Critical Policy Studies

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Discourses of democracy in neighborhood

governance

Michael Farrelly & Helen Sullivan

To cite this article: Michael Farrelly & Helen Sullivan (2010) Discourses of
democracy in neighborhood governance, Critical Policy Studies, 4:3, 234-249, DOI:
10.1080/19460171.2010.508920

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Critical Policy Studies
Vol. 4, No. 3, October 2010, 234–249

Discourses of democracy in neighborhood governance

Michael Farrellya* and Helen Sullivanb
a
Cultural Political Economy Research Centre (CPERC), Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK;
b
School of Government and Society, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

This article is concerned with neighborhood governance reflecting a policy agenda

which identifies the ‘neighborhood’ as a significant space for democratic renewal. But
how is democracy understood and practiced? Many neighborhood policy programs
are sponsored by central or local government and public managers have an impor-
tant role in translating policy into local practice. Using a critical discourse analytic
framework we examine actual examples of public managers’ descriptions of their gover-
nance arrangements to elaborate their understandings and interpretations of democracy.
Examples are taken from interviews in neighborhood renewal schemes in Birmingham
and Copenhagen. Analysis suggests that in the cases examined here the democratic
devices associated with different ideal-types of neighborhood governance presented
both actual and potential dilemmas for public managers or became lost amongst other
more immediate concerns for each project. This suggests that the democratic element of
neighborhood governance may need even more clear conceptual work and more forceful
advocacy.
Keywords: discourse; urban renewal; democracy

Introduction
The neighborhood has emerged as an important component of contemporary multi-level
and multi-actor governance (Lowndes and Sullivan 2008) and evidence from Europe sug-
gests that the idea and practice of neighborhood governance are now firmly embedded in
public policy systems (Atkinson and Carmichael 2007). Neighborhoods represent several
distinct though linked policy aspirations: for urban revitalization, service improvement and
democratic renewal (Lepine et al. 2007). Their close proximity to citizens suggests a poten-
tial to generate new opportunities for citizens to participate directly in the co-production
of particular policy outcomes that matter to them through networks created by the state
for the purpose of improved system effectiveness or (less often) via citizen led networks
operating outside conventional political systems and structures (Newman 2005). Cornwall
(2004, p. 2) identifies the former as ‘invited spaces’ into which citizens enter at the behest
of the state and the latter as ‘popular spaces . . . arenas in which people come together at
their own instigation’. The neighborhood is, therefore, a site through which the changing
boundary between state and civil society, identified by Bevir and Rhodes (2003) as a key
characteristic of governance, can be explored.
Our interest is in exploring this changing boundary with particular reference to the
ideas and practices of democracy. Considerable attention has been focused on whether

*Corresponding author. Email: m.farrelly@lancaster.ac.uk

ISSN 1946-0171 print/ISSN 1946-018X online

© 2010 Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham
DOI: 10.1080/19460171.2010.508920
http://www.informaworld.com
 Critical Policy Studies 235

or not government sponsored neighborhood governance programs ‘work’, that is whether

they deliver desired outcomes (better health, employment, environment) more efficiently
and/or effectively (Smith et al. 2007). To date there has been limited academic atten-
tion to the democratic analysis of governance. Establishing whether and how democracy
plays a part in the way neighborhood governance is being constructed and enacted requires
theoretically-based but empirically-grounded democratic analysis. In this article we begin
by examining a typology of neighborhood governance arrangements to identify the var-
ious democratic traditions that underpin them (Lowndes and Sullivan 2008). As ‘ideal
types’ these formulations are not neatly reproducible in local contexts and this presents
a challenge for public managers required to make sense of neighborhood governance
locally. We propose using a framework taken from critical discourse analysis (CDA)
(Fairclough 2003, Farrelly 2010) to explore this process of sense making drawing on inter-
view data taken from our research council funded study of neighborhood renewal schemes
in Birmingham and Copenhagen. Situating each case in its broader country and policy
context we examine the interview statements of key public managers for evidence of how
democracy is represented in neighborhood governance policy and the actual and potential
dilemmas posed by these representations.

A typology of neighborhood governance institutions

Following Lowndes and Sullivan (2008) we define neighborhood governance as referring
to arrangements for ‘collective decision-making and/or public service delivery at the sub-
local level’ and make use of their typology of neighborhood governance based on four
‘ideal types’ (see Table 1). Both the definition and the use of ‘ideal types’ allow for con-
siderable variation in local design and practice. This flexibility is helpful in cross country
studies where local context, history and political culture will shape how neighborhood gov-
ernance is understood and manifest. At the same time the existence of ideal-types helps to
clarify the scope for, and dimensions of, choice in governing arrangements. The four ideal
types are discussed briefly below.
Neighborhood empowerment is based on a civic rationale for neighborhood gover-
nance which asserts that neighborhood units provide more opportunity for citizens to
participate directly and effectively in decisions. It draws on the work of political theorists

Table 1. Forms of neighbourhood governance: four ideal-types.

Neighbourhood Neighbourhood Neighbourhood Neighbourhood

empowerment partnership government management

Primary rationale Civic Social Political Economic

Key objectives Active citizens Citizen Responsive and More effective
and cohesive well-being and accountable local service
communities regeneration decision-making delivery
Democratic device Participatory Stakeholder Representative Market
democracy democracy democracy democracy
Citizen role Citizen: voice Partner: loyalty Elector: vote Consumer: choice
Leadership role Animateur, Broker, chair Councillor, Entrepreneur,
enabler mini-mayor director
Institutional forms Forums, Service board, Town councils, Contracts,
Co-production multi-actor area committees charters
partnership

Source: Lowndes and Sullivan (2008, p. 62).

