Articles by Joanie Willett

May 15, 2023

💊 Local government in the US: lessons for a decentralising UK

Joanie Willett

Local elections have just taken place in the UK. Yet despite decades of devolution deals, and various iterations of 'Levelling Up', UK local government remains economically unequal and centralised. The US, by contrast is highly decentralised. Joanie Willett says we can learn from the US about the importance of capacity building, a vibrant civil society, and encouraging people to feel invested in their towns’ future

Joanie Willett

Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Exeter

Joanie is a Fulbright scholar, and her research explores the entangled relationship between people, how they organise into communities, and the landscape that they are situated in (geography, geology, and ecology).

She uses the New Materialisms to explore the politics and economics of entanglement, and the implications of a more-than-human politics on social and environmental justice.

In practical terms, she often finds herself exploring rural economic development, and local government, and questions of place-making, and place-shaping.

She tweets @JoanieWillett

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