THE RISK OF AUSTERITY CO-PRODUCTION IN CITY-REGIONAL GOVERNANCE IN ENGLAND

摘要

This article examines the risk of what we term 'austerity co-production', a weak form of collaborative governance shaped by resource scarcity and fragmented, multiple forms of expertise. Despite the hope that co-production has radical potential to solve governance challenges across city-regions, not enough attention has been paid to the institutional contexts in which co-production is developed. We argue this institutional context is crucial in shaping how co-production comes to ground and the conditions it reproduces. We draw on a critical case study of metropolitan policymaking in Greater Manchester, England, to examine the gap between imagined and actual institutional contexts for co-production. We develop a framework that can be applied in different policy areas to assess the potential implementation of co-production in city-regional governance. Whilst the promise of co-production remains, we conclude that austerity co-production risks operating as an already-existing default solution to urban problems that constrains more innovative approaches to the governance and politics of the city-region.