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Professor Jonathan Davies

Job: Professor of Critical Policy Studies

Faculty: Business and Law

School/department: Leicester Castle Business School

Research group(s): Local Governance Research Unit

Address: The Gateway, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, LE1 9BH

T: +44 (0)116 257 7818

E: jsdavies@dmu.ac.uk

W: http://ssrn.com/author=1643345

 

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Personal profile

Jonathan S. Davies is founding Director of the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity and Professor of Critical Policy Studies. He worked at the University of Warwick from 2001-2011, previously completing his DPhil at the University of York.  His first monograph Partnerships and regimes: the politics of urban regeneration in the UK was published by Ashgate in 2001. His second, Challenging Governance Theory: from Networks to Hegemony was published by The Policy Press in September 2011. Jonathan publishes in leading journals including the Journal of Urban Affairs, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environment and Planning A, Urban Studies, Political Studies, Policy & Politics and Public Administration.  His research interests span critical issues in governance, urban studies and public policy. In addition to developments in governance theory, Jonathan is also working on a number of projects on crisis and austerity governance. Between 2015 and 2018 he held a major ESRC grant, leading an international consortium of researchers in a comparative study of austerity governance. 

Jonathan welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in these research areas.

Twitter accounts: @profjsdavies, @cura2015.

Research group affiliations

Centre for Urban Research on Austerity - http://cura.our.dmu.ac.uk

Publications and outputs

  • Understanding the crisis of New Municipalism in Spain: The struggle for urban regime power in A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela
    Understanding the crisis of New Municipalism in Spain: The struggle for urban regime power in A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela Bua, Adrian; Davies, Jonathan S. New municipalism in Spain arose from a major political wave, now in a period of crisis and electoral retreat. This paper applies a regime-theoretic framework to analyse new municipalist governance in two smaller city cases: A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. It argues that whilst new municipalist electoral victories inaugurated a crisis for established regimes, the crucial weakness was that they did not consolidate new urban regimes. Municipalists faced severe governability challenges linked to the enduring power of older urban regimes. The paper suggests that this is explained by problems in establishing regime incumbency, the consolidation of the necessary governing capacity by a resource coalition to deliver its agenda and succeed politically. Although established regimes were weakened enough to lose elections, they maintained considerable capacity to constrain the municipalist project and shape urban governance, a significant degree of incumbency. This ultimately enabled them to recover office in 2019. We argue that a critical regime-theoretical perspective assists in understanding the wider crisis of Spanish municipalism and the multi-scalar struggle for hegemony as it plays out in the local state arena. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Bua A., and Davies J. S. (2022) Understanding the Crisis of New Municipalism in Spain: The struggle for urban regime power in A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. Urban Studies,
  • From crisis to catastrophe: The death and viral legacies of austere neoliberalism in Europe?
    From crisis to catastrophe: The death and viral legacies of austere neoliberalism in Europe? Standring, Adam; Davies, Jonathan S. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global event, but what became apparent almost immediately was that while the virus seems indiscriminate, vulnerability and the capacity to mitigate its impact are not spread equally, either between or within countries. Years of austere neoliberalism in Europe have exacerbated inequality and precarity, acting as a ‘pre-existing condition’ onto which the virus has now landed. The question we ask is: when the pandemic subsides, can the underlying conditions of contemporary neoliberalism remain? And what may replace it? Open access article Standring, A. and Davies, J.S. (2020) From crisis to catastrophe: The death and viral legacies of austere neoliberalism in Europe? Dialogues in Human Geography,
  • Why is Austerity Governable? A Gramscian Urban Regime Analysis of Leicester, UK
    Why is Austerity Governable? A Gramscian Urban Regime Analysis of Leicester, UK Davies, Jonathan S.; Bua, Adrian; Thompson, Ed; Cortina-Oriol, Mercè Austerity has been delivered in the UK, without durably effective resistance. Read through a dialogue between Urban Regime Theory and Gramsci’s theory of the integral state, the paper considers how austerity was normalised and made governable in the city of Leicester. It shows how Leicester navigated waves of crisis, restructuring and austerity, positioning itself as a multicultural city of entrepreneurs. The paper explores historical influences on the development of the local state, inscribed in the politics of austerity governance today. From a regime-theoretical standpoint, it shows how the local state accrued the governing resources to deliver austerity, while disorganising and containing resistance. Imbued with legacies of past-struggles, this process of organised-disorganisation produced a functional hegemony articulated in the multiple subjectivities of “austerian realism”. The paper elaborates six dimensions of Gramscian regime analysis to inform further research. open access article Davies, J.S., Bua, A., Cortina-Oriol, M. and Thompson, E. (2020) Why is Austerity Governable? A Gramscian Urban Regime Analysis of Leicester, UK. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42 (1), pp. 56-74
  • Governance: Mature Paradigm or Chicken Soup for European Public Management?
    Governance: Mature Paradigm or Chicken Soup for European Public Management? Davies, Jonathan S.; Chorianopoulos, I. Sørensen and Torfing assert that “governance” has become a highly influential paradigm, able to influence the conduct of governing and thus contribute to improving our economies and societies. In responding, we take issue with this pivotal claim, arguing that governance is rather a parochial and decaying paradigm, which failed to improve the way societies and economies were governed. Davies J S and Chorianopoulos I. (2018) Governance: Mature Paradigm or Chicken Soup for European Public Management? Critical Policy Studies, 12 (3), pp. 360-366
  • Managing Austerity: Insights into Spatial Governance from an English City