236 M. Farrelly and H. Sullivan

such as Mill, Rousseau and Tocqueville to emphasize opportunities for direct citizen
involvement. The small size of neighborhood units and the fact that many public services
are consumed at the neighborhood level makes them more accessible and makes direct
communication more feasible. This provides a platform for empowerment, which aims to
increase the citizen ‘voice’ by developing forms of participatory democracy (Hirschman
1970). The key leadership role is to enable the public to participate and in specifically
working to involve traditionally marginalized or excluded groups.
The neighborhood may be more than the most appropriate space within which to
exercise ‘voice and choice’. It may also be a space within which members of the public
‘co-produce’ policy and services in and around existing political frameworks. This implies
a much more active role for the public, one which Bang and Sørenson (1999) characterize
as the ‘everyday maker’ – someone working for community well-being but doing so out-
side of established political constructions of citizenship and not confined by ideas that the
state may communicate about what it is to be ‘empowered’.
Neighborhood partnership expresses a social rationale for neighborhood governance
in which the neighborhood is the most appropriate arena for a citizen-focused approach
to governance. As G.D.H. Cole argued, the neighborhood is the place where the family
or household ‘touches’ the realm of governance: it is here that governance has mean-
ing for the citizen (cited in Sharpe 1970, p.164). In addition the neighborhood offers
the best prospect for ‘joining-up’ local action bringing together the key service providers
and decision-makers to pool resources, risks and rewards to achieve improvements in
community wellbeing.
Neighborhood partnerships express a form of stakeholder democracy but members
have different kinds of mandate and legitimacy – a source of strength and conflict (Hirst
1994, Lowndes and Sullivan 2004). Within a neighborhood partnership, the public is one of
the partners, linked to the governance process through a relationship of ‘loyalty’ in which
partners expect each other to conduct themselves reliably and honestly (Hirschman 1970).
The key leadership roles within a neighborhood partnership are those of broker who brings
partners together, and the chair who facilitates collective decision-making and arbitrates in
the absence of consensus.
Neighborhood government expresses the political rationale for neighborhood gover-
nance, aspiring to more responsive and accountable decision-making (Smith 1985, pp. 4–5,
Dahl and Tufte 1973, p. 15). Citizens can access neighborhood governance more easily and
are more knowledgeable about the issues at stake. Leaders at the neighborhood level are
more likely to be responsive to citizen views, and to have direct experience of the mat-
ters at hand. Finally citizens are better able to hold leaders to account because leaders’
deliberations and actions are more visible to citizens, as are the consequences of their
decision-making.
Neighborhood government is part of an attempt to restore trust in government.
It focuses on the representative role of councilors as local leaders. Neighborhood gov-
ernment seeks to enhance the representative role by establishing an ongoing dialogue with
their constituents, advocating for their community, and scrutinizing the work of the local
authority and other service providers on their behalf. The public have considerable experi-
ence and knowledge of the key issues in the neighborhood and so are able to make informed
inputs into policy-making. The public’s role is to act as informed electors with their key
resource being their vote.
Neighborhood management expresses an economic rationale for neighborhood gov-
ernance. It is based upon the proposition that it can make more efficient and effective use
of available resources as neighborhood units are better able to identify and limit waste in
 Critical Policy Studies 237

organizational processes, and they are also better able to identify diverse citizen needs and
provide appropriate services (Smith 1985, p. 4).
Neighborhood management expresses a kind of market democracy in which the citi-
zen as consumer is able to influence what services are provided and to whom. While most
neighborhoods are not able to take advantage of the operation of full market democracy,
in which consumers may choose to take their ‘business’ elsewhere the prospects for neigh-
borhood management have been enhanced by new technologies that allow for backroom
functions to be carried out at a central base and by externalization which can allow neigh-
borhood managers to commission services to suit local needs from providers who operate
on a much larger scale.
Each of the ideal types contains what Lowndes and Sullivan call a democratic device –
a pointer to the democratic tradition that informs each governance arrangement and shapes
expectations about institutional design and the roles of politicians, professionals and the
public (as we have illustrated in our summary). This is of interest to us as it suggests
a clear set of democratic principles and practices that should be evident to researchers
examining neighborhood governance in different contexts. However Lowndes and Sullivan
also acknowledge that neighborhood governance is more messy and multi-faceted than
the depiction of ‘ideal types’ would suggest and conclude that designers of neighborhood
governance schemes need to address questions about purposes, priorities and rationales
fully aware of the challenges that will arise and the trade-offs that will need to be made
in the process. How does this ‘messiness’ manifest itself in relation to understandings
of democracy and what challenges are presented to those responsible for implementing
neighborhood governance programs?
We explore these questions in the remainder of the article focusing on the role of public
managers as translators of neighborhood policy into local practice. To explore ‘messiness’
in understandings of democracy we focus on discourse and make use of a form of CDA.
The focus on discourse is appropriate as we see all institutions having a discursive aspect
through which actors communicate about and come to terms with the function and place
of that institution in the world. Consequently the potential scope for variation in insti-
tutions is necessarily both limited and enabled by the discourse(s) in operation in any
given spatial/temporal context. At the same time discourses are rarely hegemonic, ‘more
than one discourse is normally available in any particular setting’ (Dryzek 1996, p. 103)
from among the ‘prevailing constellation of discourses’ (Dryzek 1996, p. 104). Indeed
Fairclough (2003) suggests that it is in the interplay and (sometimes creative) combina-
tion of different discourses that a site of potential political struggle can be opened up or
closed down. We want to explore which discourses of democracy are understood by public
managers to be present in programs of neighborhood governance, how they correspond or
not to the ideal types outlined above and how public managers makes sense of them in the
context of local practice. Prior to undertaking this analysis we need to situate our public
managers and their neighborhood arrangements in their respective city, country and policy
contexts.

