The geography of public finance : the spatial imagination of New Labour's treasury : 1997-2010

• Main Author: Tucker, Maria Alexandra
• Published: University of Reading 2013
• Subjects: 339.522
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.603587

Using a critical realist and institutionalist framework, my research explores how concepts of space and place are understood, created, incorporated, and transformed by HM Treasury's spending policy in the UK. I expand on ideas about the strategic and spatial selectivity of the state by exploring how 'peopled organisations' and the mundane and everyday practices of the policy-making process in institutions can give rise to state effects which reflect ' received understandings' of state space. This research treats these received understandings as a spatial imagination which shapes how policy makers envision space and place -- thus forming a critical link between the strategic policy negotiation phases and the reality of public spending projects that become actualised into the built environment in the UK. It has been argued that the spending priorities of New Labour's Treasury (1997-2010) were qualitatively different from those of previous eras - including previous Labour governments. By combining interviews with senior New Labour spending policy advisors (both present and former) and archival analysis of Treasury documents, my analysis has focused on identifying the spatial imagination implicit in Treasury spending decisions, including how expenditure reflected the perceived territorial alignment of the UK's state space, the economy and society, and the long-term implications for Treasury expenditure