    Managing Austerity: Insights into Spatial Governance from an English City Davies, Jonathan S. The research discussed below is part of an eight case international study looking at how austerity is governed and resisted, conducted in Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Melbourne (Dandenong), Montreal and Nantes. A report summarising each of the case studies is available in English, French, Greek and Spanish and can be downloaded at http:// cura.our.dmu.ac.uk/category/austerity- governance/ (Davies, 2017). The city of Leicester is the subject of this brief comment. Open access article. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the URI link. Davies, J. S. (2018) Managing Austerity: Insights into Spatial Governance from an English City. Lo Squaderno, 47, pp. 23-26.
  • The Urban Governance of Austerity in Europe
    The Urban Governance of Austerity in Europe Bua, Adrian; Davies, Jonathan S.; Cortina-Oriol, Mercè; Blanco, I.; Chorianopoulos, I.; Feandeiro, A.; Gaynor, N.; Griggs, Steven; Howarth, D.; Salazar, Y The 2008 financial crash and ensuing austerity have brought critical perspectives on political economy into academic debates in democratic theory and public administration. One important area of contention regards “collaborative” and “network” forms of governance. Advocates argue that these comprise an epochal shift that resolves many pitfalls of state and market oriented governance, a consensus that was especially popular during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This chapter reports research carried out in five cities in Europe (Athens, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Nantes) exploring the impact of austerity politics on the ideology and practice of collaborative governance – would it endure, or be unravelled by, post-crash exposure to austerity and distributional conflict? The chapter concludes that severe austerity erodes the foundations for strong collaborative governance. The inability to survive the return of distributional conflict leads us to conclude that collaborative governance is fully functional only in times of growth. Bua, A., Davies, J., Blanco, I., Chorianopoulos, I., Cortina-Oriol, M., Feandeiro, A., Gaynor, N., Griggs, S., Howarth, D. and Salazar, Y. (2018) The Urban Governance of Austerity in Europe. In: Kerley, R., Liddle, J. and Dunning, P.T. (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government. Abingdon: Routledge
  • Governing in and Against Austerity: International Lessons from Eight Cities
    Governing in and Against Austerity: International Lessons from Eight Cities Davies, Jonathan S. This report, mainly for non-academic users, summarises the interim conclusions from our ESRC study of austerity governance in eight cities. It also provides an overview of the eight case study cities: Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Melbourne, Montreal and Nantes. We welcome comments and discussion on the CURA website at http://cura.our.dmu.ac.uk/2017/08/16/dissemination-report-governing-in-and-against-austerity/ Davies, J. S. (2017) Governing in and Against Austerity: International Lessons from Eight Cities. De Montfort University.
  • Interrogating Urban Crisis: Cities in the Governance and Contestation of Austerity
    Interrogating Urban Crisis: Cities in the Governance and Contestation of Austerity Bayirbag, M.; Davies, Jonathan S.; Munch, S. The meaning of ‘urban crisis’, and its applications in concrete struggles to govern and contest austerity urbanism, remains under-specified analytically and poorly understood empirically. This paper addresses the lacuna by opening up the concept of urban crisis to critical scrutiny. It begins by exploring how urban ‘crisistalk’ tends to over-extend the concept in ways that can render it shallow or meaningless. The paper looks secondly at different applications of the terminology of ‘crisis’, disclosing key framings and problematics. In the spirit of critical urban studies, it focuses, thirdly, on practices of crisis-resistance and crisis-making. The paper concludes by summarizing the six urban crisis framings linked to six urban problematics, in order to inform future studies of austerity urbanism and assist in developing more reflexive approaches to the concept. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Bayirbag, M., Davies, J.S. and Munch, S. (2017) Interrogating Urban Crisis: Cities in the Governance and Contestation of Austerity, Urban Studies, 54 (9), pp. 2023-2038
  • Austerity Urbanism: Patterns of Neo-liberalisation and Resistance in Six Cities of Spain and the UK
    Austerity Urbanism: Patterns of Neo-liberalisation and Resistance in Six Cities of Spain and the UK Davies, Jonathan S.; Blanco, Ismael This paper explores neoliberalisation and its counter-currents through a six-case study of austerity urbanism in Spain and the UK. Applying Urban Regime Theory it highlights the role of urban politics in driving, variegating and containing neoliberalism since the 2008 crash. Variegated austerity regimes contribute to strengthening neoliberalism, but with limits. Welfarism survives austerity in felicitous circumstances. And, where contentious politics thrive, as in Spain, it holds out the potential for a broader challenge to neoliberalism. In contrast, austerity regimes in the UK cities are strongly embedded. The legacies of past struggles, and differing local and regional traditions form an important part of the explanation for patterns of neoliberalisation, hybridization and contestation. The paper draws on research from two funded projects on austerity governance. It draws mainly from the Spanish TRANSGOB project (The role of Participatory Urban Governance in times of Crisis and Austerity) and also research from our ESRC study of comparative governance under austerity: an eight-case comparative study. Open Access article Davies, J. S and Blanco I. (forthcoming 2017) Austerity Urbanism: Patterns of Neo-liberalisation and Resistance in Six Cities of Spain and the UK. Environment and Planning A, 49 (7), pp. 1517-1536
  • Network governance in Russia: an analytical framework
    Network governance in Russia: an analytical framework Davies, Jonathan S.; Holm-­‐Hansen, Jorn; Kononenko, Vadim; Roiseland, Asbjorn This article questions the widely held notions of Russian exceptionalism as regards its state–society relations, arguing that the conceptual tools used to study governance in other regions and contexts are applicable in Russia, opening the potential for fruitful comparisons and dialogue. Our analytical framework for studying Russian governance emphasises the concept of networking. We posit that even in contemporary hybrid authoritarian regimes the state is dependent on interactive governance arrangements involving civil society actors. The article applies the analytical framework to an initial synthesis of findings from studies of Russian governance, reported elsewhere in the symposium. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. Davies, J.S. et al. (2016) Network governance in Russia: an analytical framework. East European Politics, 32 (2), pp. 131-147

