Geographies of governance: TECs and the neo‐liberalisation of ‘local interests’

Abstract The paper explores patterns and processes of local economic governance as they have emerged under the Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) regime in the UK. Case studies of two TECs are presented to highlight the differing ways in which these ostensibly business‐led organisations have evolved within a purposive national regulatory framework. It is argued that TECs must be understood as creatures of central government localism: they strongly bear the imprint of the national rule system in which they are embedded, yet they also exhibit distinctive forms of local institutional socialisation. In this sense, TECs are neither straightforwardly ‘top‐down’ nor ‘bottom‐up’ institutions, but are complex creations of an interplay between national regulation and local governance. They have been active agents in the neo‐liberalisation of local political relations, in decisive yet uneven ways. Some implications for the conceptualisation of such forms of orchestrated local governance are drawn out.