Territorial Policy Communities and Devolution in the United Kingdom

Devolution in the United Kingdom forms part of a wider process of spatial re-scaling across Europe. Little work has been done on its effect on interest articulation. The literature on policy communities treats them as sectoral in scope. We propose the concept of ‘territorial policy communities’ to designate territorially-bounded constellations of actors within and across policy sectors, emerging in response to the rescaling of government. Devolution may leave existing systems of interest articulation unchanged, leaving ‘regions without regionalism’; it may confine some groups within territorial boundaries while allowing others freedom to choose between levels of government; or it might promote a general territorialization of interest representation and the emergence of territorial policy communities. The UK’s four models of devolution help test the effects of stronger and weaker forms of devolution on the territorialization of groups. Spatial rescaling and devolution Modernization theory has long suggested that territory would give way to function as the basis for the division of labour, social differentiation and interest representation. For sociologists, the reasons were functional and linked to the emergence of industrial society. Durkheim (1964) and Deutsch (1966) argued that social evolution broke down territorial barriers to create integrated national societies, providing the basis for political order. Political scientists came to similar conclusions, albeit for more institutionalist reasons and privileging the state as the agent of assimilation. Stein Rokkan (Flora et al., 1999) demonstrated how states emerged through a process of boundary construction, enclosing political, social and economic systems and limiting the possibilities for individuals or groups to operate beyond national space. Unable to exit the national polity, representatives of social and political interests were forced to turn inwards, suppressing internal territorial differences and operating across national space. This fostered interaction, leading to national political bargaining and social compromises. Political science has since assumed that interest representation in European countries is state-wide. It assumes that sectoral and class interests take the same form everywhere, so that regional differences in the patterns of politics reflect the differential presence of sectoral or class interests within territories, rather than relating to territory itself. Social compromises, notably between capital and labour (mediated by the state) are struck at the national level. Social concertation or corporatism is a state-level phenomenon, depending on the existence of a state boundary preventing defection. The Keynesian welfare state was a form of positive-sum compromise depending on the existence of this boundary and a sense of shared identity and social solidarity. This vision of interest intermediation has been challenged in recent debates on globalization, European integration, spatial rescaling, new regionalism and devolution. The functionalist © Keating, M. , Cairney, P., & Hepburn, E. (2009). ‘Territorial Policy Communities and Devolution in the United Kingdom’. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2(1), 51-66. 2 argument about national integration and boundaries is questioned by the rescaling of capitalist production at multiple levels, above, below and across states (Brenner, 2004; Brenner et al., 2003; McLeod, 2001). New regionalism posits the rise of territorial production systems at various scales (Scott, 1998; Storper, 1997; Cooke and Morgan, 1998; Crouch et al., 2001). Institutionalist analysis has similarly drawn attention to shifting scales of government, at the European, transnational and sub-state levels (Balme, 1996; Keating, 1998). Bartolini (2005) has discerned a partial reversal of the Rokkanian process of coincident boundary-building, as different policy systems assume different territorial boundaries, at the sub-state or supranational levels. There is little empirical work on the effects of spatial rescaling on interest articulation and representation. The new regionalism literature does not clearly identify institutions or patterns of political exchange. Some versions highlight the prospects for new positive-sum social compromises. Cooke and Morgan (1998) argue that, at the appropriate level, new forms of social partnership may enhance productive efficiency and secure social integration, though Lovering (1999) criticizes this as wishful thinking. Another literature largely ignores institutions and interests, instead emphasising how the culture and ‘social capital’ of territorial societies determines their capacity for collective action. Putnam (1993) makes little effort to establish the link between social attitudes and policy outcomes and merely asserts that ‘social capital’ can enhance both economic output and democratic performance, with nothing on the role of capital and labour or social conflict. ‘Multilevel governance’ approaches, though addressing rescaled systems of policy-making, conceptualize actors as individuals or organizations, not representatives of social interests (Hooghe and Marks, 2001; Bache and Flinders, 2004). Levels refers to organizational boundaries and there is no concept of territory as found in social geography or the new regionalism. Bartolini (2005), from an institutionalist perspective, addresses the issue of social compromises and interaction, arguing that the selective opening of boundaries of policy systems allows certain groups a ‘partial exit’, enabling them to opt out of exchange, compromise and solidarity. This recalls earlier arguments in urban political economy that emphasize the mobility of capital, which gives it a privileged place in city politics compared with territorially-rooted groups (Peterson, 1985; Kantor, 1995; Keating, 1991). The regulation of different policy fields at different levels challenges the old social compromises of the state. The privileged and mobile, including owners of capital, may be able to delink themselves from co-citizens, either by moving physically or ‘venue-shopping’ (Baumgartner and Jones, 1991). This contrasts with the new regionalism, which sees the possibilities for a new, positive-sum, compromise at the regional level. Devolution can be seen as a response to these processes of restructuring, though European states have had different motivations for doing so. There is the need for administrative modernization and public services rationing. New models of regional development, promoted by academics and the European Commission, emphasize the advantages of decentralized delivery. There are bottom-up pressures from regions and stateless nations engaged in new forms of polity-building, leading to the emergence of a regional or meso level of government (Sharpe, 1993). This creates new spaces for interest articulation and representation. Compared with nation-states, however, regions are weakly-bounded communities. Devolution may be aimed at capturing the re-scaled © Keating, M. , Cairney, P., & Hepburn, E. (2009). ‘Territorial Policy Communities and Devolution in the United Kingdom’. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2(1), 51-66. 3 systems of economic and social change, but these are inherently open. It is relatively easy for some groups to opt-out of social compromise and operate at new levels but this is variable and depends on the design of the institutions. In some cases, regional devolution takes a functionallybased form consisting of economic development agencies. In others, it is more political with wider competences, and draws in a broader range of actors. In some instances, there is no interest group activity at all. Pastori (1971) and Trigilia (1991), writing about the Italian regional governments established in the 1970s, spoke of ‘regions without regionalism’ and ‘the paradox of the regions’, meaning that regional government had not been matched by regional civil societies or interest groups. Territorial Policy Communities The public policy literature has spawned a plethora of concepts to analyse patterns of interest articulation, interaction and competition within policy systems. Some merely map the field. Ostrom (1999) uses the term ‘action areas’ to trace the participants, positions, outcomes, actionoutcome linkages, information and costs. A related concept is the ‘policy network’, involving government officials, politicians, experts or lobbyists in a policy domain. Beyond this are approaches that theorize the relationships among actors. The ‘policy community’ suggests a degree of consensus and coherence among actors (Richardson and Jordan, 1979; Rhodes, 1981; Wright and Wilks, 1987; Rhodes and Marsh, 1992; Marsh and Smith, 2000). A related French concept is the référentiel (Jobert and Muller, 1987) – a common set of assumptions, frame of reference and appreciation of issues. The ‘advocacy coalition’ is a constellation of actors within a policy domain sharing values and interests and perceptions of problems and solutions (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). The debate has been prey to semantic arguments in which the definition of terms has become more important than the substantive questions (Dowding, 1995, 2001; Marsh and Smith, 2000). Yet we can discern two issues. The first is structural – the delineation of the policy sub-system and identification of actors and their relationships. The second is behavioural – actor strategy, the degree of cohesiveness or consensus and shared norms among actors. We propose to use the term ‘policy community’ to refer to the first, and treat the questions raised in the second as variables. Policy communities are normally presented as sectoral, although some have hinted that they may be territorial or trans-territorial (Rhodes and Marsh, 1992; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith,1999). Our aim is to examine the impact of spatial rescaling and we propose the concept ‘territorial