Communities, places and institutional relations: assessing the role of area-based community representation in local governance

The New Labour government has highlighted the democratic reform of local go vernance as one of its key priorities. Old fashioned systems of representat ive democracy and bureaucratic-technocratic decision-making and policy impl ementation are, it is proposed, to be superseded by more participative mech anisms of community consultation and involvement in which citizens are enco uraged to take a more active, rather than passive, role in local politics. Local authority-community relations and the institutional mechanisms in and through which consultation takes place have become the subject of this ref orm. This paper, drawing on a study of community-local authority relations in two Labour-led Scottish local authorities, examines the complexities, pr oblems and opportunities of enhancing community participation. It suggests that too little attention has been given to place-space tensions at the loc al level and that arguments for the breaking-open of democratic processes r aise critical issues over the scales, systems and structures of local autho rity decision-making processes and accountability. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.