Property, politics and the neo-liberal revolution in urban Scotland

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-9006(00)00011-8Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper is written in the context of current debates about the extent to which business coalitions are shaping the political agendas of the contemporary city. With a growing critique of the use of North American frameworks as a basis for the interpretation of business politics in the British city, we make a contribution towards the development of a more theoretically informed account of capital's involvement in local politics in Britain. Our research design takes analysis beyond the confines of what we term a ‘state-centred perspective’ insofar as we focus on the political behaviour of one key fraction of capital, property, in a range of urban areas in one political system, Scotland. Through the first survey to be conducted in Scotland of the political activities of property agents, the paper draws out conclusions about the extent to which new forms of neo-liberal urban governance are serving to construct an environment within which contemporary property politics are being played out. Our results point to a politically engaged fraction of capital but one which is largely oblivious to the changes in governance taking place around them. In an effort to further understanding property politics, we conclude that more attention needs to be given to capital and its trajectories. In calling for an epistemological shift towards a capital-centred perspective, we conclude that an understanding of property politics might profitably draw upon both a rehabilitated version of neo-Marxist frameworks and more recent institutional perspectives.

Section snippets

Business politics in the city

According to Offe (1985), the business community in capitalist societies is not subjected to the same imperative to organise itself as a political force as other sections of the community, particularly say, labour. In his reading, this is due to the intrinsically powerful position which capital possesses in such societies, giving it unique access to the state. With globalisation, this power has clearly increased. The ever present threat, that capital operates with a heightened degree of

State/property interfaces and changing trajectories of urban governance in Scotland

In the previous chapter, it was argued that the way in which the British economy has been governed these past two decades has undergone transformation, as the rise to prominence of neo-liberal agendas has sought to transform the dominant mode of regulation based upon Keynesian demand management and the principle of the welfare state. We have noted that the question of the extent to which emerging new structures and strategies have served to steer the British state into new relationships with

Research design: identifying and surveying property mobilising agents

Having identified the context within which this study is placed—the shift in the forms of local governance in Britain in general and Scotland specifically—here we turn to consider the survey which forms the backbone of the remainder of the paper. Given that this survey represents the first major effort to reveal patterns of property politics in urban Scotland, we develop and justify the research design employed at some length. We start with an outline of the key group of property players that

Property politics in Scotland

In this chapter, we aim to provide a broad overview of the main results produced through our survey of property mobilising agents in urban Scotland. Our focus is confined, therefore, to the 108 companies who completed the questionnaire. It is worthwhile at this stage, restating the four major aims of the survey outlined in the first chapter. These were:

  • to assess the degree to which property mobilising agents are politically active in Scotland, gauging the importance of local level activity in

Moving beyond state-centred perspectives

The research design adopted in this paper marks out an important new direction in the study of business politics in the city. By choosing to focus on one fraction of capital and the political activities of this fraction across a range of different cities within one political system, we have moved beyond existing work that has tended to be state-centred. The patterns of property politics we have revealed can best be characterised as anachronistic, not only in the issues which are pursued, but

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial assistance received from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Glasgow City Council and the University of Strathclyde Research and Development Fund in the undertaking of the research on which this paper is based. The authors are grateful to Nicole Cook for her assistance in conducting the survey and in the analysis of the responses from the property mobilising agents.

References (58)

  • EKOS (1998) Strategy for the provision of property for inward investment. Edinburgh,...
  • Fothergill, S., Monk, S. and Perry, M. (1987) Property and industrial development. London,...
  • Gallimore, P., Williams, W. and Woodward, D. (1997) Perceptions of risk in the Private Finance Initiative. Journal of...
  • A Harding

    The rise of growth coalitions, UK-style?

    Environment and Planning C, Government and Planning

    (1991)
  • A Harding

    Urban regimes and growth machines: towards a cross-national research agenda

    Urban Affairs Quarterly

    (1994)
  • D Harvey

    The Limits to Capital Oxford

    (1982)
  • D Harvey

    The Urbanisation of Capital

    (1985)
  • D Harvey

    The Condition of Postmodernity

    (1989)
  • K Hayton

    Scottish Enterprise: a challenge to local land us planning?

    Town Planning Review

    (1992)
  • P Healey et al.

    Structure and agency in land and property development processes: some ideas for research

    Urban Studies

    (1990)
  • R Imrie et al.

    Business organisations, local dependence and the politics of urban renewal in Britain

    Urban Studies

    (1995)
  • D Isaac

    Property Development: appraisal and Finance

    (1996)
  • B Jessop

    State theory: putting the capitalist state in its place

    (1990)
  • B Jessop

    The regulation approach, governance and post-Fordism: alternative perspectives on economic and political change?

    Economy and Society

    (1995)
  • A Jonas

    Urban growth coalitions and urban development policy: postwar growth and the politics of annexation in metropolitan Columbus

    Urban Geography

    (1991)
  • A Jonas

    In search of order: traditional business reformism and the crisis of neoliberalism in Massachusetts

    Transaction of the Institute of British Geographers

    (1996)
  • A Jonas et al.

    The growth machine concept: twenty years on

    (1999)
  • R King

    Capital switching and the role of ground rent: 1

    Theoretical problems, Environment and Planning A

    (1989)
  • E van der Krabben et al.

    A theoretical framework for the functioning of the Dutch property market

    Urban Studies

    (1993)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text