Contextualizing neighborhood governance

This article draws on research undertaken as part of research council funded study
into democracy and governance networks in Europe.1 Neighborhood regeneration was
selected as a policy focus because it is a longstanding issue of concern in Europe. Many
European countries have experience of national and European policy programs to pro-
mote neighborhood regeneration and there is a common discourse about the significance
238 M. Farrelly and H. Sullivan

of neighborhoods to successful governance and community well-being (Atkinson and

Carmichael 2007).
Birmingham and Copenhagen were selected as sites of study because in both cities
neighborhood regeneration was a significant policy issue attracting attention and resources.
In addition the size and power of each city made them important players in national policy
debates. However, both cities and countries have different governmental and democratic
traditions which influence how they make and deliver policy and how they understand
neighborhood governance. We describe these and the individual cases below.

England and Birmingham

Municipal government in the UK is subordinate to parliament and the central–local gov-
ernment relationship is heavily weighted in favor of the center. Consequently national
governments have not felt the need to invest much time and effort in understanding the
aspirations of local government, preferring instead to press ahead with major programs of
reform ‘driven by a combination of pragmatism and political ideology rarely informed by
a shared statement of purpose or agreed set of principles about local government’ (Sullivan
2003a, p. 40). The majoritarian political system combined with the hierarchical and cen-
tralized Whitehall administration sponsors an adversarial governance culture. Democratic
politics has traditionally been based on a form of representative democracy though over
the last decade that has been supplemented by a series of participative innovations. Far
reaching reforms of the governance of localities have reflected this uneven power relation-
ship with central government making use of governance networks (through often tightly
prescribed ‘partnership’ arrangements) to introduce new actors into public service design
and delivery (including citizens), destabilize the roles of local politicians and local profes-
sionals and offer local government a new role as ‘community leader’ or ‘enabler’ of local
governance (Sullivan 2007). However, as one of England’s biggest, most powerful and
most diverse cities, Birmingham is used to being a significant player in national politics
and policy notwithstanding the direction of much local government reform.
The strong English discourse of ‘partnership’ and other forms of ‘arms length’
government such as ‘quangos’ to support interactive policy-making has also influ-
enced policy developments towards neighborhood regeneration. The National Strategy
for Neighbourhood Renewal (DETR 2000) sponsored several major programs within
England’s most deprived neighborhoods. Each of these initiatives emphasized the signifi-
cance of the neighborhood as sources of shared identities and interests; some (a minority)
prioritized the role of citizens making decisions for themselves, while others (the majority)
highlighted the need to improve relations between the public, professionals and politicians
partly through new participative processes. Birmingham was actively engaged in all of
these policy programs. The city also had a longstanding interest in neighborhood regen-
eration and governance having experimented with a variety of different decentralization
and localization schemes since the 1980s as a way of making services more accessible
and responsive, engaging with citizens more directly and extending local democratic par-
ticipation (Sullivan 2002). These developments have intensified with the advent of new
constitutional arrangements for all local authorities which have centralized power into the
hands of an executive body of councilors. Like many other local authorities Birmingham
has sought to complement its system of representative democratic governance with more
participative innovations and neighborhood governance projects represent one example.
A key criticism of central government’s national strategy for neighborhood renewal
was that it neglected to pay enough attention to housing. Consequently a separate program,
 Critical Policy Studies 239

‘Housing market renewal’, was developed and funded and a number of ‘pathfinder’ projects
were established including one in Birmingham to regenerate neighborhood housing over
a 15 year period. ‘Urban Living’ operates across a number of local authority areas and
contains representatives from the local authorities, the Housing Corporation, English
Partnerships, Advantage West Midlands, Registered Social Landlords and the private
sector.
The Radnor Road Intervention Scheme in the Lozells neighborhood is the responsibil-
ity of a not-for-profit company called Midland Heart. Midland Heart is a registered social
landlord and this scheme is a new venture for the company into wider area regeneration.
Funding comes via Urban Living. The Radnor Road Scheme is led by Midland Heart with a
steering group consisting of members of Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police,
Urban Living and the Housing Corporation. The city council housing department has a key
role as it has to agree the proposed program to ensure that it fits within the strategic housing
framework for the city. Local oversight of the project is facilitated through existing neigh-
borhood governance arrangements in Lozells – a ward committee made up of the three city
councilors. The committee has no formal powers over the existence of the scheme or over
its content. The public are also engaged by Midland Heart through its market research and
public consultation activities that are aimed at identifying the wants of potential housing
customers and to provide plans to meet them. In the context of the model of ‘ideal-types’
this case is most closely linked to ‘market’ democracy, i.e. residents are considered as
actual or potential consumers of housing in the Radnor Road Scheme. However it also has
elements of stakeholder democracy, i.e. a range of actors sit on the schemes governing
body and guide its actions; and representative democracy, via the workings of the relevant
ward committee.

