The Genesis and Tensions of the English Regional Development Agencies: Class Relations and Scale

This paper argues that the origin of the recently founded Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in England should be theorized in terms of the class relations and tensions of economic regulation in Britain and the use of scale and rescaling to manage those tensions. The paper considers the class logic of neo-liberalism, which has been particularly strongly developed in Britain due to its long-standing liberal settlement, and the problems of socialization of production which neo-liberalism has produced. The class tensions and problems of socialization which first created, and then led to the decline of, centrally-redistributive regional policy are discussed. Analogous processes at the EU level are examined. A key precursor of the RDAs, local economic initiatives, is examined, and the spatial-class relations underlying them discussed. These arguments are then the basis for understanding the partial rescaling of regulation in England downwards from the national state and upwards from the local level, and also the shift from centrally to locally controlled regional policy. This analysis of origins of the RDAs then suggests a number of tensions in the project which will shape its future trajectory; due to these tensions the class relations of the new regional economic governance remain open.