Trading work: discourses of internal exchange in the economic culture of local government

Abstract

Local authorities increasingly use ‘trading’ language to describe and debate inter and intra-departmental working relations. This article explores the meanings given to this contested language in context, drawing on case studies of internal trading in two authorities. The objective of this interpretative exercise in economic discourse is to explore the extent to which a dominant discourse of internal ‘trading’ exists within the two authorities, and its association with identifiable patterns of economic behaviour. The article identifies four discourses of internal ‘exchange’, of which two, labelled the ‘trading’ and the ‘public business' discourses, are widely shared and attempt to ally social and public concern with devolved financial management to business-like behaviour. Each of these two discourses was identified with distinct policies and preferred behaviour in internal working relations. Neither was ‘winning’: we are a long way from the solidifying of a single new internal economic culture in local government through the language of trade.

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