ABSTRACT
Urban regime theory has become the dominant theory for the study of local politics. This chapter provides a critical introduction to the core concepts in regime theory based on the works of Stephen Elkin and Clarence Stone, who authored the classic texts of regime theory on Dallas and Atlanta. It discusses two common criticisms: that it pre-supposes regimes and that it is 'localistic'. The chapter examines the abstract conditions for regime formation. It explores the empirical conditions in which regime politics are produced. The chapter reviews the processes involved in regime politics. It evaluates the empirical scope of regime theory; and considers its explanatory limits. Regime theory is a development of the critical pluralist 'community power' tradition of the 1950s and 1960s, belonging broadly in the neo-pluralist tradition. Stone's key contribution to regime theory is his conceptualisation of power as social production, which derives from his conceptualisations of systemic and pre-emptive power.
