"Incumbency and challenge: evolving digital models for councils and councillors" presentation by Jane Scullion (De Montfort University) for the Political Studies Association (PSA) 'Different with Digital' panel on 31st March 2015 in Sheffield. More info about the event at: https://notinwestminster.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/how-will-digital-change-local-politics/

1. PSA Conference Sheffield 2015
Incumbency and challenge:
evolving digital models for councils
and councillors
Jane Scullion
De Montfort University
jsculllion@dmu.ac.uk
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2. Background
• This paper is part of wider PhD research project.
• Time series data collection over 3 years on 85 English
councils, providing both currency and the big picture.
• Four case study councils, London borough, mayoral district,
northern metropolitan and rural unitary.
• 40 interviews in case study councils.
• Survey of 103 Monitoring Officers.
• Focus on everyday politics, ‘between elections’ democratic
practices, not campaigning or service provision.
• Twitter and Facebook because most used in local
government and because most suited to carrying the every
day conversations of civic life rather than ‘grand narratives’
of politics.
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3. Overlapping terrains
• Social movement theory used alongside new
institutionalism to provide new insights into
change in local government.
• Focuses on how institutional ‘rules, practices
and narratives’ are used to respond to the
contentions created by social media use
among citizens(Lowndes and Roberts 2013).
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4. Why might social media use be
usefully construed as a social
movement?
• Social media not a ‘revolt’ or an ‘ism’ like
feminism, but:
– Challenges status quo.
– Language part of that challenge – transgressive
contention (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly 2001).
– Elicits a repertoire of responses from incumbents:
prescribed, tolerated and forbidden (Tilly 2006).
– Represents a set of conditions that offer a political
opportunity to do things differently (McAdam et al
1996).
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5. Incumbency and resistance
• Denial – no use of social media or lip service only.
• Appearance of adaptation; token use of sites to
broadcast (greenwashing).
• Path dependency – transfer of existing practices.
• Prescribe – complex rules about use.
• Forbid – lock down employee social media use.
• Sanction – reports to standards committees.
• Tolerate – no change of any formal rules, but
benign environment as councillors experiment.
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6. Institutional resistance
• What explanations might there be for some
councillors embracing social media in this
climate?
– Temporality; e.g. formal rules about signing off not
relevant given need for responsiveness and the
immediacy of posting/tweeting.
– Proximity and personalisation useful to politicians.
– ‘Making the political weather’, framing.
– Acting as a local leader; the hub role, councillors
have more authority as elected representatives.
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7. @jane_farrington: Friend’s dad has been taken into hospital meaning his
mum urgently needs a relief milker in North Barnbrook (backbench councillor,
rural unitary)
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/32600408@N06/3902540208">Hand milking a cow</a> via <a
href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>
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8. Findings and discussion
• Social media has afforded ‘political opportunity’ structure
for doing things differently.
• Evolving digital models – through ‘doing’, the everyday
practices of councillors leading to new repertoires, new
archetypes– beginning to break path dependency (Massey
2006).
• Infrastructure and control mechanisms beginning to catch
up e.g. whips monitoring social media.
• For (Labour) local councillors the role of party delegate has
more influence than formal council structures.
• Organisational biography of council, the context, has
greater influence on speed of evolution and change than
actions of individual agents (Lowndes and Wilson 2003).
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9. References
• Lowndes, V. & Wilson, D., (2003). Balancing Revisibility and
Robustness? A New Institutionalist Perspective on Local
Government. Public Administration, 81(2), pp.275–298.
• Lowndes, V., & Roberts, M. (2013). Why Institutions Matter.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Massey, D. (2005). For Space. London: Sage
• McAdam, D, McCarthy J. D, and Zald, M. N., eds. (1996)
Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political
opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• McAdam, D., Tarrow, S, Tilly, C. (2001) Dynamics of Contention, New
York: Cambridge University Press.
• Tilly, C. (2006) Regimes and Repertoires. London: Chicago University
Press.
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