Denmark and Copenhagen

In Denmark’s unitary state municipal government enjoys constitutional protection and
powers of general competence. In addition the practice of fiscal redistribution and the
contribution of local income tax mean that municipal government manages significant
resources necessary to fulfill its role as the local welfare state providing universal services.
Since 1945 Danish municipalities have played a key role in local innovation and the deliv-
ery of national policy programs, providing infrastructure and social services and gathering
in new functions such as planning and environmental protection. Until 2002 most munic-
ipalities were relatively small (Rose and Ståhlberg 2005). Proportional representation and
the party list system mean that municipalities are used to engaging in power sharing and
coalition building.
Studies examining the impact of collaboration refer to the consensual and participa-
tory traits of Denmark’s democratic tradition engaging both private actors but also citizens
through organized civil society. For example Sørenson (2006, p. 106) refers to a ‘partici-
patory tradition that underlines the necessity of involving civil society actors in processes
of societal governance’. It has a long tradition of interaction between government and civil
society associations, and of consensus seeking in politics. Alongside elected politicians,
individuals engage indirectly in political activity through their membership of sports clubs,
trade unions, and other interest- and identity-based organizations, who are represented in
government advisory bodies. Sørenson’s (2006, p. 106) assessment of municipal reform
from the 1990s identifies it as ‘transforming sovereign rule to political and financial fram-
ing of self-governing networks, institutions and groups’ and requiring politicians to work
in new ways, something many were uncomfortable with. Others e.g. Rose and Ståhlberg
240 M. Farrelly and H. Sullivan

(2005) consider the reforms to be less transformative and more evolutionary in keeping
with country traditions.
Copenhagen is distinctly different from all other Danish municipalities both in terms
of its size, proximity to national government and in its population diversity. It is the only
city with a population over one million (in the greater-Copenhagen area). Its size attracts
the largest and richest employers, students choose to live there and commute to their
universities and also has the largest concentration of migrants from all over the world.
Policy-makers in Copenhagen are cognisant of its status as a youthful, cultural urban
metropolis but are also aware of Copenhagen having to try harder to maintain the demo-
cratic norms expected of Danish municipalities and their citizens, including the images of
‘association Denmark’ (Jørgensen 2002). Political actors in Copenhagen strive for ‘naar-
democracy’ where citizens can get to know their elected representatives in the way that
mayors of rural municipalities can meet their electorate in the supermarket. Copenhagen
has a distinctive system of relatively autonomous committees and administrations each
headed by a deputy mayor. These structures are not only separated by discipline – for
example education, public health, employment – but also political party. At the time of
the research, if a party secured seven or more councilors in the local election they were
permitted to nominate one councilor to be deputy mayor of one of six committees.
The combination of strong representative democracy operating in the context of civic
associationalism has shaped the design and operation of neighborhood regeneration in
Copenhagen. The continued primacy of elected politicians is evident in their leadership
of policy governance for neighborhood regeneration. However this is complemented by
the active participation of citizens in these governing networks.
The Kongens-Enghave neighborhood of Copenhagen has been part of a 10 year
national government part-funded neighborhood renewal scheme called ‘Kvarterloeft’.
Under the Kvarterloeft scheme, local municipal officials identified neighborhoods under
their authority and made bids for Kvarterloeft funding from the national government, fund-
ing which was to be matched by the local authority itself. The City of Copenhagen had
responsibility for the Kvarterloeft projects it was granted for areas within its boundaries;
and in Copenhagen each Kvarterloeft scheme had a neighborhood headquarters staffed by
civil servants from the city.
The Kongens-Enghave Kvarterloeft had a full-time secretariat employed by the city
government but seconded to the local scheme. There was also a steering group drawn from
local people and local institutions within the area and selected at an open public meeting
and a number of working groups with remits including young people, traffic, urban spaces
and cultural activities. Public meetings were held at which ideas for renewal projects in
the area were solicited and plans drawn up by the secretariat, steering group and working
groups. These were put before the city council for approval. As in the Birmingham case this
example contains a mixture of the components of the ‘ideal types’. The emphasis on citizen
engagement and empowerment through participation suggests ‘participatory democracy’
while the organization of the scheme on the ground references ‘stakeholder democracy’.
Less pronounced though vital given the dominant role of the local authority is the element
of ‘representative democracy’.
Given the possible range of democratic devices that might be employed in relation to
each of our example projects, how did public managers understand democracy in the con-
text of their neighborhood scheme and what actual and potential dilemmas were posed
to them in the process of implementation? To examine these issues we drew on four
extracts from our interviews with public managers selecting on the basis of their apparent
correspondence with one or other of the idea types.
 Critical Policy Studies 241

Our research was carried out between 2006 and 2008. Documentary analysis
(of English language documents) helped provide the formal policy context for the
neighborhood programs. Primary data was collected on field visits via semi-structured
face to face interviews. We conducted interviews with government, third sector, commu-
nity and business actors. Interviews followed a topic guide and were digitally recorded,
professionally transcribed, and then analyzed using NVivo.

Examining discourses of democracy using CDA

The framework for the analysis of interviews was drawn from CDA. We see the analysis
of discourse in this article as an aid to understanding the way project managers come to
terms with the concrete realities of neighborhood governance. As a theoretical and ana-
lytical category discourse occupies an intermediate position between language as a social
structure, and particular moments of speech or writing that form part of actual events; dis-
course in this approach is seen as an element of social practices. This is important because
as Fairclough (2003, p. 25) puts it:

social practices define particular ways of acting, and although actual events may more or
less diverge from these definitions and expectations (because they cut across different social
practices, and because they of the causal powers of social agents), they are still partly shaped
by them.

