Whose Authority?: The Neo-liberal Attack on Local Government and Local Democracy

by Michael Lavalette

This book looks at the neo-liberal assault on local government and local democracy. The author makes two main arguments. First, that the neo-liberal mantra of privatisation, marketisation and the small state have led to a significant dilution of local service provision to the detriment of some of the poorest and most vulnerable communities in Britain. The shrinking of the local state has also reduced the role of local councillors and undermined their position as democratic representatives of their communities. The local state increasingly looks like an example of what the philosopher Sami Amin calls shallow democracy, a system that has a democratic veneer but one where real processes of democratisation and accountability are marginalised and real power and authority rests with unelected professional officers and representatives of local business interests. Lavalette ends by issuing a rallying cry for greater local democracy, greater accountability to local communities and, drawing on historical exa

180 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 2012