Government and Politics: Changes to Representation in Political Transition Arenas

This chapter takes a deeper look into transitions relating to our second New Economy ‘tribe’ under investigation, Government and Politics. Government structures and representation are critical to understanding the underlying architecture of transition arenas. They deeply affect the emergent conditions of political innovation and the potential to scale up and amplify development alternatives (e.g., setting planning policy, the localism policy agenda or who is elected to be a voice of particular visions of development). Having assessed the consequences of the Independents for Frome (IfF) on local placemaking transitions and community-led planning ambitions when the independent group took control of Frome Town Council (FTC) in 2011, we now reflect on how the phenomenon of ‘indy-politics’ is being consolidated, scaled up and scaled out and the challenges faced in doing so. Split into two parts, we examine how government systems and independent politics structure transition arenas that intersect with relocalised intent and an appetite for ‘progressive’ change. In part one, we examine the changing governance structure of local government in Somerset and what this means for the broader local government architecture that supports local councils and the communities they serve. This includes new arenas for participation and the challenge of resourcing service delivery in the wake of some local authorities effectively declaring themselves bankrupt, or close to being so. In part two, we examine the politics of being ‘independent’ and the co-option of indy identities by party political candidates and the crowding out of party political representation at the level of the town council. We also reflect on the progress made in scaling up the Flatpack Democracy movement which centres around IfF’s radical politics and the role of Extinction Rebellion (XR) in playing an increasing role in co-opting the ideas of ‘Flatpackery’ into a broader social movement agenda for democratising climate and ecological responses.