Click here to see a full listing of Professor Jonathan Davies's publications and outputs.

Key research outputs

Davies J S, Bua A, Cortina-Oriol M and Thompson E. 2020. Why is Austerity Governable? A Gramscian Urban Regime Analysis of Leicester, UK. Journal of Urban Affairs. 42(1): 56-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.149015

Davies J S. and Chorianopoulos I. 2018. Governance: Mature Paradigm or Chicken Soup for European Public Management?  Critical Policy Studies. 12(3): 360-366.

Bayırbağ  M K, Davies J S, and Münch S. 2017. “Interrogating Urban Crisis: The Governance and Contestation of Austerity in Cities”. Urban Studies. 59(4): 2023-2038.

Davies J S. 2017.  Governing in and Against Austerity: Lessons from Eight International Cities.  http://cura.our.dmu.ac.uk/2017/08/16/dissemination-report-governing-in-and-against-austerity/.

Davies J S, and Blanco I. “Austerity Urbanism: Patterns of Neoliberalisation and Resistance in Six Cities of Spain and the UK”. Environment and Planning A. 49(7): 1517-1536. Open access at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0308518X17701729.

Davies J S,  Jørn Holm-Hansen, Vadim Kononenko & Asbjørn Røiseland. 2016. Network Governance in Russia – an Analytical Framework, East European Politics, 32(2): 131-147.

Davies J S and Spicer A, 2015, “Interrogating Networks: Towards an Agnostic Perspective on Governance Research”. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 33(2): 223-238.

Davies J S and Msengana-Ndlela L G, 2015, ‘Urban Power and Political Agency: Reflections on a Study of Local Economic Development in Johannesburg and Leeds’, Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 44: 131-138.

Davies J S, 2014,‘Coercive Cities: Reflections on the Dark Side of Urban Power in the 21st Century’. Journal of Urban Affairs. 36(S2): 590-599

Davies J S, 2013, ‘Just do it differently? ‘Everyday making, Marxism, and the struggle against neoliberalism’, Policy & Politics 41(4): 497-513. 40th Anniversary special edition.

Davies J S, 2012, ‘Network Governance Theory: A Gramscian Critique’. Environment and Planning A, 44(11), 2687 – 2704.

Davies J S and Pill M, 2012, “Hollowing Out Neighbourhood Governance? Rescaling Revitalization in Baltimore and Bristol” Urban Studies, 49(10), 2199-2217.

Davies J S, 2011, Challenging Governance Theory: From Networks to Hegemony.  Bristol, Policy Press.  Research monograph published 28th September 2011.  

Davies J S   'The Governance of Urban Regeneration: A Critique of the 'Governing without Government' Thesis', Public Administration, 80 (1), 2002, 301-322. 

