What Future for Local Democracy?

Abstract

The apparent decline in local democratic practices and the concurrent demise of its primary institutional location — local government — have been recurrent themes throughout this book. The preceding chapters have emphasised factors such as a reducing functional and financial base for elected local government; a Whitehall and Westminster culture that derides all things local; a disaffected and passive citizenship who only participate in local affairs as economic actors; a disillusioned and demoralised workforce that is increasingly self-interested; and an emerging structure of local governance that is fragmented and dispersed, and which is becoming progressively more distanced from the traditional mechanisms of local democracy. But at the same time these chapters have held out some hope for local democracy. They offer remedies and prescriptions for the disease to which they bear witness and make recommendations on how both local democracy in general, and local government in particular, can be resuscitated to form a solid foundation for a vibrant UK democracy beyond the year 2000.