1. ^aDepartment of Education and Social Science, University of Central Lancashire, Livesey House 107, Preston PR1 2HE, UK. E-mail: scmeredith@uclan.ac.uk
2. ^bDepartment of Town Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. E-mail: p.catney@sheffield.ac.uk

Abstract

The recent arrival of interpretive approaches in political science, particularly in the area of political ideologies and public administration, has asserted the importance of understanding the role of 'dilemmas' and 'traditions' in shaping the nature of contemporary political ideas and movements. This paper explores the diverse historical roots of New Labour's approach to decentralisation within the British state. In particular, it locates modern debates and dilemmas over the redistribution of power in the state within long-standing and frequent debates of social democracy between centralisation and decentralised, participatory forms of 'political' community. The paper argues that New Labour's approach to sub-national governance needs to be understood through an exploration of the ideas of associative democracy that have a genealogy in the debates of social democrats about the structural organisation of the British state.