Democratic Accountability and Metropolitan Governance: The Case of South Hampshire,UK

Abstract

This paper examines the notion of democratic accountability through an investigation of metropolitan governance in South Hampshire, UK. The author employs an interpretive approach to trace varying readings of democratic accountability and to analyse how these notions reflect and influence specific institutional arrangements. The paper highlights how accountability can be strategically deployed to accomplish and bolster diverse policy and political objectives and how these interpretations impact the quality of democratic engagement

1. Introduction

This article contributes to debates surrounding governance and democracy by conducting an examination of democratic processes associated with metropolitan regionalism. The paper employs an interpretive approach (Bevir, 2010, 2004; Bevir and Rhodes, 2006; Poulsen, 2009) framed by the heuristic device of traditions, practices and dilemmas to study how individuals conceptualise and address certain challenges related to democracy. Specifically, this research is concerned with the notion of accountability—an oft-noted failing of contemporary governance arrangements (Kübler and Schwab, 2007; Papadopoulos, 2007).

The author examines situated notions of accountability and asks how divergent policy agents and actors understand accountability, the types of conflicts that emerge and how divergent interpretations are resolved in a metropolitan setting. The paper is motivated by a concern over the transitioning relationships between the governance mechanisms associated with metropolitan regionalism and contested democratic concepts. Thus, the article considers the implications of particular notions of accountability for strategic citizen engagement and how these might produce or deny a vibrant urban politics.

Towards these objectives, the empirical section focuses on the emergence of the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire, a city-regional collaboration of 11 local authorities in the south of England. In many ways, this organisation is indicative of recent local and national efforts to co-ordinate growth and development strategies across jurisdictionally fragmented territories in England.¹ The study provides an overview of the types of projects and institutional arrangements through which metropolitan regionalist strategies and projects have been pursued and highlights particular challenges related to democratic accountability. Following an interpretive research framework, the paper examines situated notions of democratic accountability amongst policy-makers and civil servants to understand how these mechanisms impact the qualities of democracy in a complex institutional setting.

In recent years, in the United Kingdom (UK) and elsewhere there has been notable focus on governance arrangements which transcend jurisdictional boundaries and strengthen the ability and capacity to tackle governing challenges (Brenner, 2002, 2004; Jonas and Ward, 2007; Kantor, 2008; Neuman and Hull, 2009; Pemberton and Lloyd, 2011). It is argued that these ‘metropolitan regionalist’ (Brenner, 2002) or ‘new city-regionalist’ (Ward and Jonas, 2004; Harrison, 2008, 2010) arrangements are a response to the dramatic state rescaling and restructuring processes of the past several decades. For the purposes of this paper, these activities are defined as

strategies to establish institutions, policies or governance mechanisms at a geographical scale which approximates that of existing socioeconomic interdependencies within an urban agglomeration (Brenner, 2002 pp. 4–5).

For many, metropolitan areas or city-regions (please note that in this article the two terms are used interchangeably) are key spaces of the global economy (Scott, 2001a, 2001b; Scott and Storper, 2003), “functionally and organisationally effective economic and political space, attuned to global flux” (McGuirk, 2007, p. 179; Herrshel and Newman, 2002). This focus on city-regions as prioritised spaces within the global economic system has been countered by claims that these new forms of governance are socially constructed and the outcome of situated political contestation (Jonas and Ward, 2007; Harrison, 2010). Critically, these governance projects decentre the notion of government away from traditionally recognised territories to new relational models of connectivity (Healey, 2007). This view explains territorial space as dynamic and in flux, spanning multiple boundaries of space and time, with overlapping, flexible and blurred boundaries (Davoudi, 2008). This reframing/rescaling of political space alongside new collaborative mechanisms of co-ordination and decision-making has contributed to wider concern about the implications of governance techniques for democracy and democratic accountability (Kübler and Schwab, 2007; Papadopoulos, 2007; Purcell, 2007). Here, complex relationships between citizen, politician, stakeholder and territory challenge the capacity of traditional institutions of representative democracy and suggest that new ways of measuring democratic performance are needed (Torfing et al., 2009).

This paper explores these issues through an interpretive analysis of democratic accountability in South Hampshire, England, focusing on the emergence of the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH). PUSH is a collaboration of 11 local governments in the area and was the responsible body for several major planning and economic development initiatives during the mid and late 2000s. The paper identifies a high level of involvement of public-sector and political actors in the collaborative network, with local politicians actively claiming and protecting the metropolitan space as an extension of individual local authorities. The research shows how diverse interpretations of accountability have been deployed to address a range of democratic challenges associated with rescaled governance. For some, within the network, the instability of these concepts led to particular dilemmas, often resolved by invoking traditional notions of democratic accountability. However, these resolutions can also be seen as strategic decisions which support and legitimate particular power relations and strategies. The paper argues that these practices are indicative of a ‘post-political’ and ‘post-democratic’ condition, and have had unfortunate consequences for democratic engagement and ‘proper’ urban politics (Mouffee, 2005).

