This paper begins with a review of the conditions which have led to a proliferation of partnership arrangements in English cities and the related emergence of new business elites with interests in urban policy-making. The paper reviews a series of recent studies of these phenomena and comments on the importance of local economic and political factors in explaining inter-urban variations. The paper then presents an analysis of political and policy change in Bristol in the post-war period, tracing the factors that have accounted for the recent, if tardy, rapprochement between the political and business sectors and the launching of a widening array of partnership initiatives. An attempt is then made to explain these developments using a number of different theoretical frameworks, in particular growth coalition theory, urban regime theory, and policy network analysis. The paper concludes with some comments on the relation between these trends and the suggestion that we are witnessing a transition from a Fordist to a post-Fordist mode of regulation in English cities.
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