Explicitly permissive? Understanding actor interrelationships in the governance of economic development: The experience of England’s Local Enterprise Partnerships

Local Enterprise Partnerships in England were intended as organic entities in which coalitions of local actors, led by business interests, would determine locally relevant policy for self-defined spatial units. Informed by ideas around localism and the desire to extend sub-national economic development policy making beyond the local state, central government envisaged an increased unevenness in local governance arrangements and policy approaches. The article assesses the experiences of four Local Enterprise Partnerships, employing social network analysis in an attempt to systematise the comparison of actor relationships and urban governance arrangements. The article considers the degree to which the discursive emphasis on liberating local policy actors from central government control has any empirical basis in the variable shape and structure of local elite actor networks. It argues that although Local Enterprise Partnerships operate within an environment characterised by lighter touch regulation, there is a dissonance between local discretion and the political imperative for central government to exercise oversight. Equally, variability in the web of actor interactions across the sample of Local Enterprise Partnerships suggests that asymmetrical urban governance and competitive localism are intrinsic features of post-regional local economic development, reflecting a wider national framework for spatial policy in which diversity in sub-national institutional form is viewed as a source of policy innovation and dynamism.