This article
In this issue
- The employment of graduates within small and medium sized firms in England
by Trevor Hart and Paul Barratt - Learning lessons from stock transfer: the challenges in delivering second stage transfer in Glasgow
by Kim McKee - Ecolocalisation as an urban strategy in the context of resource constraint and climate change - a (dangerous) new protectionism?
by Peter North - A New Deal for Political Space: what effect could space have on attitudes to the New Deal for Communities?
by Deirdre Duffy - How low should you go? Neighbourhood level interventions in the crime and community safety theme of New Deal for Communities
by Sarah Pearson - Continuity or Change: considering the policy implications of a Conservative government
by Richard Crisp, Rob Macmillan, David Robinson and Peter Wells
A New Deal for Political Space: what effect could space have on attitudes to the New Deal for Communities?
Summary
The dynamics of engagement, particularly at a local level, have been a key concern of New Labour’s political discourse. Drawing on theoretical models such as social capital and social cohesion, the government has invested both time and capital into increasing ‘active citizenship’, particularly in economically deprived and socially marginalised areas. The flagship of this policy approach has been the New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme. This ten year initiative, which led to the formation of local partnership boards in 39 of the most deprived areas in Britain, has been the subject of much analysis both by practitioners and academics and a wealth of data has been gathered regarding the social, economic and political characteristics of the NDCs. However, conspicuous by its absence from NDC evaluations has been the ‘geographic’ issues of space and scale and the impact ‘the politics of scale’ may have on the NDC programme. For this reason, this article aims to explore the potential applications of these geographic debates within NDC research and to critique NDC through the lens of the politics of scale.
