The focus of this chapter is an exploration of the nature of democracy in neighbourhoods in England in the context of the government's neighbourhoods agenda. The emphasis on neighbourhood governance in Labour's third term promises to reconfigure local democracy and the neighbourhood level is presented as having the potential for widespread citizen participation and engagement. Nevertheless, aside from a vague and often repeated assertion that ‘neighbourhood arrangements must be consistent with local representative democracy’ (ODPM/HO, 2005, p 16), government prescription on the nature of democracy in neighbourhoods is ambiguous.

The chapter is divided into three sections. First, the following (not mutually exclusive) forms of democracy are presented: representative, participatory and market democracy. For each form of democracy, theoretical underpinnings and hallmarks are discussed and the conceptualisation of the identity and role of the citizen is sketched briefly. It will be argued that each form of democracy upholds a different relationship of the individual with the state (voter citizen, active citizen, consumer citizen) and that these relationships suggest different bundles of rights and responsibilities and differing degrees of agency. Second, New Labour government policy documents on neighbourhoods are considered and the chapter identifies the forms of democracy and citizenship that emerge or are implied in the discourse. A third section discusses research carried out into the Neighbourhood Management Pathfinders (NMPs) and the New Deal for Communities (NDCs) to explore how the particular form(s) of democracy and citizenship emphasised in these programmes are played out in practice in neighbourhood governance spaces. In particular, this draws on research carried out by the authors in consortium with other research institutes, published in the NMP 2004 and 2006 reports and the NDC interim report (SQW, 2004, 2006; CRESR, 2005). The chapter ends by drawing some observations and conclusions on the changing emphases between participatory, representative and market forms of democracy in the UK.

Forms of local democracy and citizenship

The chapter draws inspiration from several academic contributions that have posited variations of forms or models of local governance and democracy. For example, Denters (2002) offered the ‘representative democratic model’, the ‘individualist model’ and the ‘direct-democratic model’. Miller et al (2000) put forward the ‘localist’, the ‘individual’, the ‘centralist’ and the ‘mobilisation’ models. Naschold (1996) talked about differences between representative, industrial, user and direct democracy, while Haus and Sweeting (2006) used models of representative, participatory, user and network democracy.