We see analysis of the interviews as a way of getting at the ‘reflexive self-representations

of the practice in question’ (see Fairclough 2003, p. 26), that is of neighborhood gover-
nance. Discourse, understood in this way, can be seen as the way in which at a societal
level we define the organization of neighborhoods, the ways in which people enact this
organization and the ways in which people reflexively self-represent the organization of
neighborhood governance schemes in which we are interested here. Aspects of discourse
can become conventionalized in social practices, and therefore, because they are conven-
tional ways of using language, their implications can become opaque. Through analysis
we seek to uncover some of the assumptions under which democracy is incorporated into
neighborhood governance.
We focus on the representational aspect of discourse (Fairclough 2003, p. 135) – the
way in which neighborhood governance is represented in extracts from interview data
with managers of neighborhood renewal schemes in Birmingham and Copenhagen and
contrast this with the ideal-types of neighborhood governance identified above. In look-
ing for discourses we follow Fairclough (2003, pp. 134–155) who suggests that a focus
on generalization over, and abstraction from, concrete events can be a fruitful point of
analysis and that (among other things) the presence or absence of forms of activity and
persons (or social actors) can be distinguished for analysis. Through analysis of the inter-
views we can begin to get at the ways in which the managers involved in our cases
have made sense of the messiness of their own experience of neighborhood governance
and of democracy through their accounts of concrete events with which they have been
involved. The extracts taken from these accounts and presented below were selected on
the basis of their apparent correspondence to our ideal-types of neighborhood governance.
In doing this we build upon and go beyond the observation that different ideal-types may be
combined and selectively implemented in practice and look to the particular tensions, con-
tradictions and dilemmas faced by public managers in neighborhoods where combinations
of these ideal-types appear to play a part in the development of neighborhood governance.
242 M. Farrelly and H. Sullivan

What is presented here, therefore, is not an exhaustive analysis of discourses found in these
interviews or in the wider research data set, but a representation of the messiness of neigh-
borhood governance in practice with specific reference to the manifestation of democratic
discourses and public managers’ attempts to make sense of them.

Neighborhood empowerment (Example 1)

The first example is taken from an interview with an urban renewal project manager in
Copenhagen. We include this extract as an example of an apparent correspondence to
the ‘empowerment’ ideal-type as it describes directly the project manager’s view that this
Kvarterloeft project contributed to the empowerment of the people of the area.

The result of the project and its empowerment as well. The people – I’m sure the people
who worked in the Kvarterloeft in some way or – or another was empowered because they
found out how the political system worked and it is possible to – to negotiate and it is possi-
ble to – to go to the central town house hall and it’s not that dangerous. So in some way or
another they were empowered and what I hope is that the – after the Kvarterloeft they will
still be active, and then it has something to do with democracy. And getting into the – the
process of – of democracy; they are able to do it because they are empowered. So it’s – that’s
really the most important thing. They can make it again and again if it’s for them good and
it was . . . And when the local active people, they came to us and said: we are very unhappy
about this and we want to make a demonstration. We want to go out in the streets with ban-
ners and say we – we’re very unsatisfied. And we said, okay. It’s fine with us but we haven’t
arranged it, you arrange this because we are part of – of the municipality and we can’t help
you with that. But we said it – it’s okay. And actually we said to each other, that’s fine. Now
it’s empowerment that it’s about the political struggle. But the people in the town hall, they
didn’t agree with us of course. They said you have managed this in a very bad way; you
should have said to the people at once when you started, don’t discuss traffic. (Copenhagen
interview 2)

The ideal-type would suggest, in very broad terms, that the persons that we might expect in
neighborhood empowerment-type schemes would include officials (in the role of enabling
local leaders) and citizens (in the roles of active citizens, everyday-makers working for
community well-being and traditionally marginalized or excluded groups). Drawing on
Newman (2005), the ideal-type suggests also that this configuration of persons may
challenge the authority and legitimacy of national and local governments.
In example 1 we were told that there are indeed Kvarterloeft staff in the role of enablers
as well as ‘local active people’ who appear to be working also for community well-being.
In addition to the role one might expect from the ideal-type citizens engaged in a direct
challenge to the municipal authority, and for the officials – the Kvarterloeft staff – this
challenge to the municipal authority presented a dilemma. Underlying the dilemma was
the dual role of the Kvarterloeft staff as both enablers and as municipal employees; the
dilemma was activated by the citizen challenge to the municipal authority and in the way
that citizens sought approval for this action from Kvarterloeft staff.
Municipal employees in the neighborhood offices were not in a position to resolve the
dilemma either by altering the institutional arrangements by which the enablers were also
municipal employees or to prevent the specific events through which citizens sought to
challenge the municipality. Instead our interviewee made sense of the dilemma by making
a discursive shift in the way they orientate the Kvarterloeft staff with respect to the munic-
ipality. The Kvarterloeft staff are first explicitly positioned as part of the municipality
and strictly delineated from the citizens: ‘you arrange this because we are part of – of
 Critical Policy Studies 243

