LOCAL GOVERNANCE, THE CRISES OF FORDISM AND THE CHANGING GEOGRAPHIES OF REGULATION

During the last fifteen years the local government system in Britain h as been transformed into one of local governance in which a multitude of unelected agencies (public, private and voluntary) have become invo lved in attempting to influence the fortunes of local areas. In this p aper, we locate the roots of this shift in the crisis of the Fordist m ode of regulation and political responses to it, suggest that a rework ed regulation theory can provide a useful perspective from which to in terpret current changes and outline the research framework that such a perspective involves. Although a key role for local government in For dist processes of regulation may be identified, it is doubtful that ne w forms of local governance are contributing to the emergence of stabl e regulation in the 1990s. One reason for this is the geographical dif ferentiation of contemporary regulatory processes.