Briefing: Infrastructure business models, valuation and innovation for local delivery

The UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council have launched a £3·5 million, 4-year research programme to develop innovative business models for delivering infrastructure. Richard Dawson, Claire Walsh, Phil Purnell and Chris Rogers introduce infrastructure business models, valuation and innovation for local delivery (iBUILD). A growing population, extreme weather, decarbonisation, a proliferation of new technologies and their integration with ageing, existing systems are just some of the pressures on modern infrastructure. Unfortunately, the rate of investment in infrastructure has not kept up with the pace of change, and this is further complicated by fragmented, often reactive, regulation and governance arrangements. The UK Treasury Select Committee noted that existing infrastructure business models provide poor value (HM Treasury, 2011), but few alternatives are available; a point picked up by Infrastructure UK (Infrastructure UK, 2011) who called for research centres to be founded to address this. The iBUILD Centre will address this through development of a suite of alternative infrastructure business models, ranging from reforms to existing approaches to radical new models, each enabling more effective delivery of local infrastructures

Revisiting the 'Missing Middle' in English Sub-National Governance

In the light of the new Coalition Government’s proposed ‘rescaling’ of sub-national governance away from the regional level, it is an opportune time to re-consider the strength and weaknesses of the city or sub-regional approach to economic development and to search, once more, for the ‘missing middle’ in English Governance. In this context, the article initially assesses the case for city or sub regions as tiers of economic governance, before examining the lessons to be learnt from the experiences of the existing city regions in the North East of England. It argues that while contemporary plans to develop Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) can be usefully considered within the context of the emerging city regional developments under the previous Labour Governments, a number of important challenges remain, particularly in relation to ensuring accountable structures of governance, a range of appropriate functions, adequate funding, and comprehensive coverage across a variety of sub-regional contexts. While the proposals of the new Government create the necessary ‘space’ to develop sub-regional bodies and offer genuine opportunities for both city and county LEPs, the scale of the sub-regional challenge should not be underestimated, particularly given the context of economic recession and major reductions in the public sector

State, community and the negotiated construction of energy markets: Community energy policy in England

This article provides fresh insight on the political construction of markets through empirical analysis of community energy in the UK. It considers the diverse actors, understandings, processes and technologies enrolled in market creation, stabilisation and correction, while emphasising how negotiation, mediation and translation are pervasive throughout. Our starting point is an exploration of the role of the state in managing processes of socially embedding and disembedding markets, and how tensions between ideological commitments to deregulation and the social necessity of intervention are addressed by governing at a distance, in this example through the conveniently malleable notion of ‘community’. We draw attention in particular to the variegated manifestations of these processes and the plurality of actors and logics operating within the ‘black box’ of the state, as well as within and between markets and civil society. We reveal how negotiation between competing logics – the impulse to marketise and its diverse others – can be observed across different forms of organisation and action. We argue that such deliberations can be seen as fractal patterns throughout contemporary socioeconomic arrangements, emphasising how the Polanyian concept of the ‘double movement’ can be deepened through analysis of the heterogeneous associations and logics at work in ‘actually existing’ instituted action, understanding political processes as ontologically performative. Empirical material is drawn from across four research projects, each focusing on different aspects of the UK government's Community Energy Strategy, exploring the varying ways marketisation plays out through different governmental programmes

A place for integration : refugee experiences in two English cities

This paper seeks to inject an appreciation of place into analysis of refugee integration. A framework of integration sensitive to interactions between people and places is operationalised to facilitate the systematic comparison of the refugee integration process in different places. In particular, this paper explores variations in key indicators of integration within a cohort of refugees arriving into the UK from the same country of origin (Iraq), at the same time, granted the same legal status and afforded a similar package of support and assistance but settled in two cities in England (Hull and Sheffield). Variations in the integration experiences of refugees in the two cities are spotlighted and related to the contextual, compositional and collective aspects of the places into which they were settled. The findings highlight the importance of recognising that refugee integration is grounded and embodied in space and place and that despite proceeding under the same general operative processes can evolve in distinctive ways in different places

Reflections on migration, community, and place

This paper explores different conceptualisations of migration, community, and place as an introduction to a themed issue of this journal concerned with the contextualisation of migrants’ experiences across a range of nested scales. The purpose of this collection of papers is to draw out the spatial variability, contradictions, and ambiguities in migrant experiences and to explore conceptual frameworks for understanding the connections between migration, community, and place. The papers focus on local places of social encounter, particularly at the neighbourhood and city scale, but they also draw attention to the value of comparative research to tease out structural differences in opportunities, social context, and policy that underpin commonalities and differences in experience between localities

Patterns of democracy: Coalition governance and majoritarian modification in the United Kingdom, 2010–2015

The UK is often regarded as the archetype of Westminster democracy and as the empirical antithesis of the power-sharing coalitions of Western Europe. Yet, in recent years a different account has emerged that focuses on the subtler institutional dynamics which limit the executive. It is to this body of scholarship that this article responds, locating the recent chapter of coalition government within the wider context of the UK’s democratic evolution. To do so, the article draws Lijphart’s two-dimensional typology of democracies, developing a refined framework that enables systematic comparison over time. The article demonstrates that between over the course of the 2010-15 Parliament, the UK underwent another period of majoritarian modification, driven by factors including the long-term influence of the constitutional forces unleashed under Labour and the short-term impact of coalition management. The article makes several important contributions, salient in the UK and beyond. Theoretically, it offers a critical rejoinder to debates regarding the relationship between institutional design and democratic performance. Methodologically, it demonstrates that the tools of large-scale comparison can be effectively scaled-down to facilitate withincase analysis. Empirically, it provides a series of conclusions regarding the tenability of the UK’s extant democratic architecture under the weight of pressures to which it continues to be subject

Introduction: Transforming Security and Development in an Unequal World

Security is a contested concept, which means very different things to different people. It bears the heavy historical imprint of the existing state system and of global capitalism. However this IDS Bulletin contends that it is essential that the development community understands and engages with security issues, for violent conflict and insecurity can no longer be treated as exogenous shocks disturbing the smooth course of development; but rather they should be seen as intrinsic to development itself. In the twenty?first century, the dominant state?based narratives of security are no longer credible and need to be rethought, especially from the perspective of the poor, vulnerable and dispossessed. This article and this IDS Bulletin as a whole are an attempt to sketch out a multilevel framework for the governance of (in)security, taking human and citizen security as its starting point, and addressing the gender, class, ethnic, religious, etc. inequalities built into the dominant narratives of security

The (Potential) Impact of Brexit on UK SMEs: Regional Evidence and Public Policy Implications

This paper examines the potential impact of Brexit on UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Utilising a major longitudinal survey of UK SMEs, our analysis suggests that Brexit related concerns are escalating. Larger, export and import oriented SMEs are most concerned, as are those located in major urban and peripheral locations. Among SMEs with growth-related plans, many firms are scaling back on capital investment, innovation and (especially) exports. An appraisal of existing policy frameworks suggests that the devolved administrations seem better equipped to enact interventions in order to alleviate any negative effects arising from Brexit