Local agency for the public purpose? Dissecting and evaluating the emerging discourses of municipal entrepreneurship in the UK

ABSTRACT

This article explores the contested politics and interpretations of the new practices of municipal entrepreneurship across local government in the UK. Drawing on empirical evidence from six case studies of entrepreneurship in local councils, descriptions of income-generating projects by officers in thirty authorities, and a series of semi-structured interviews, we identify, name and characterise an emergent discourse of municipal entrepreneurship for the public purpose. We argue that this novel strand of discourse within the wider field of urban entrepreneurialism confers a degree of political agency to local authorities under austerity, while redescribing and attaching commercialism and entrepreneurship to the public good. In so doing, we challenge overly reductionist accounts of local state agency under austerity, and articulate and evaluate the potentials and obstacles for a progressive interventionism in this discursive space.

KEYWORDS:

• Municipalism
• entrepreneurship
• commercialisation
• austerity
• discourse
• local agency

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive engagement with our work and for their helpful comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank Mo Baines and Paul O'Brien for their constructive criticism and engagement with the findings of our research. Of course, final responsibility for the claims and arguments that are advanced in the article remains with the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was funded by the Association for Public Service Excellence.

Notes on contributors

Neil Barnett

Neil Barnett worked in various posts in local government before becoming a senior lecturer in public policy at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He is currently a visiting fellow at Leeds Beckett University and a senior research fellow at the Local Governance Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Steven Griggs

Steven Griggs is Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Politics, People and Place at the Leicester Castle Business School of De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, where he is Director of the Local Governance Research Centre.

Stephen Hall

Stephen Hall is a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management and in the Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.

David Howarth

David Howarth is Professor of Politics in the Department of Government and Co-Director of the Centre for Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex, UK.