Local Governance

Abstract

By the late 1990s, much of the national conflict over local politics had receded. With less disagreement between the main parties over local government issues, the high drama of the 1980s, which reached its apotheosis in the poll tax episode, was succeeded by a more humdrum political environment. Local politics seemed to be returning to a quieter era before Margaret Thatcher made the subject interesting for activist and academic alike. Perhaps the new prosaic politics shows how unusual the period of the 1980s was, and that the attempted restructuring of local government by radical Conservative administrations had not in fact dug deep into local political structures. Once the reforming zeal launched by Thatcher had dissipated, so traditional forms of local party politics and professional service administration, with a few nods in the direction of the language of customer care and partnership, continued as before. But the high politics of the 1980s disguised a more profound transformation in British politics, and in local politics in particular. Many of the grand initiatives launched by the Thatcher administration have been gradually extended, and local government has been transformed from being the dominant legitimate local public institution to just being one body which participates in a more complex framework of governing.