The article structure is as follows: section 2 contextualises the debate through a review of academic interest in the democratic evaluation of governance arrangements. This is followed by an appraisal of recent accountability research and the development of a research strategy to operationalise the interpretive investigation of accountability in metropolitan governance scenarios. Section 3 presents the empirical data focusing on agents and actors involved in metropolitan regionalist activities in South Hampshire, while section 4 summarises the key ideas and findings.

2. Democratic Analysis and Accountability

2.1 Approaches to Democratic Analysis

When discussing recent urban policy and decision-making in Western democracies, it is now quite common to speak of the shift from government to governance. Here, it is suggested that the “democratically accountable institutions of the state”, have given way to more “informal decision-making processes” (Gross and Hambleton, 2007, p. 9) characterised by horizontal networks and multisector collaboration. For some, these networks enable efficient governing solutions by focusing more closely on outcomes and delivery (i.e. getting things done). Others promote the potential for enhanced public or civic involvement through stakeholder engagement and other collaborative measures designed to build consensus or to produce particular normative outcomes such as civic empowerment or social justice (Sørensen and Torfing, 2005; Kübler and Schwab, 2007; Bull, 2005; Moulaert et al., 2005). However, these same mechanisms can also be seen as a threat to the traditional institutions of liberal democracy with particular issues related to legitimacy, accountability and transparency. Recognition and concern for these deficiencies have led to widespread academic reflection on the democratic implications of governance and the governance of spatially-complex areas such as city-regions (Herrschel, 2009; Purcell, 2007).

At the core of this research is concern with the relationship between governance partnerships or networks and the political institutions of democracy (Steffek, 2010; Hansen, 2007). Further, there is a burgeoning literature which sees governance arrangements as disempowering (Davies, 2007, 2009). In this perspective, the mechanisms of collaborative engagement are said to favour specific (often neoliberal) ideological positions (Guarneros-Meza and Geddes, 2010), providing structural advantage to powerful stakeholders and leaving little room for broad-based empowerment of non-aligned groups (Hopkins, 2010). Framed by the shift towards a ‘new urban politics’ (Cox, 1993), MacLeod, identifies three key factors of this condition: a diversity of non-public actors in the ‘machinery of government’; public entrepreneurialism; and a neoliberal consensus around economic development (MacLeod, 2011, p. 2631). Within this ‘post-political’ context (Mouffee, 2005), it is argued that pluralistic consensus “uproots the foundational political impulses that centre on disagreement” (Swyngedouw, 2011, p. 25). A critical implication of these political shifts has been a diminished scope for critique and dissent in favour of dialogue, deliberation and other techniques which manage debate amongst ‘responsible’ stakeholder agents (MacLeod, 2011; Allmendinger and Haughton, 2012).

These debates have contributed to a surge of interest in the ‘democratic measurement’ of governance arrangements, including metropolitan regionalist strategies. However, as a contested concept, there are few agreed-upon methodologies for the assessment of democratic performance and, where this analysis occurs, definitions are generally uneven and inconsistent (Philp, 2008). Moreover, irregularity and deviation between analytical examples can render comparison particularly difficult; for some, a critical obstacle to the advancement of theory and knowledge (Skelcher, 2007). To a certain extent, these failings have led to a rise in approaches which examine the relationship between situated interpretations of democratic norms and values and institutional design (Agger and Löfgren, 2008; Mathur and Skelcher, 2007; Sørensen and Torfing, 2005).

2.2 Operationalising Accountability in Democratic Analysis

The ubiquitous nature of governance networks and the increasingly blurred line between government and civil society has spawned a wide, cross-disciplinary research agenda focused on the democratic implications of accountability arrangements in complex institutional settings (Papadopoulos, 2003; Skelcher et al., 2005; Kübler and Schwab, 2007; Nyseth, 2008; Justice and Skelcher, 2009; Torfing et al., 2009; Joss, 2010; Bovens, 2007).

