ABSTRACT
We have tried in this book to examine the processes and outcomes of local partnerships to combat poverty and social exclusion as specific new forms of governance, or problem-managing devices, and/or policy discourse. In so doing, we have tried to avoid several pitfalls in dealing with partnership: first and foremost, to avoid normative and naive visions, sometimes heavily embedded in various documents from the European Commission; second, to avoid thinking about local partnership in isolation from its wider political and economic context, and by contrast to situate local partnership within national and European frameworks, to better identify opportunities and constraints; and third, to avoid a deterministic view. Although it may be only a temporary respite, European welfare states have mostly not yet been reshaped solely to fulfil the needs of national competitive economic regimes. There are dangers, risks, possibilities of this becoming true, but we are reluctant to consider this trend as pre-determined. We therefore see the situation as one in which there is scope for a variety of actors to have some influence on the course of events.
