Ideology or Realism in Local Governance: A Case of RealLokalPolitik in English Local Government

The paper reports the results of research conducted among councillors in England which explored how they operate in complex governing networks with a range of public and private bodies. Councillors cannot control such networks or their members. Rather, councillors are faced with devising strategies to exert influence over and to try to shape and direct the policy decisions taken by the individual players and to draw a myriad of decisions into an overall direction and coherence. Councillors can either act ideologically (a key set of political principles and goals) or pragmatically (an assessment of what it is possible to achieve). The paper explores the approaches councillors have developed to engage in governance networks and assesses whether or not they act ideologically or pragmatically. It introduces the concept of RealLokalPolitik to explain the tension and choice between these approaches. The paper also explores how the need to operate in governance networks re-shapes our understanding of councillors as trustees, delegates or party loyalists.