‘I think the reason why I am critical is because some scholars and practitioners are tempted to talk about networks is as if they are about including people from a variety of backgrounds in an open decision-making process. However, my research seems to suggest that they are much more top-down and authoritarian. Partnerships are really about trying to co-opt people in pursuit of an agenda that has already been set in government. If we are concerned about using partnerships as a vehicle for democratic inclusion, and not only as a means of increasing the efficiency of public services, then you have to start with an open agenda. You have to make sure that dialogue is organised in a way that brings out different conflicting perspectives rather than starting from the perspective that we all agree. I think you have to drop the pretence that partnerships are about consensus.’

Do you see any positive sides of partnerships at all?

‘I think that the stage I have got to with my research, is to actually look in much more depth at the way in which partnerships work and really test the ideas of deliberative democratic theorists. I want to look at the extent to which people from different parts of society are capable of leaving their baggage at the door so to speak, having an equitable debate, and arriving at consensual decisions around issues that are not predetermined. Basically, that is about looking at the micro dynamics of power in governing networks and particularly at the relationship between state and civil society groups in partnerships. My conjecture is that it is very difficult to have an equitable partnership and therefore that disadvantaged groups may be better off staying outside partnerships and adopting different strategies to try and get a political voice. I really want to look at that proposition in more depth.’

In his work, Jonathan Davies talks about the fact that public managers and community activists both interpret partnership in very different ways. While studying strategic partnerships in the United Kingdom he discovered that whereas community activists were mainly focused on democratic inclusion, public managers were primarily concerned about coordination and delivery.

Some people will say that involving the community only delays plans and makes it difficult to reach change, as local communities can be ill- informed or emotional about plans. What would you comment on that?

‘I think that is one of the dilemmas. It is one of the things I think partnership and network type governance tries to overcome. Public managers, public officials and people who work in the public sector or in government, are under a great deal of pressure to deliver. This is probably true across the world and not just in the UK. However, if you are concerned with efficiency, rapid delivery and with getting things done, that is not really compatible with bringing people in and allowing them to have a voice, which might say: ‘well we do not really want this done in this way.’ The message is, if you want participation, it slows things down. That is unless you select people carefully whom you know support your agenda. However, in that case it is not democratic and does not really serve an inclusionary purpose.’

So that is basically your greatest concern? That it is not democratic?

‘My concern is that if you are in favour of democratisation you have to be less worried about the speed at which things happen. If your greatest concern is efficiency then inevitably you are going to have to downplay democracy. That is just the way the world works. And what partnerships are charged with doing of course is having to balance the two. My thesis is that efficiency is winning out over democracy.’

What is your explanation for left-wing interest in partnerships?

‘The question really comes down to whether you see governments such as New Labour as being on the left or being on the right, which is a different debate really. I see New Labour sitting in the neoliberal camp. However, it is more complicated than that.

After the 1980s, the period Mrs Thatcher was prime minister, the left in the UK was very demoralised. I think people therefore have tended to see partnership as representing a step forward after the marginalisation of working class communities in the 1980s. Even if people see partnerships as being flawed organisations, flawed ways of working and inherently kind of problematic they still say: “well at least we are given a voice here.” I think that certainly on the centre-left there has been a willingness to put faith in partnership and network-style working exactly because of the experience of defeat in the 1980s.

What explains your great belief in so-called ‘exit strategies’? Can you give some successful local examples?

You do get occasional examples of local-based movements. I do however think that it is probably true to say that there is not a lot of evidence of this in the UK. There is much more evidence in other countries. However, there have been significant protest movements in the UK over the last fifteen, twenty years. The poll-tax movement in 1989-1990 was essentially a local movement that rose up onto the national stage, because it was organised on housing estates, by tenants and residents groups. So that really was a local movement, but it gained national prominence. The Stop the War Coalition is slightly different and that was certainly not a local movement, but again, all these are inevitably mobilised locally. There are also organisations like the Citizen Organising Foundation, which has been very critical of strategic partnership-working and so they called ‘networking’ ‘not working’. The East-London community organisation (TELCO) was involved in securing a significant pay-rise for cleaners working in Canary Wharf and they did that in alliance with the Transport and General Workers Union. I think that Council housing is another example of where local campaigns have stopped the outsourcing of public housing stock. The Defend Council Housing campaign is probably the most prominent one that is around at the moment and it operates in many different cities.

Earlier you said that if you are concerned about using partnerships as a vehicle for democratic inclusion, and not only as a means of increasing the efficiency of public services, then you have to start involving people with an open agenda and you have to make sure that dialogue is organised in a way that brings out different conflicting perspectives rather than starting from the perspective that we all agree. Do you see this happening in the UK or abroad?

‘I would not want to say that it does not ever happen. But I think there is a problem. Central government invests a lot of time, effort and resources in partnerships. Let’s just look at the example of the New Deal for Communities which is a flagship New Labour regeneration programme. I think that what happened with those is that in the late 1990s they were set up with the idea that they would be community led. Communities have had numerical majorities on the boards of these partnership organisations, so called New Deal for Communities Partnership Boards. The consequence of that was that as soon as you get a group of people who have different interests sitting around a table, then it ends up in an almighty squabble. So, as soon as the government saw what was happening, that these partnerships were getting involved in conflicts and were unable to decide what their strategic priorities were because everybody had a different perspective, they quickly clamped down on them and started imposing rigorous performance management and audit.

Now you can argue this from the point of view of the government. They invested money so they want to make sure that it is spent wisely. And of course you can make an argument in defence of the government doing that. But the problem is, that if you really want partnerships to be representative, open and expressive of the community voice, you cannot do that. So my advice would be: you have to trust, you have to be willing to put in the resources without necessarily knowing what the consequences are going to be. You should allow people to have an open and very robust dialogue and accept that perhaps they will not always necessarily reach an agreement.

I think what I am saying is that you have to decide whether you want partnerships to be about democracy or about efficiency. It is very difficult to have both. And if your priority is democracy then you have to be willing to accept dysfunctional decision-making, you have to be prepared to accept conflict and you have to be prepared to accept that things will happen more slowly. My overall perspective is that I want to see disadvantaged group have more of a voice in society and I want them to have more of a say over what policy ought to be People should not just be involved in delivering someone else’s policy. At the same time I do recognise there is a dilemma there. I just think that one has to be clear about when one stands on it. It maybe unfashionable to say it, but the evidence is that New Labour style partnerships are often bad for democratic empowerment.