This research reveals an ever-expanding and eclectic set of connotations and evaluative mechanisms reflecting the concept’s powerful normative qualities as well as its complex etymology. As Bovens notes, the term has its origin in financial administration (for example, bookkeeping), morphing over several centuries to include contemporary political definitions such as “fair and equitable governance” (Bovens, 2006, p. 6). Yet, the interpretation and applicability of this meaning remain contested. For some, at the very core of traditional political or democratic accountability is the relationship between public officials and an electorate (Steffek, 2010). Others claim that the non-hierarchical, polycentric decision-making processes typical of contemporary governance arrangements indicate wider that interpretations are needed (Mathur and Skelcher, 2007; Agger and Löfgren, 2008; Hansen, 2007).

For example, Bovens (2006 p. 8) differentiates between two types of accountability: as a virtue, reflecting the behavioural characteristics of ‘good governance’; and as a mechanism through which agents are held to account. However, both of these interpretations can be problematic. For example, the broad, behavioural notion is tricky as the standards for accountable behaviour vary within distinct places and institutional settings. Meanwhile, the notion of public accountability as sanctioning mechanism makes assumptions regarding the ability to identify and hold policy agents responsible for their actions (Agger and Löfgren, 2008). In any event, both meanings must come to terms with the contested nature of accountability and recognise that these arrangements emerge within discrete political contexts and are the result of complex pressures and sets of objectives (Sørensen and Torfing, 2005).

Behn (2001, pp. 27–30) situates accountability within the new public management and sets out three major realms related to finances, fairness (and the abuse of power) and performance. The first two, accountability for finances and fairness, largely reflect process and procedural expectations which serve to ensure the proper use of funds and guard against the unfair treatment of citizens (Behn, 2001; Bovens, 2006; Poulsen, 2009). Hence, they are often codified into objective rules and standards against which governing actions can be audited and inspected. However, beyond the operation of government, the new public management is acutely tuned to what government accomplishes—its performance—and is thereby framed by a results-oriented measurement of outputs and accomplishments. Unlike procedural accountability, objective rules and standards are less valuable here. Rather, performance accountability gives precedence to the consequences and outcomes of public action (or inaction) and is seen as a way of evaluating governance arrangements in situations where it is difficult to identify clear lines of representation. Often, debates related to the democratic content of complex governance networks pivot on these understandings of accountability; between one which is focused on process and procedures and another that is concerned with outputs, accomplishments and measurable performance. As a consequence, a democratically accountable decision is both situated and contested—shifting alongside expectations and changes in governance and the management of urban spaces. This paper focuses on the local engagement or ‘situated’ use of democratic accountability including the extent to which metropolitan actors call upon these concepts in their explanations of institutional structures and policy decisions, the emergence of particular challenges or conflicts between shifts in accountability and local efforts to resolve dilemmas related to metropolitan democracy.

2.3 An Interpretive Approach to the Study of Governance Accountability

Behn (2001) suggests that any understanding of the institutional frameworks of accountability is meaningless without an appreciation of the expectations upon which they are based. In other words, we must come to grips with what people expect government to do and to accomplish if we are to understand thoroughly how and why accountability arrangements take on specific forms. This focus on expectations suggests that interpretive research methods, with their appreciation of the values and beliefs of those involved with particular social phenomena, can be particularly useful for understanding the development of mechanisms of accountability in complex settings. In a very general sense, interpretivists reject positivist approaches to the examination and explanation of social phenomena which would assume or search for the existence of universal laws of causality and instead emphasise the importance of fixed meanings including the “historical locatedness of scholars and actors” (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea, 2006, p. xvii). Moreover, interpretivists are keenly interested in human action and the beliefs or meanings that make these actions possible (Bevir, 2006). Thus, what the world means to particular individuals—their subjective perceptions—is of critical importance. This interest in contextual understanding is characteristic of interpretivists’ appreciation of socially constructed knowledge (Willis, 2007) which, it is argued, reflects and influences specific institutional arrangements such as democratic accountability.

In governance studies, interpretive methods are commonly used to gain access to knowledge about the meanings which influence and contribute to the design and operation of specific governmental mechanisms (Mathur and Skelcher, 2007). Gibbs and Krueger (2012) argue for a ‘decentred’ account of institutional change which forefronts the ideas and actions of individuals (see also Bevir and Rhodes, 1999). Such studies are concerned with the actions and day-to-day experiences of individuals and “how meanings and actions, are created, recreated and changed in ways that produce and transform institutions” (Bevir, 2003, p. 460).

