Governance and regulation in local environmental policy: the utility of a regime approach

In the study of environmental policy and sustainable urban development there has been an increasing emphasis upon notions of 'the local' as a key site of intervention. However, the rationale for this is rarely stated in policy terms and has barely been addressed from a theoretical perspective. In correcting what amounts to significant lacunae in the analysis of local environmental policy, we suggest that, in terms of both policy and discourse, 'the environment' is undergoing a process of governance rescaling within the state. Although this rescaling process can be understood as integral to the problem of social regulation in after-Fordism, it clearly also has important implications for the governance of local economies and the local form of environmental policy. Although the rescaling of environmental policy appears to be predominantly downwards (i.e. a process of localization),'the environment' has become a particular object of regulation and focus of struggle at a variety of spatial scales. In order to understand the uneven development of local environmental policy making and sustainable development, it is necessary to examine the immediate, local contexts of governance and social regulation. Drawing upon work in political economy, we suggest that a 'reconstructed urban regime theory' approach offers a means of conceptualizing the form of local environmental policy and economic governance; at the same time it can make the necessary connections to regulatory processes operating at a variety of spatial scales. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.