Decentring Urban Governance Narratives, Resistance and Contestation

Decentring Urban Governance seeks to rethink governance not as a particular state formation, but as the diverse policies emerging associated with the impact of modernist social science on policy making, considering the diverse meanings that inspire governing practices across time, space, and policy sectors in urban context.Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book goes beyond neoliberalism, and is interested in other webs of meaning through which actors encounter, interpret, and evaluate social science, which have received less analytical attention. All these different webs of meaning – elite narratives, social science, and local traditions – influence patterns of action. The book creates an analytical space by which to consider situated agency and localised resistance to the discourses and policies of political elites, including the myriad ways in which local actors have resisted practices of governance on the ground.This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of urban governance, governance and more broadly to the social sciences, housing, social policy, law and welfare studies.

1.Decentring Urban Governance: Agency, Resistance, and Place [Mark Bevir, Kim McKee and Peter Matthews] 2.Foucault’s Duel: Constructed Narratives and Webs of Meaning in Anti-social Behaviour and Welfare Benefits Governance in the United Kingdom [John Flint] 3.Youth Unemployment, Interdependence and Power: Tensions and Resistance within an Alternative, "co-produced" Employment Programme [Richard Crisp and Ryan Powell] 4.Gender, Planning, and Epistemic Injustice [Yasminah Beebeejaun] 5.What Difference do Rights Make? Decentering the Governance of Children’s Outdoor Play in Scotland and Wales [Jenny Wood] 6.Racism Intergenerational Tensions and Community Governance in the Neighbourhood [Peter Matthews and Janice Astbury] 7.What Ever Happened to the Liverpool Model? Urban Cultural Policy in the Era after Urban Regeneration [Peter Campbell and Dave O’Brien] 8.Statutory Overcrowding Standards and England’s Crisis of Housing Space [Helen Carr] 9.Decentring House Building Law in England [Antonia Layard]

Mark Bevir is a Professor of Political Science, and the Director of the Center for British Studies, at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is the author of various books including The Making of British Socialism (2011), Governance: A Very Short Introduction (2012) and A Theory of Governance (2013).Kim McKee is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for Housing Research at the University of St Andrews, UK. She has published widely on the governance of low-income housing, with strong interests in the contested nature of contemporary governing practices.Peter Matthews is a Lecturer in Social Policy and leader of the Public Services and Governance research group within the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling, UK.