Analysing the politics of local economic development: Making sense of cross-national convergence

There are a number of recent trends in the organisation of local economic development activities that are seen to point to a general convergence between UK and US contexts. Various attempts have been made to encompass this convergence, primarily through the application of a set of common concepts such as the 'growth coalition' and 'urban regime'. This paper draws on a recently completed research project to highlight differences in the organisation of local economic development activities between the US and the UK. These differences are subsequently used to provide a critical window on existing theoretical frameworks and to elaborate on the concept of local dependence as a means of analysing and understanding the politics of local economic development in different contexts.