Clegg, Liam Simon orcid.org/0000-0002-0773-5988 and Davies, Graeme Alan Marshall (2024) Ill-gotten gains:Partisan alignment, politicised grant flows, and English local election outcomes. Politics. ISSN 1467-9256
Abstract
Are grant flows from the Westminster government to local authorities influenced by political dynamics, and if so do these politicised transfers influence local election outcomes? John and Ward (2001) suggested that, through the 1980s and 1990s, Conservative central governments favoured politically aligned local authorities. We demonstrate the continuation of this trend across the cohort of Labour, coalition, and Conservative governments from 2007-19, and also establish evidence of inter-party variation in the type of grant manipulation in existence. We also more substantively extend John and Ward’s work by demonstrating that electoral ‘ill-gotten gains’ follow from these politicised flows, with higher resource transfers being associated with marginally stronger incumbent electoral performance. Given the importance of central grants to subnational government in the UK, these findings are of significant contemporary policy relevance.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024 |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Social Sciences (York) > Politics (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 12 Sep 2023 09:20 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2024 19:25 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/02633957241229375 |
Status: | Published online |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/02633957241229375 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:203305 |
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Description: Ill-gotten gains: Partisan alignment, politicised grant transfers and English local election outcomes
Licence: CC-BY 2.5