the municipality and we can’t help you with that’. This is followed by a slight shift in
orientation in which as the Kvarterloeft staff are seen as being a distinct group amongst
themselves: ‘But we said it – it’s okay. And actually we said to each other, that’s fine.’ Then
a further distinction is drawn between this group of Kvarterloeft staff and another part of
the municipality in the town hall which disapproves of the challenge to the municipality:
‘But the people in the town hall, they didn’t agree with us of course. They said you have
managed this in a very bad way.’ This last distinction between ‘us’ (the Kvarterloeft staff)
and ‘they’ (the people in the town hall) draws upon, and corresponds with, the physical
separation of Kvarterloeft offices in Copenhagen, which were always in the neighborhoods
themselves, from the main municipal town hall offices. Our interviewee construed the sep-
aration as having greater significance than physical distance alone, suggesting that it is also
congruent with differences of attitude and interests. Rather than attempting to close-down
one or other side of the dilemma this discursive move appears to have allowed for a com-
promise position which left the Kvarterloeft staff open to the messiness of the institutional
setting and the events with which they were faced.
That the staff were able to come to terms with the dilemma in this way enabled our inter-
viewee to give an account of the activity-types which Kvarterloeft staff undertook which
appear both to have satisfied the citizens of the neighborhood and which, whilst attracting
a certain amount of disapproval from ‘the people in the town hall’, did not compromise
their institutional position within the municipality. Towards the citizens of the neighbor-
hood the example suggests that a verbal action was enough to encourage the citizens to
go ahead with their protest: ‘and we said, okay’. The verbal and material actions entailed
in making arrangements for the challenge to the municipality including making a ‘demon-
stration’, going out ‘with banners’ and saying ‘we’re very unsatisfied’ on the other hand
were explicitly left to the citizens themselves.
Close examination of the way citizens and their actions are represented in this exam-
ple suggests, however, two further potential (as far as we can see from our data) sources
of contradiction in this case. The first potential contradiction lies in the implicit absence
(or exclusion) of some neighborhood citizens from the empowering activities of the
Kvarterloeft project. This implicit exclusion is evident in the way the ‘empowered’ are
described: ‘The people – I’m sure the people who worked in the Kvarterloeft in some way
or – or another was empowered’ and as ‘local active people’. Those who did not, or could
not, work towards the Kvarterloeft goals or be active in the project are implicitly beyond
the scope of the project. In interviews with other Kvarterloeft staff we were told that those
who became involved in the projects tended to be older retired citizens with time enough
to devote to Kvarterloeft or younger parents whose children were at school. The latent con-
tradiction then is one in which this project could tend only to empower those who were
in a position to be empowered in this way; it could not address the wider socio-economic
conditions which might act as barriers to participation.
The second potential contradiction is evident in the representation of political activity
and of the activity-types. As we have seen, in the events recounted in this extract citi-
zens engage in direct protest against the municipal authority. The interviewee accepts this
protest as being an extension of their empowerment activities: ‘Now it’s empowerment that
it’s about the political struggle.’ On the other hand empowerment is linked to a number of
sets of political actions which appear as fixed entities – ‘the political system’, ‘the central
town house’, ‘the process of democracy’. They appear as fixed entities and it is for the cit-
izens to find ‘out how the political system works.’ In this discourse the political processes
are taken for granted and so ‘empowerment’ is not about challenging or transforming ‘the
political system’ to favor the disempowered, but about transforming the disempowered to
244 M. Farrelly and H. Sullivan

work within its demands. The contradiction is that citizens are empowered through being
helped to adapt themselves to the terms of the existing system.

Neighborhood partnership (Example 2)

The second example is taken from an interview with an urban renewal project manager
in Birmingham. This example broadly corresponds to ‘partnership’ ideal-type: it describes
directly the project manager’s view that this urban renewal project is run as a partnership.

In the original proposal document. So that proposal document – and we also recognised that
we couldn’t – a lot of the things we can’t do on our own so we need to work in partnership
with the housing corporation; with BCC and Urban Living. They’re the key three or four
organisations in the area. So we – so if we want to develop infill land opportunities, there’s a
lack of confidence in the area so you’re putting new houses, they won’t sell or you put them
for rent, it’s stopped again and you get the same problems. So you – sort of clearly prioritise
it for investment so that when we got a development, they see Radnor Road as a clear case for
intervention and they should support it and possibly even support it with different grant levels;
additional thinking really. So that anybody – if we just mention Radnor Road Intervention
area and they say well, that is a priority for us because we’ve signed up to an agreement on
that. So we’ve developed a prospectus and we submitted it to the housing corporation, Urban
Living and BCC and they’ve signed up to it and they are – you know, working in partnership
to support everything we’re doing there. So what we did was in – for the first year what we
decided to do was deliver a set of quick win programme – quick win projects, and then at
the same time master plan the area so that we’ve got a clear plan for what we’re going to do
over the year four to five or whatever time it takes. So in the first year we got a set of projects
which included community safety, target hardening project; a de-conversion programme to
de-convert the homes in multiple occupation back into big family accommodation. We’d done
a range of engagement exercises with local communities to determine what sort of demand
there is and what sort of end product, family; is there a demand for six bedroomed properties
and if it is, what’s the design requirements for that end property to meet the specific needs of
the people who we expect to move into that area – or likely to move into the area? So there
was a range of consultations have been carried out and workshops, and we’ve got plenty of
information on that I can provide you. (Birmingham Interview 1)

The partnership ideal-type suggests that the persons that we might expect in neighborhood
partnership-type schemes would include a range of stakeholders including key-service
providers, decision-makers professionals and the public as partners. In the ideal this is
seen as a citizen-focused approach to governance.
In example 2 we were told that the partnership for this manager is seen as ‘we’ (Midland
Heart), the ‘the partners’ (‘key three or four organisations in the area’), ‘the housing cor-
poration’, BCC (Birmingham City Council) and ‘Urban Living’. The local authority is
counted as one of the key organizations in the area and, as one might expect from our part-
nership ideal-type, they do not hold a privileged or overarching position; they are seen as
one organization on a par with others. However, the citizen group is not counted as a part-
ner but as distinct from the formal partner group. In this context the strategy of the renewal
program was ‘a de-conversion programme to de-convert the homes in multiple occupation
back into big family accommodation’ and to sell them. Funds from these sales would be
reinvested in further renovation. In order to achieve this, tenants had to be moved out of
the buildings and new buyers found for the renovated buildings. The overall strategy of
this scheme means that resident citizens cannot be seen as partners whilst at the same time
the overall model for neighborhood partnerships insists on citizens as partners. The man-
ager in this case makes sense of the dilemma first by excluding reference to citizens as
partners from the discursive representation of the scheme and second by referring instead
 Critical Policy Studies 245

to ‘engagement exercises with local communities’ and by framing these exercises not in
democratic terms but in terms of marketing: ‘to determine what sort of demand there is
and what sort of end product, family; is there a demand for six bedroomed properties and
if it is, what’s the design requirements for that end property to meet the specific needs of
the people who we expect to move into that area – or likely to move into the area?’.
The partnership ideal-type for neighborhood governance has been subsumed under a
wider market-orientated strategy to urban renewal. Rather than messiness, however, the
rather ‘clean’ resolution to the potential dilemma over the place of citizens for this manager
has been to hold a market and consumer focus rather than a citizen focus.

