Regeneration redux? What (if anything) can we learn from New Labour?

Author(s):  
Ruth Lupton ◽  
Richard Crisp

The European Union referendum result in England focused increasing political attention on ‘left behind’ places sidelined in the ‘post-regeneration’ (Matthews and O'Brien, 2015) era of 2010 onwards. This shift creates space for thinking anew about reviving and reconfiguring regeneration policies to address enduring forms of place-based disadvantage. To this end, this chapter takes a close look at the ‘New’ Labour approach to urban regeneration from 1997 to 2010 and what can be learned from it. It offers a new conceptual analysis of how the New Labour years were characterised by a tension between ‘ameliorative’ and ‘transformative’ policy logics, with valuable ameliorative outcomes around improving neighbourhood conditions eventually reassessed as failure through the lens of transformative objectives around wholesale economic regeneration. The chapter concludes that these tensions and contestations need to be acknowledged and resolved in less binary and divisive ways than in recent policy history within any new round of regeneration policy.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhan McAndrew ◽  
Paula Surridge ◽  
Neema Begum

The UK vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 surprised and confounded academics and commentators alike. Existing accounts have focused on anti-immigration attitudes, anti-establishment sentiment and on the ‘left behind’, as well as on national identity. This paper expands the range of possible explanations for the vote by considering a wider range of identity measures, including class and racial identities, and by considering in detail the role played by connectedness to others and to localities. We find evidence that racial identity was particularly important for White British voters, extending our understanding of the relationship between territorial identities, ethnicity and attitudes towards the European Union. Connectedness via networks also structures attitudes, with those with higher levels of and more diverse connections having more favourable attitudes towards the EU. Whilst these effects are smaller than those of education and age, they are nonetheless comparable with those of class and income, and suggest that we should be wary of accounts of attitudes towards the EU that fail to locate voters within their social contexts.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hylke DIJKSTRA ◽  
Anniek DE RUIJTER

AbstractThe European Union is increasingly moving toward an integrated policy approach, which also acknowledges linkages between public health and (external) security policy. This introduction to the Special Issue sets out a research agenda on the emerging health-security nexus. It analyses recent policy developments with respect to the public health and security, and discusses interactions along the health-security nexus in the context of the European Union. It suggests drivers behind the integrated approach and it critically examines the health-security nexus from the perspective of effectiveness and legitimacy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-91
Author(s):  
Steve Corbett ◽  
Alan Walker

The narrow referendum decision for British exit from the European Union (Brexit), and its explosive political consequences, has become a lens through which decades-long tensions in European society can be viewed. The result, which was expected to be a clear Remain victory, has been interpreted as various combinations of: the unleashing of xenophobic and racist anti-immigrant sentiment; a kick back against disinterested elites by ‘left behind’ people; the fermenting of nationalist populism by political and media actors; a clash of cultural values; a rejection of ‘market is all’ globalisation in favour of national borders; or as a reaction against austerity, inequality and insecurity (Corbett, 2016; Goodwin and Heath, 2016; Hobolt, 2016; Inglehart and Norris, 2016; Kaufmann, 2016; Pettifor, 2016; Room, 2016; Seidler, 2018; Taylor-Gooby, 2017). This British-made shock has parallels in and consequences for wider European society. In the Referendum, the EU became an emblematic representation of the distrusted, remote, technocratic elites, who are said to be responsible for an unbelievably large number of societal ills. Meanwhile across Europe there are varieties of Eurosceptic populism and distrust of elites on both the right and left (Ivaldi et al., 2017).


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