Within this frame, interpretive studies commonly develop ‘thick’ accounts of how actors understand the world (Gibbs and Krueger, 2012). This is accomplished through direct engagement with the lifeworld of their subject(s) and a focus on the social construction of this reality including, for example, a consideration of specific interpretations of roles and identity and the relationship between tradition and “situated agency” (Bevir, 2004, p. 612). For instance, Skelcher et al. (2005) employ an interpretive approach to illustrate how key agents involved with partnership governance in two UK municipalities understood the local democratic context and the ways in which their activities influenced concepts such as public accountability. Poulsen’s (2009) examination of competing traditions of governance and interpretations of accountability amongst civil servants in Denmark is similarly situated within an interpretivist frame. Here, the author notes that the onset of governance has coincided with a paradigmatic shift from procedural to performance-based interpretations of accountability. However, as these are only partial shifts, those involved with governance arrangements must navigate the co-existence of competing and sometimes contradictory interpretations and expectations regarding accountability.

Mark Bevir gives the most comprehensive review and plea for interpretive research in his recent book Democratic Governance (2010). In this work, Bevir explores governance institutions through a post-foundational interpretivist approach based on a framework of traditions, practices and dilemmas. The first concept, traditions, reflects a social context or ‘social inheritance’ which influences the beliefs people adopt and the actions they perform (Bevir, 2010, p. 267). However, while these traditions influence beliefs and actions, as situated agents, people have the ability to “accept, transform or reject certain traditions” (Poulsen, 2009, p. 121). Practices, the second concept, are groups of actions “infused with the beliefs of the actors” (Bevir, 2010, p. 267). This focus on situated agency allows interpretivist researchers to explain social change “by giving analytical priority to the ways in which individuals construct their world” (Gibbs and Krueger, 2012, p. 368). Of course, these practices also occur against the background of, and may conflict with, the social inheritance of existing beliefs and traditions. Hence, dilemmas, the third concept of this framework, explain how individuals engage with, moderate and interpret new ideas within the context of existing ones. Bevir argues that it is through dilemmas that agency alters tradition and enables institutional change. Inspired by this approach and particularly relevant here are two separate studies by David Gibbs and Rob Krueger who develop interpretive accounts of city-regional policy in the South East of England and Boston, USA. In both of these works, the authors seek to reveal the emergence of new ideas and policies by exposing the “real politics associated with institutional formation and outcome” (Gibbs and Krueger, 2012, p. 378), expressing the relevance of situated agency and the role individuals play “on the process through their understanding of their cultural, social, political and economic contexts” (Krueger and Gibbs, 2010, p. 835). This scholarship suggests that interpretive approaches can add value to the study of institutional change in complex metropolitan scenarios by providing insights into the day-to-day experience of the ‘post-political’ (Swyngedouw, 2011). The next section follows Bevir’s interpretive approach—framed by the heuristic device of traditions, practices and dilemmas—in the examination of PUSH as a means to demonstrate the value of interpretive research in complex settings and to advance the study of democratic accountability across fragmented metropolitan spaces.

3. Democratic Accountability in Metropolitan South Hampshire

Interpretivists engage with case study research in order to “illustrate an aspect of the world” which reflects the researcher’s interest in explaining particular social phenomena (Bevir, 2010, p. 8). The South Hampshire case was selected in part because there was evidence of serious and enduring interest in cross-jurisdictional co-ordination and partnering efforts indicative of wider trends in governance and metropolitan regionalism. Empirical data for this article were gathered in 2008 and 2009 through a series of interviews with politicians, civil servants, business leadership and voluntary/not-for-profit groups engaged with metropolitan regionalism, observation at three public meetings and a review of relevant planning reports, strategies and policy documents related to city-regional co-ordination. In total, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals active in the metropolitan regionalist network who were identified through a combination of snowball, reputational and purposeful sampling techniques. Interviewees included local authority and county-level politicians, planners, representatives from the South East’s regional institutions, and civil servants involved with city-regional planning and co-ordination activities in South Hampshire. Additional policy actors were included to fill particular contextual gaps (for example, voluntary-sector groups, local partnership representatives). Participants were asked to reflect upon the role of democracy and accountability in city-regional structures and institutions and to voice their opinions about the democratic challenges and opportunities of cross-jurisdictional collaboration.

3.1 Traditions of Metropolitan Governance in South Hampshire, England

“Traditions represent the contexts within which actors operate and form the links between ideas and policy outcomes” (Gibbs and Krueger, 2012, p. 372); they are the social context in which individuals create (and modify) their beliefs and take action (Poulsen, 2009). Specific traditions are presented here which inform the ways in which actors have addressed the issue of metropolitan collaboration in South Hampshire. The concepts are based on a survey of city-region literature, a review of planning documents and reports related to South Hampshire and interviews with metropolitan actors in the case area. While these social inheritances constitute only part of the landscape of competing traditions, the narrative situates the current practices of metropolitan regionalism and helps to frame analysis of the ways in which local agents construct and resolve dilemmas regarding democratic accountability across South Hampshire.