Davies J S  'Urban Regime Theory: a Normative-Empirical Critique', Journal of Urban Affairs, 24, 2002, 1-17. 

Davies J S (2001) Partnerships and Regimes: The Politics of Urban Regeneration in the UK (Aldershot, Ashgate). ISBN 0 7546 1681 9.

Evans M G and Davies J S (1999) Understanding Policy Transfer: A Multi-Level, Multi-Disciplinary Perspective.  Public Administration 77(2) 361-385.

Research interests/expertise

Critical approaches to governance, public policy and urban studies. Governing and contesting austerity.  Applications from prospective PhD students and visiting fellows welcome in these areas.

Areas of teaching

Governance and public policy

Qualifications

DPhil (York)

Honours and awards

DMU Oscar for Oustanding Contribution to Research Excellence, 2017.

Best paper award for paper presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Urban Affairs Association, April 2002: Davies J S 'Partnerships versus Regimes: Why Regime Theory Cannot Explain Urban Coalitions in the UK', Journal of Urban Affairs, 25, 2003, 253-269. 

Warwick Business School Excellence in Publishing Award, 2004:  Davies J S (2004) Conjuncture or Disjuncture? An Institutionalist Analysis of Local Regeneration Partnerships in the UK. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28(3) 570-585.

Membership of external committees

Elected member of the Governing Board of the Urban Affairs Association (UAA) (2014-17 and 2017-2020)

Chair of the UAA Publications Committee (2018-2020)

Member of the UAA Publications Committee (2015-present)

Member of the UAA Journal of Urban Affairs Strategic Development Committee

Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Urban Affairs

Member of the ESRC Peer Review College

International Corresponding Editor - Urban Studies Journal (2017-2019)

Membership of professional associations and societies

Political Studies Association (UK)

Urban Affairs Association (USA)

Professional licences and certificates

 

Projects

We were funded by the ESRC to study collaborative governance under austerity in eight cities - Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Greater Dandenong (Melbourne), Montreal and Nantes.  In July 2017, we published a report for respondents and stakeholders, for discussion at local commissions to be hosted in each participating city. This can be downloaded in English, French, Greek and Spanish from the CURA blog.

Recent research outputs

Standring A, and Davies. J S. 2020. From crisis to catastrophe: The death and viral legacies of austere neoliberalism in Europe? Dialogues in Human Geography. Published online before print, on 10th June 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620934270.

Davies J S, Bua A, Cortina-Oriol M and Thompson E.2020. Why is Austerity Governable? A Gramscian Urban Regime Analysis of Leicester, UK. Journal of Urban Affairs. 42(1): 56-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.1490152

Davies J S. and Chorianopoulos I. 2018. Governance: Mature Paradigm or Chicken Soup for European Public Management?  Critical Policy Studies. 12(3): 360-366.

Davies J S, 2018. Managing Austerity: Insights into Spatial Governance from an English City. Lo Squaderno, 47. 23-26.

Davies J S. 2018. “Urban Regime Theory” in Turner, B S et al (eds), The Encyclopaedia of Social Theory.  Oxford: Wiley.

Bua, A. Davies, J. S., Blanco I, Chorianopoulos I, Cortina-Oriol M, Feandeiro A, Gaynor, N, Griggs S, Howarth D and Salazar, Y. 2018. The Urban Governance of Austerity in Europe. In Kerley R, Liddle J and Dunning P, (eds), The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government. Routledge.  280-296. ISBN: 978-1-138-23472-7

Current research students

Jonny Ball (2019-2022)

Externally funded research grants information

Principal Investigator: ESRC funded consortium project (ES/L012898/1), Collaborative Governance under Austerity: An eight-case Comparative Study. £435,131 - April 2015-July 2018.

External advisor: Norwegian Research Council funded project led by the Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research, studying network governance in Russia (2013-2016).

Winner: Urban Studies Foundation and Urban Studies seminar series competition 2013 - Lead Applicant: £19,304 to host conference “Interrogating Urban Crisis” 9-11 September 2013 at De Montfort University. 

Investigator: Spanish Research Council funded consortium led by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, studying austerity governance in Spain and the UK (2012-15).

Principal Investigator: £45,000 from the ESRC for ‘Interpreting the local politics of social exclusion (2004-5).

Co-applicant for £500,000 as part of a multi-institution research consortium led by Mike Geddes (Warwick) to deliver ODPM national evaluation of Local Strategic Partnerships (2002-5).

Professional esteem indicators

Elected member of the Urban Affairs Association Governing Board: March 2014-March 2017. Re-elected for second term April 2017-March 2020. See http://urbanaffairsassociation.org.

Advisor to the UK Labour Party's Community Wealth Building Unit. 2018 -