Urban Regimes: Experiments and Institutional Innovation

This chapter considers the ways that urban regimes develop and the part that trade unions may play in such processes. With a focus on Bristol in the United Kingdom, the authors employ a theoretically informed historical analysis of the city's urban regime from its medieval trade origins to its current partnership and networked governance configuration. They examine the different organisational and institutional experimentations that took place during the different phases that make up this history. In particular, they identify how the shift from manufacturing to services followed by the emergence of high technology industries ultimately undermined the role of trade unions in the region. As part of this process, the unions failed to engage with the new organisational experimentations promoted by a range of social actors within the city as well as outside interests, including central government. The authors explore how the different social groupings leading each of these phases of development exerted power and influence over the urban political context and how trade unions reacted to these changes. They identify four steps to analyse how urban regimes evolve, experiment, and innovate at the local and regional levels.