Towards Solent City, South Hampshire

South Hampshire (population 1 million) is the most populous metropolitan area on the south coast of England with its two major cities—Portsmouth and Southampton—located at either end of an east–west coastal development axis. While the two cities have traditionally maintained their distinct identities, in recent years there has been a notable shift amongst local politicians to strengthen dialogue and co-ordination across jurisdictional boundaries through the development of new collaborative mechanisms focused on the territorial area of South Hampshire; mechanisms directly related to opportunities managed and offered by central government.

Within the UK, it is certainly uncontroversial to suggest that a critical factor influencing the nature of city-region collaboration over the past several decades has been the framework of central–local relations. As creations of Parliament, local governments in England are subordinate to the national administration which has authority and oversight over all local competencies including municipal finance, the nature of local public service delivery and the framework for administrative boundaries. Indeed, over the past several decades, the British government has pursued a number of reorganisation and modernisation projects altering the arrangement of local government in England. Often, as with the 1972 Act for England and the 1999 Greater London Authority Act, these efforts have involved the reconfiguring of administrative boundaries around the notion of the ‘city-region’, at times dramatically altering the spatiality of public services and public administration. During the 2000s, reflecting the shift to ‘joined-up’ governance under New Labour, the British government generally promoted collaborative partnerships in favour of administrative rejigging through sub-regional strategies, multi-area agreements (MAA) and economic prosperity boards which became particularly salient in the wake of the failed English regionalism project (Pemberton and Lloyd, 2011). Since election in 2010, the Conservative—Liberal Democrat Coalition government has put in place a similar framework for partnering across most of England through Local Enterprise Partnerships—public–private bodies intended to support local economic development across functional economic areas (Harrison, 2011; Harrison, forthcoming).

Framed by this shifting governance context, over the past several decades, the territorial notion of ‘South Hampshire’ has been put forward at various moments as a jurisdictional and/or territorial fix to the urban development challenges facing the areas encompassing Southampton, Portsmouth, and their immediate environs. In the post-war era, central government’s interest in ‘South Hampshire’ dates to a flurry of work setting out the administrative and spatial unification of Southampton and Portsmouth across ‘Solent City’ (for example, the South Hampshire Study, 1966; the South East Study, 1967; and the Strategic Plan for the South East, 1970). While these projects were not well received locally and failed to produce significant sub-regional change, over subsequent decades the territorial construct of Solent City remained a consistent focus for planning and co-ordination both locally and nationally. In the early 1970s and under the expectation of city-regional reform under the Labour government, Southampton, Portsmouth and Hampshire County began work on a collaborative South Hampshire structure plan. Although the city-regional framework did not materialise (the 1972 Act for England favoured a county-based approach), these sub-regional planning arrangements continued through the abolition of English structure planning in 2004.

Indeed, the territorial concept of South Hampshire remained an important construct throughout New Labour’s spatial planning experiment, particularly in relation to economic development activities. For example, in the late 1990s, a group of local authorities referred to as ‘the M27 Exchange’ sought to influence government policy for regeneration and investment by collaborating and setting out their agenda in a sub-regional renewal strategy—Towards a Vision for Urban South Hampshire and its Cities (1998). Interviewees suggested that this informal project was a precursor to subsequent and more formalised city-regional institutions—particularly the emergence in 2005 of the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH), a collaborative arrangement between 11 authorities in the area. Concerned with strategic planning and economic development, PUSH actively promoted the territorial concept of south Hampshire—authoring the South Hampshire sub-regional strategy, later incorporated into the regional spatial strategy for the South East region of England (GOSE, 2009)—and strengthened institutional arrangements enabling city-regional co-ordination. Building upon these efforts and reflecting the change in national politics, in 2010 the PUSH area was designated as the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership by the Coalition government.

The tradition of metropolitan collaboration in South Hampshire presented here is informed by several interrelated concepts related to the governance of space. First, these activities are framed by the structure of local autonomy and central–local relations in England. This includes, most critically, the subordinate nature of local authorities in relation to central government. Secondly, in recent years, there has been a notable the shift away from administrative redistricting towards more ‘soft’ governance arrangements and collaborative mechanisms in many ways typical of the new regionalism (Wheeler, 2002; Haughton et al., 2010). Thirdly, as over three decades of sub-regional planning indicate, the notion of South Hampshire has proved to be a useful and enduring spatial concept to co-ordinate city-region planning for local and national government interests.

