Intra‐organizational Politics in Local Authorities: Towards a New Approach

Much of the recent literature on local government has emphasized the impact of non‐local factors on local authority decision‐making. This article argues that the administrative processes, power structures and conflicts of interest inside local authorities can often affect policy processes by mediating external influences and providing an internal dynamic of their own. We suggest that most of the current literature concentrates too narrowly on officer‐councillor relationships and invariably emphasizes the total dominance of an officer‐councillor elite. Our new approach identifies six possible arenas of policy influence within local authorities (of which the officer‐councillor elite is just one) and emphasizes the dynamics of intra‐organizational politics inside local authorities.