Power and capacity in local climate governance: Comparing English and German municipalities

Politicians and media commentators hailed the Paris COP21 agreement in December 2015 as an ambitious (and necessary) step towards combating climate change. However, implementing the deal may be more difficult than reaching it in the first place. State and non-state actors at all levels will need to agree major policy and behavioural changes in order to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Centigrade, never mind the aspirational target of 1.5 degrees. At the same time, neoliberal and austerity reforms in Western democracies, together with the realisation that states cannot address ‘wicked’ issues effectively without support from societal actors, have meant that governments are less able to act hierarchically in policy-making arrangements. This is particularly the case in municipalities that have experienced economic decline and lost direct control over local services, developments that have weakened them significantly in recent decades. In other words, local councils may lack the power to implement the type of policies that are required to meet the objectives agreed in Paris. As a result, they need to seek out support from other actors – whether vertically (higher tiers of government), and/or horizontally (within their localities) in order to have the capacity to respond effectively. This paper, which is based on fieldwork research in the comparable 'twin towns' of Newcastle and Gelsenkirchen, compares how local authorities in these cities have worked with other actors to increase their capacity in climate policy-making. Drawing in particular on theories of resource dependency in intergovernmental relations (Rhodes 1981) and urban governance (Stone 1989), it introduces a new model for mapping vertical and horizontal power relationships at the subnational level. By applying this model to the empirical cases, it identifies how central-local relations in England are looser than those in Germany, and how this results in weaker municipal institutions. As a result, Newcastle has had to rely more on local stakeholders to achieve its objectives when compared to Gelsenkirchen, and it is also less able to exert hierarchical authority over other bodies. Such findings have significant implications for proponents of ‘localism’, since they suggest that greater independence for municipal governments could strengthen societal actors at the expense of the local state. This might result in policies reflecting the private (rather than the public) interest, thereby increasing concerns about democratic accountability. They also suggest that critics of the opaque and bureaucratic nature of ‘joint-decision’ systems should consider what the potential alternative might entail: a weaker state that has less capacity for co-ordinated action and is more reliant on private actors in policy-making processes.