3.2 The Practices of Metropolitan Governance and Accountability

PUSH emerged in the mid 2000s as planning and governance initiatives began to trickle down to city-regions and sub-regional spaces in England under New Labour’s programme of devolution and decentralisation (ODPM, 2004; Sandford, 2005). The group’s sub-regional collaborative efforts built upon previous visioning and land use strategies with an eye towards institutional capacity building for spatial planning, policy integration and economic development project delivery (Buser and Farthing, 2011). Towards these objectives, PUSH developed a series of strategies, reports and policies to influence central government spending decisions and spatial planning arrangements including housing allocations, and to position urban South Hampshire as a key focus of growth and development in the South East region (PUSH, 2008). Subsequently, the group put in place two key co-ordination mechanisms designed to strengthen the partner authorities’ influence and legitimacy with central government and to establish a structure for delivery of key city-regional objectives

—A ‘joint committee’ in 2007 which provided the legal mechanism through which powers for sub-regional planning and strategic economic development were formally delegated from local authorities to PUSH (PUSH, 2007).

—The South Hampshire Agreement (SHA), one of a handful of multiarea agreements enacted in England in 2008 and 2009 which allowed for “a new and more productive relationship between local and regional partners and Government and its agencies” (PUSH, 2008, p. 19). According to interviewees, the value-added for local authorities was twofold: an opportunity formally to recognise PUSH’s sub-regional initiatives with central government departments and a step towards greater ‘freedom and flexibility’ from national policy (for example, public service delivery indicators and funding allocations).

As a nascent, non-statutory coalition under a centralised system of government, this metropolitan institutional infrastructure was developed through close consultation and negotiation with New Labour government departments. Institutionalisation of the partnership through the joint committee agreement brought on specific procedures of governance accountability including formalised decision-making arrangements (for example, voting mechanisms), the establishment of an overview and scrutiny committee, and regularly scheduled publically accessible meetings. Interviewees suggested that these components of ‘publicity’ (Hansen, 2007) were embedded into the organisation’s institutional structure as a means to strengthen the group’s standing with central government as an accountable, representative body. For example, as a local authority Chief Executive and PUSH member noted

The government was quite clearly saying … we want to see proper governance procedures … have you got proper accountabilities, have you got proper processes and procedures that we can rely upon as a group … if we’re going to be credible to other players, then they’ve got to see we got some kind of proper governance at the heart of PUSH.

However, these mechanisms were also influenced by a spirit of localism that sought to maintain ties to local electorates and protect pre-existing power relations. Interviewees often referred to the joint committee and the sub-regional partnership as an extension of local government, positioning elected politicians at the very centre. In this interpretation, PUSH was legitimised through a democratic-representational relationship to local citizens.

Leaders [with PUSH] have certain delegated powers from their councils. And those have been agreed at each individual council … And that, I think is quite an important step because it crystallised those accountabilities back to the individual local authorities and therefore back to their council chambers and back to their own electorates (local chief executive and PUSH board member).

Politicians guard their democratic accountability … you will find politicians guard the fact that people voted for us, that gives us some accountability because if they don’t like you, they don’t vote for you (local politician and PUSH board member).

In this reading, the delegation of authority from local councils provided the partnership with its democratic mandate, while specific mechanisms of ‘good governance’ limited the intrusion of non-elected stakeholders in the formal decision-making process and protected direct lines of citizen representation. Nonetheless, the lack of stakeholder influence, particularly from the private sector, conflicted with the predominant New Labour agenda of ‘joined-up’ working (Wilks-Heeg, 2009) which advocated increased business participation in governance decision-making

Because you have a joint committee that gets the democratic mandate there. What it excludes is all the other partners because by definition … so we have at a stroke, excluded other key partners, particularly private sector (regional planner, Government Office for the South East).

In this case, distinct notions of democratic engagement across tiers of local, regional and central government led to particular governance challenges and institutional conflict. While this planner agreed that the mechanisms of procedural accountability strengthened the democratic mandate and legitimacy of the South Hampshire partnership, these arrangements simultaneously constrained the group’s ability to engage wider sectors of interests. Moreover, set within a wider agenda of integration and the new public management, from government’s perspective, engagement with PUSH was also seen as a means to improve governance performance and to deliver key outputs and objectives for the South East (Buser and Farthing, 2011). Pointing to a shift towards performance accountability, there was an expectation that, through the provision of resource and certain decision-making powers, South Hampshire authorities would contribute to national expectations regarding economic growth and housing (PUSH, 2008). However, another regional government representative interviewed for the project noted that, while there were particular indicators regarding housing numbers and general economic growth, it was not obvious how specific individuals or offices—at regional, sub-regional or local levels—would be held accountable for failure to meet these performance expectations.

