EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

‘The End of the Beginning’? Taking Forward Local Democratic Renewal in the Post-Referendum North East

Keith Shaw and Fred Robinson
Additional contact information
Keith Shaw: School of Arts and Social Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK
Fred Robinson: St Chad's College, University of Durham, UK

Local Economy, 2007, vol. 22, issue 3, 243-260

Abstract: In a referendum in November 2004, the people of the North East decisively rejected the proposal to create a directly elected Regional Assembly. This result effectively put an end to proposals for Regional Assemblies elsewhere as plans for referenda in other regions were consequently abandoned. Drawing upon detailed interviews with a wide range of stakeholders in the North East, this article assesses why the North East voted ‘No’ and argues that, despite the subsequent emergence of the city-region as an alternative framework for governance, what is still needed is a serious commitment to democratic renewal. Democratic connections between citizens and the state, between the taxpayer and public services, need to be rebuilt. Only a reinvigorated democracy can begin to dispel the cynicism and alienation that characterises the contemporary political process — and which was a main factor behind the ‘No’ vote in the referendum. Given the failure of political devolution at the regional level, genuine democratic renewal must now be taken forward at the local level.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/02690940701584862 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:loceco:v:22:y:2007:i:3:p:243-260

DOI: 10.1080/02690940701584862

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Local Economy from London South Bank University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:22:y:2007:i:3:p:243-260