
the politics of welfare reform
Tony Manzi, University of
Westminster
Keith Jacobs, University of Tasmania
Overview
Critical view of the politics of new localism
Draws upon an historical frame to situate
contemporary politics of UK housing
Considers the wider implications of new localism
for UK politics in general and social housing in
particular
We need to turn government
completely on its head. The rule of
this government should be this: if it
unleashes community
engagement, we should do it; if it
crushes it, we shouldn’t
(Cameron, 2010).
Localism
Stated aims (as expressed in 2010
Decentralisation and Localism Bill)
• Model of social action, expressed through a culture of
voluntarism and philanthropy.
• Public service reform, based on cutting bureaucracy,
• Planning powers for local neighbourhoods
• Community empowerment where neighbourhoods are
placed in charge of their own destiny (Cameron, 2010).
Rationale
• Welfare state captured by bureaucrats
• Government interventions often accentuate
social problems
• Interpretation of public housing as one of
failure
• The size scope and role of government in Britain
has reached a point where it is now inhibiting,
not advancing the progressive aims of reducing
poverty, fighting inequality, and increasing
general well-being. Indeed there is a worrying
paradox that because of its effect on personal
and social responsibility, the recent growth of the
state has promoted not social solidarity but
selfishness and individualism…we must use the
state to remake society (Cameron, 2009)
The Reification of Community:
Communitarianism and Localism
• C18th - Edmund Burke -‘little platoons’ as
defence of civil society.
• Community-based approaches in the 1970s small scale rehabilitation strategies coincided
with the re-emergence of housing association
‘movement’
• 1980s – decentralisation initiatives
• New Labour and neighbourhood
empowerment
New Labour and ‘steering
centralism’
• As the centre cannot know the conditions in
every locality, it attempts to design policies for
average conditions that, in reality, do not exist in
any one location. In turn, local managers
concerned with managing pressures misrepresent
their capacities for fear they may be asked to do
too much and overstate their achievements in
order to appease those further up the
hierarchical system (Stoker, 2004, p.220).
Critique
• As Harvey (1996) argues localism is not an
innocent term; it can provide ideological
foundations for both reactionary politics and
‘nativist’ sentiment.
• Model of ‘consensus politics ignores the
inherent conflicts and contestation of political
discourse and can become a potentially
undemocratic, unrepresentative and defensive
militant particularism’ (Du Puis et al 2005).
Coalition Government and Public
Service Reform
• The White Paper…will put in place principles
that will signal the decisive end of the oldfashioned, top-down, take-what you’re given
model of public services…the grip of state
control will be released and power will be
placed in people’s hands. Professionals will
see their discretion restored. There will be
more freedom, more choice and more local
control (Cameron, 2011).
The Big Society - in practice?
• At best, it is essentially empty, nothing more
than an encouragement to citizens to do ‘good
deeds’ in the community; nothing particularly
objectionable but equally lacking in substance
and destined to have a minimal impact on
public policy. At worst, it is dangerous, a
genuine belief that charities and volunteers,
rather than the state, can and should provide
numerous core public services (Kisby, 2010).
Conclusions
• Policies to substantially reduce localism little
more than camouflage to justify cuts in
government welfare spending
• Narrative to promote localism rests on an
ideology hostile to collective provision and
wealth redistribution
• Impact of current policies will undermine
achievements of the past.