Neighborhood government (Example 3)

The third example is taken from an interview with a second urban renewal project man-
ager in the Kongens-Enghave neighborhood in Copenhagen. We include this extract as
an example of an apparent correspondence to the neighborhood ‘government’ ideal-type.
It describes an aborted attempt in which Copenhagen ‘started what we call local commit-
tees which is a – is an attempt to try to have some local political power to these districts’.
The ideal-type suggests that we might expect councilors in a leadership role and electors
in the citizen role.

Then we started – what was that, 2005 I think; I’m not quite sure. We started what we call
local committees which is a – is an attempt to try to have some local political power to these
districts, so we’re going to have 10 local committees divided over – over these 10 districts with
a relatively little amount of power. I mean there’s very little, I mean they cannot decide on local
administrative issues, they cannot – I mean they – they have a – the – the local council is – had
to consult them before taking major decisions affecting, but they – they don’t have any power
to actually influence these decisions; they cannot stop, they cannot – they can only protest and
so on and they cannot actually sort of stop major decisions or – or influence them directly.
So – so – but these local committees and then the process of people – not every district has its
own yet but it – it’s a – we are taking it one district at a time, actually trying to . . . It would
be local politicians and – and locally – not elected but appointed politicians and I think that
the – the way and the con- how you say; forgot the English word now. The – the way that power
is distributed in these is actually – it reflects the distribution of power in the city council so
that – that you would basically have that – that same power on these local committees so – but
it – it’s very – it’s – it’s relatively new. And each of these local committees, they have a – a
small local secretariat with a small local budget. But it’s only for a – so – so they – their work
has to be on a different level. Because they cannot decide, they cannot start new initiatives that
sort of directly affect the administration on the area. They are very much forced to working on
a networking basis actually; trying to involve other stakeholders in – in how to develop this –
this neighborhood, this – this local district. So that’s how we are organized at the moment.
(Copenhagen Interview 1)

The persons and groups referred to in the example are local committees, the local council
and within these are local secretariat and local politicians and later on in the extract to
stakeholders. In contrast to our ideal-type local committees are not made up of elected rep-
resentatives from that area, but of a new set of politicians. Contrary to our ideal-type too is
the role of citizens – they are excluded from the extract and are not given the role of elec-
tor – in this case the local committees are appointed not elected. In terms of activity-type
then, there is there is no representation in this extract of what the citizen role is. Our ideal
suggests responsive and accountable decision making as a key objective of neighborhood
government, yet there is no representation of social action in this extract that pertains
to either responsiveness or to accountability. Instead the social actions ascribed to local
246 M. Farrelly and H. Sullivan

committee members is that of networking with stakeholders. This networking action is

described negatively – they are ‘forced’ into this kind of action because they are denied the
kind of powers of decision-making needed to perform the actions of government.
The attempt at initiating neighborhood government described here was short-lived and
ultimately unsuccessful. Of the four examples this extract shows the greatest mismatch
between ideal-type and the way in which the neighborhood manager was able to make
sense of the failure.

Neighborhood management (Example 4)

For our fourth example we return to the interview with the urban renewal project manager
in Birmingham. This example has the least explicit apparent correspondence to the ideal-
type; it is included, however, because of its explicit discussion of efficiency, consumer
choice and organizing capacity of the Midland Heart organization for this urban renewal
scheme.

The whole consultation process, roles and responsibilities. What we’re going to do, where
we’re going to do it, when it’s going to do it and who’s going to do the whole thing, right?
For example, sales and marketing. They provide literature on products, availability in an area,
show the shared ownership, mortgage advisors present on both, they take contact details of
individuals requiring the product. Communication. We’re going to – where we’re going to
have the event. We’re going to have a video diary of the public consultation events on 10
May. Newsletters, consultation booklet, posters, promotional materials and T shirts, et cetera.
Regeneration work, where we’re going to hold these events, who’s – this is what – who’s going
to do what, yeah. Operation support, engaging with people, drawing people into the venues,
short, robust registration process and so on. Development, what they’re going to do; provide
the de-conversion plans and boards for both the women’s event and the general public event.
So when we do the consultation we’re going to show design layouts for the properties that are
going to be de-converted so not only just consulting but also as a selling – so linking it all in.
(Birmingham Interview 1)