3.3 Situated Dilemmas and the Challenge of Accountability in a Metropolitan Setting

Within South Hampshire, divergent and conflicting notions of accountability were identified amongst those who were engaged with local and metropolitan initiatives; a condition which led to professional challenges amongst planners and civil servants. For example, a city planner involved with the partnership’s planning efforts observed a general lack of civic engagement in PUSH’s sub-regional strategy but suggested that this was overcome through the particular institutional structure

There wasn’t a huge amount of [public engagement] … to an extent because you’ve got the leaders of the 11 local authorities on the top tier decision-making, they, in a representative democracy could clearly be said to understand the issues (city planner, South Hampshire).

While this situation challenged the planner’s professional views about participation and decision-making, the dilemma was resolved by invoking liberal democratic principles; as democratically elected representatives, local politicians were authorised to make metropolitan planning decisions. Nevertheless, it was also recognised that the arrangement diminished the value and relevance of key local planning and public engagement initiatives.

Our local development framework has to comply with the regional plan and with the sub-regional strategy … we’ve got to consult on various options but to be honest a lot of those decisions have already been taken in the sub-regional strategy. Like you know, should we go for growth is obviously a classic one (city planner, South Hampshire).

These planning dilemmas echo Allmendinger and Haughton’s (2012, p. 90) concerns about the English system of spatial planning and its tendency to devalue serious engagement and “minimise the potential for those with conflicting views to be given a meaningful hearing”. Indeed, in this case, city-regional participation efforts (for example, the sub-regional strategy) generally targeted ‘responsible’ stakeholders invited to workshop events. Moreover, key decisions were depoliticised through carefully managed participation strategies which constrained opportunities for discussion or alternative development scenarios—growth objectives were not debatable, only the specific pattern of growth across the sub-region (Hampshire County Council, 2005).

Another set of dilemmas revolved around the institutional framework for sub-regional collaboration and conflicts between potential increases in authority and capacity at the metropolitan tier and a concomitant erosion of autonomy at the local authority level. For many interviewees, while collaboration across authorities was seen as an important piece of the governance toolkit, the sub-regional space remained an area of trepidation and apprehension. This was often expressed by references to ‘Solent City’ and concerns over added bureaucracy, the potential loss of local autonomy

There is a real fear … they do not want to go back to the concept of Solent City. They … do not want to have this super-town plan … they want the communities in South Hampshire to grow and prosper within their own framework, not to have some kind of super-structure imposed from outside (local chief executive and PUSH board member).

Responding to these concerns, local agents typically described PUSH as a ‘thin’ framework for city-regional co-ordination. One joint committee member suggested that the organisation was equivalent to the point on an inverse pyramid and was simply the ‘delivery vehicle’ through which cross-jurisdictional collaboration took place

What authorities … fear … is the creation of some kind of sub-regional authority that is somehow sucking responsibilities away from the districts … that is going to be unaccountable and part of an empire building exercise (civil-servant, PUSH).

However, while a thin administration softened concerns about a new tier of regulation and bureaucracy, the policy also obscured the group’s public visibility and legibility. Reflecting on this condition, another interviewee highlighted the ‘unknown unknown’ condition.

I suppose finding PUSH is difficult … they’re certainly in contact with various officers here [at the council] … they found out who’s involved. Although, I suppose you could say we don’t know about the ones who haven’t found out (planning officer, PUSH).

It is likely that PUSH leadership’s desire to minimise bureaucracy had the consequence of reducing organisational transparency and legibility. For some individuals, this condition reflected the nature of cross-jurisdictional working and was justified by the particular arrangements of democratic accountability which had been put in place

It [PUSH] is not designed to have a public face … what they need to know is that as a citizen … that the council is accountable for what it does through PUSH. But PUSH defines its activities in support of what the city wants to do and the city works with its partners to define what we need to do together to produce the right kind of benefits for the man on the street (local chief executive and PUSH board member).

These understandings and expectations have been critically important for policy and the new metropolitan institutional infrastructure where complex dilemmas related to mechanisms of accountability were resolved by adhering to traditional notions of representative (i.e. holding politicians to account).

4. Conclusions

The broad purpose of this paper was to investigate situated notions of accountability in a metropolitan setting. Specifically, the paper asked how policy agents and actors interpret accountability, the types of dilemmas that emerge and how conflicts are resolved.

Employing an interpretivist research approach and the concepts of traditions, practices and dilemmas, the article examined the South Hampshire governance network, targeting actors involved with the Partnership for South Hampshire. Empirical work was framed by the historical emergence of co-ordination around the notion of ‘South Hampshire’ within the tradition and context of city-regionalism and local government in England. Of particular importance here has been the subordinate nature of local authorities and the need to design collaborative structures within the constraints of central policy. Indeed, the institutionalisation of PUSH through mechanisms such as the Joint Committee and SHA, centred on the production of a strengthened relationship with central government.

