ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews the development of regime theory and the theory of hegemony, compares and contrasts these approaches, and identifies their implications for the analysis of the state and society at the local level. It examines these theories by reference to the elaboration in recent years of urban policy networks and partnerships as part of restructuring of the local state, politics and civil society. The chapter investigates through a case study of regeneration policies in Birmingham since the early 1980s. The theory of hegemony derives from the humanistic reading of Marx and Engels undertaken by Gramsci during the 1920s and 1930s. Regime theory has been developed from within the liberal pluralist tradition of political science, in opposition to neo-classical economic models of local government, to provide a method for the analysis of political processes in US cities. Neo-Gramscian theory provides a cogent structural framework within which to locate the capitalist state, a framework that is largely missing from regime theory.