The Kiwi Connection: Reflections on Local Governance Policy Transfer between the UK and New Zealand

Abstract

Local governance policy has been transferred between the United Kingdom and New Zealand since the mid-nineteenth century. In recent decades, however, the processes of exchange have become more complex and more bidirectional. This article argues that contemporary policy transfer is the product of a complex interchange involving three spheres of analysis: ideological and political forces, ideas in good currency and the roles of scholars in cross-national exchange. The article concludes by considering the changing roles of academics in international policy transfer. It suggests that scholarship in this area needs to be encouraged and developed.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers of this article for their insightful and constructive comments. We would also like to thank the Massey University International Visiting Researcher Fund for making an award to Professor Hambleton to work with Dr Cheyne.

Notes

1. Reform of the Scottish system of local government has followed a somewhat different path following the devolution of local government powers to the Scottish Parliament with the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003. These developments are not considered in this paper.

2. Dearlove (1979: 257–259), in his important book on local government reorganization, offers a scathing critique of policy analysis and all those academics who engage in it. He suggests that scholars who offer advice to government inevitably become “servants of power” and that their work is, by definition, “objectively deficient and ideological”.

3. For further discussion of the notion of diffusion see Strang and Meyer (1993).

4. The term refers to the three Washington DC-based organizations – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the US Treasury – which originally promulgated the ideas.

5. Approximately 56 per cent of local government income is sourced from rates (property tax), with approximately 12.5 per cent coming from central government grants and subsidies (primarily for land transport). The other sources of funding are regulatory income and petrol tax (just under 6%), investment income (approximately 5.5%) and sales of goods and services and other income (just over 19.5%).

6. In 2006 rates comprised approximately 56 per cent and this was forecast to rise to 60 per cent by 2016.

7. Indeed, in New Zealand, the term “Wellington Consensus” has been used to refer to the adoption of Washington Consensus policies.

8. In regional councils there is no direct election of the topmost political leader; instead, the chair of the regional council is appointed by the council.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Cheyne

Christine Cheyne is an Associate Professor in Resource & Environmental Planning. She is actively involved in research in comparative local governance, urban sustainability, and transportation policy and planning. She was a member of the New Zealand government's commission of inquiry into local government funding in 2006–2007 and has worked as a policy advisor and planner in local and central government. Robin Hambleton is Professor of City Leadership in the Faculty of Environment and Technology, University of the West of England, Bristol. He was previously Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago. He has worked in government, written national guidance for local government and authored books and articles on civic leadership, urban management and cross-national exchange. He was founding President of the European Urban Research Association (EURA) and now directs Urban Answers, a company he founded in 2007.