The case highlighted a range of potentially conflicting interpretations and is consistent with Poulsen’s claim that “different types of accountability will exist side by side” (Poulsen, 2009, p. 123). These included various instances of procedural and performance accountability, deployed strategically to accomplish particular governance objectives. For example, through PUSH, central government agents sought to produce and engage with a sub-regional body that was representative and accountable to its citizenry which could also be held to account for meeting particular government targets (housing, per capita growth, etc.). Here, the Joint Committee solidified procedural elements of the group while the SHA put in place a mechanism to formalise performance targets. For local politicians, these same mechanisms were put in place to demonstrate legitimacy, limit the influence of private interests in city-regional co-ordination efforts and ensure that governmental departments recognised PUSH priorities. These examples call attention to the ways in which city-regional interests deployed diverse notions of accountability to support and influence policy objectives.

The paper also highlighted how these arrangements contributed to particular dilemmas. For example, planners interviewed for the project recognised the potential adverse implications of city-regional co-ordination. These included a structured dialogue set within the bounds of a pre-determined growth agenda as well as an institutional frame which reduced legibility and transparency of decision-making procedures. Yet, such accountability dilemmas were commonly resolved by adhering to traditional concepts of representation and an insistence that citizens’ ability to hold politicians to account generally prevailed over concerns about inadequate participation or engagement in decision-making processes.

Significantly, the preference for these ‘holding to account’ notions of accountability over others (for example, information and transparency) not only served to justify a lack of city-regional participation, but could also be seen as an effort to support and legitimise power strategies. In this case, decisions about democratic accountability were situational and variously deployed by key city-regional actors. For example, pressures from central government led to the development of both procedural and performance metrics of accountability. Moreover, politicians sought to protect their interests from non-elected stakeholders through an adherence to formal mechanisms of democratic legitimacy.

This research points to the strong structuring role that politicians can play in delimiting metropolitan accountability, which seems to run counter to theories correlating the emergence of ‘governance’ with the diminished authority of political actors. In South Hampshire, while central government impelled particular models of metropolitan collaboration, local politicians adeptly manipulated the metropolitan space to meet their expectations regarding autonomy and democratic accountability. For many of these agents, PUSH did not represent a new tier of governance, but rather, an extension of the 11 local authorities; a vehicle through which local priorities were managed in co-ordination with other key partners. This understanding led to specific institutional arrangements which favoured exclusive political involvement (for example, over the private sector) and positioned accountability and legitimacy in the elected status of metropolitan actors, rather than through wide public debate or engagement in decision-making procedures. Indeed, stakeholder governance was a critical concern for politicians in South Hampshire who saw the influx of non-public agents as a possible challenge to local authority or autonomy. Yet, these decisions also weakened democratic and political debate. Alongside efforts to limit the perception of a new bureaucracy, institutional arrangements put in place diminished the availability of information and citizen engagement, and narrowed political participation to the electoral arrangements of local government. As a consequence, key decisions about the development of the city-region were depoliticised and did not receive citizen scrutiny outside formal consultation initiatives associated with the South East Plan.

For Swyngedouw and others, arrangements such as these—both formal and informal institutional configurations which limit debate and diminish opportunities for ‘proper urban politics’—are signposts of the post-political and post-democratic condition (Swyngedouw, 2011, p. 14). Here, contestation and conflict are replaced by a consensus-based neoliberal politics (Allmendinger and Haughton, 2012) with civic engagement limited to “responsible stakeholders” (MacLeod, 2011, p. 2648). Mouffee has argued that, within such a context, partnership strategies which seek to engage through ‘dialogue’ and ‘deliberation’—such as the local development framework process in the case example—lack value where clearly differentiated alternatives are absent (Mouffee, 2005, p. 3). Moreover, the application of traditional concepts of democratic representation and holding to account notions of accountability across fragmented spaces can be seen, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, to frustrate efforts to engage in political activity.

To conclude, this study suggests that democratic accountability can not only be strategically and variously deployed to accomplish a range of policy objectives, but also serves as a flexible political tool for the management and control of contested spaces. In the case of South Hampshire, the implication of these tactics was diminished public engagement with the political sphere and an occlusion of decision processes related to city-regional policies.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to John Harrison and Michael Hoyler for organising this Special Issue as well as co-ordinating the City Region Governance, Ten Years On sessions at the 2011 RGS–IBG annual conference. The author also expresses his gratitude to the journal Editor and the referees for their insights and helpful suggestions.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

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