The ideal-type for neighborhood management suggests that we should see the leadership
role cast in terms of the entrepreneur or director and the citizen role in terms of the con-
sumer. Midland Heart is indeed cast in the role of directing a whole operation: ‘The whole
consultation process, roles and responsibilities. What we’re going to do, where we’re going
to do it, when it’s going to do it and who’s going to do the whole thing, right?’ and a
part of this role is oriented towards entrepreneurship: ‘For example, sales and marketing.
They provide literature on products, availability in an area, show the shared ownership,
mortgage advisors present on both, they take contact details of individuals requiring the
product.’ Citizens are also seen as potential consumers of the ‘products’ that will be pro-
duced through the regeneration scheme: ‘So when we do the consultation we’re going to
show design layouts for the properties that are going to be de-converted so not only just
consulting but also as a selling – so linking it all in.’ They are seen as ‘individuals requiring
the product’. This ‘product’ requirement contrasts with other discourses in local gover-
nance which rest on services rather than products. This concurs with our ideal-type role as
citizens as consumers and democratic device of market democracy, but contrasts with our
proposition that a key objective in this discourse is better service delivery. The contradic-
tion here is that the citizens who are seen as consumers are not the ones who currently live
in the neighborhood: under this strategy the existing tenants are moved to other bedsits in
other neighborhoods. This contradiction is closed-down discursively by simply excluding
 Critical Policy Studies 247

these tenant-citizens from the representation of the scheme – they are absent from the
description of a market democracy with consumer choice as the citizen role.

Conclusion
The neighborhood has been identified as a significant space for democratic renewal; putting
this democratic renewal into practice, however, is not straightforward and common chal-
lenges and tensions emerge across country and city contexts. Our approach to analyzing
neighborhood governance in different contexts, combining assessment against ‘ideal types’
with CDA offers a theoretically grounded approach to cross country research that facilitates
comparison without losing contextual specificity.
In the brief presentation of our analysis of interviews with managers involved in urban
renewal schemes presented in this article we have suggested that in the democratic devices
associated with different ideal-types of neighborhood governance presented both actual
and potential dilemmas for public managers or became lost amongst other more imme-
diate concerns for each project. We have seen that the institutional position of scheme
managers, such as dual-roles, can give rise to dilemmas and that urban renewal schemes
can be couched in broader terms, such as those of housing market renewal, which also
shape the development of neighborhood governance in practice.
In example 1 we saw actual and potential contradictions around the enactment of partic-
ipatory democracy. Citizens wanted to step outside the forums and co-production envisaged
as part of the empowerment ideal-type; this, combined with the dual institutional position
of Kvarterloeft staff, gave rise to a dilemma albeit one that the staff appear to have success-
fully negotiated. We saw also potential contradictions: in empowerment being focused only
on those citizens already in a position in which they could engage in Kvarterloeft activities,
and in seeking to enable citizens to better work within the existing political system rather
than to alter the system to better work for the citizens.
In example 2 we saw that though there was a strong element of a neighborhood part-
nership discourse it was subsumed within a more powerful market orientated discourse and
strategy. This meant that in the representation of this scheme the stakeholder democratic
device did not include a representation of citizens as partners of the scheme; instead they
were cast as consumers.
Example 3 showed how in the explanation of an unsuccessful neighborhood govern-
ment scheme in Copenhagen the democratic device of representative democracy did not
figure at all. Citizens as voters did not appear as part of the manager’s reflection on this
scheme.
Finally, example 4 showed again how citizens were cast in the role of consumers in
the Birmingham case. Under the neighborhood management ideal-type the citizen role of
the consumer exercising choice is commensurate with the democratic device of market
democracy. However, in this case the emphasis for the consumer role was firmly on the
potential buyers of houses, who might well come from outside the neighborhood, the dis-
cursive representation de-emphasizes the role of those citizens who are currently residents
of the neighborhood, and tenants occupying the bedsits which are to be deconverted, but
who are not potential buyers.
In terms of the role of discourse in these examples the contrast between examples
1 and 4, that is the ideal-types which fit most with the schemes as implemented in the two
cities, is most revealing. In example 1 a discursive strategy of keeping both sides of the
dilemma open – by the Kvarterloeft staff finding a way of both approving the citizen action
whilst distancing themselves from it – appears to have enabled the democratic device of
248 M. Farrelly and H. Sullivan

participatory democracy to have developed into something beyond participation in forums.

In example 4 the discourse closes down the contradiction between citizen-consumer and
citizen-resident-tenant by emphasizing only the former.
The institutional setting and specific aims of a renewal scheme in these cases have been
sources of complexity and messiness. At the level of the neighborhood scheme manager
we have seen how this complexity and messiness can be met with discursive strategies of
either keeping both sides of the dilemma open, or by closing-down one or other side of the
dilemma. Perhaps the major challenges for neighborhood governance beyond individual
scheme managers suggested by our analysis is in conceiving of the citizen in a way which is
fully commensurate with the democratic device associated with neighborhood governance
ideal-types and in finding ways in which this democratic role and device can be enacted.
Meeting these challenges would require both discursive work in developing discourses that
adequately construe citizens in the democratic role and organizational and institutional
work in constructing governance conditions for the enactment of democratic devices.

Notes on contributors
Michael Farrelly is a researcher at the Cultural Political Economy Research Centre
(CPERC), Lancaster University. His academic work employs cultural political econ-
omy and critical discourse analysis approaches to research; he is currently working on
analysis of readings of the financial crisis, research priorities in the knowledge based bio-
economy and of the Green New Deal. Published work includes ‘Critical discourse analysis
in political studies: an illustrative analysis of the empowerment agenda’ in the journal
Politics 30 (2).
Helen Sullivan is Professor of Government and Society at the University of Birmingham.
Her research interests include: the evaluation of complex policy initiatives; collaboration
and partnerships; neighborhood and multi-level governance; and the changing roles and
relationships of politicians, professionals and the public in the context of local gover-
nance. She has published extensively in leading academic journals as well as co-authoring
a number of books. She is currently researching and writing a book on ‘collaborative
futures’.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Notes
1. This research was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under
research award RES-000-23-1295 ‘Democratic anchorage of governance networks in European
countries’.

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