Making of Community

The discourse of community plays a pivotal in the government of local spaces in advanced liberal democracies (Isin, 2000; Rose, 2000; Flint, 2003) partly because it promises different things to different people (Schofield, 2002). For some, it is a geographical space while for others it means membership of this geographical space. The discourse of community implies the population of a geographically determined area who share common forms of moral conduct, destiny and perspective. Following the local government reforms, the membership of these communities was to be guided by active and responsible individuals. These individuals would be actively involved in the affairs of their communities as democratic citizens. The contradiction between individualism and community inherent in this discourse has already been explained.

The key technology through which the community was to be constituted was legislation especially the Local Government Amendment Acts (No. 2) 1988, 1989 and 1996. The Minister of Local Government when discussing the Local

Government Amendment Bill 1988 claimed that local people were not participating in local authority performance as manifested in poor voter turnout for elections. The turnout for election was interpreted as evidence that local authorities were not accountable to their electorate. He surmised that the reform would "aim to stimulate greater citizen interest in local authority

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per ormance. . . . This reform was considered necessary to attain local democracy while at the same time achieving the political rationalities of the state: "Moreover, community control, far from being inimical to governmental honesty, procedural justice, careful planning and efficient administration, is instead a necessary condition for the realisation of these values" (Boston, 1988, p. 53). The introduction of a democratic citizen enables an assemblage of technologies through which citizens can engage in their own government through choice. The membership of the community would be predicated on active and responsible citizens who will participate in local decision making. The legislation of compulsory consultation through local authority annual planning and long term financial strategy sought to constitute democratic subjects who would be able to overcome the distance of larger amalgamated units (Wallis and Dollery, 2001).

The Local Government Act (No. 2) 1989 therefore contained very express provisions that defined the purpose of local government in terms of community. Section 37K of this Act required local government to provide, among other things,

(a) Recognition of the existence of different communities in New Zealand; (b) Recognition of the identities and values of these communities;

(c) Definition and enforcement of appropriate rights within those

communities;

(d) Scope for communities to make choices between different kinds of local public facilities and services;

(e) Recognition of communities of interest; and

The role of local authorities was seen to be that of looking after the long-term well-being of their communities because they were closer to them (MacDonald, 1995). The technology for achieving this role was legislation which mandated the Local Government Commission (LGC) to define the boundaries of each territorial authority (New Zealand Government, 1988a; 1988b) on the basis of communities. While the LGC could consult the affected local authority regarding the space it would occupy, the LGC had the prerogative to accept or reject any proposal put forward by a local authority. The LGC rejected polling, therefore blunting resistance to the proposed reforms (Welch, 1989). The government through the above Act sought to delineate a communal space through the amalgamation of the many local authorities into a few relatively homogenous ones (see Rose, 1996b; 1993). The new units would be closer because of common ties of geography and possibly history. Such units would ostensibly have common interests or commitments with efficiency achieved through people working together towards common ends (see Rose, 1996b).

There were concerns that amalgamation would see smaller existing communities being ignored or dominated by the larger ones. The legislation forestalled such an eventuality by legislating that smaller communities would not be trampled by larger ones and that community aspirations could still be met (Anderson, 1993; Horner, 1989). The protection of smaller communities would be achieved through community boards which would provide a forum through which local communities could express themselves. This measure was governmental for it introduced another layer of government into the operations of the local authorities. They would henceforth be evaluated on whether they were meeting community needs. Tension has therefore arisen between community boards and local authorities with the latter claiming that community boards block direct contact between the councils and the people and do not appreciate the bigger issues facing the local authority (New Zealand Local Government, 2003) . This interplay of power relations is bound to intensify with the passage of the Local Government Act 2002 which entrenches

the community boards into local government by requiring them to represent and act as an advocate for and in the interests of their communities while maintaining an overview of the services provided by the local authorities.

This distance notwithstanding, local authorities, it was argued, were better placed to respond to individual choices through a local and better knowledge of their needs or wants (Boston, Martin, Pallot and Walsh, 1991). The notion of responsiveness echoed that of local people as customers with wants that needed to be met as quickly as they arose. The citizen would be a customer who would actively conduct his or her live on the basis of a capacity to make choices as a member of his or her community. He or she in turn would be able to pay for any consumption traceable to him or her through user pays. This reconfigurations create complex power relations between autonomised consumers and communities and professionals charged with meeting their needs (cf. Rose, 1996b). Labour Party MP Jill White commenting on the Local Government Amendment Act (No. 3) 1996 considered that this would dilute the idea of community through promotion of individualism:

The ideological peat fire manifested in this Bill was seen in the attempt to diminish the importance of the concept of community and the elevation of the concept of the individual. The pursuit of individualism is part of the religion of the market-place, of course, and the market's overemphasis on competition and user-pays. I say "overemphasis" . They are not necessarily themselves harmful, but if they are overemphasised they certainly are corrosive in society

(T. White, M.P., 28 March, 1996).

The twin pursuit of customer and community goals may have sounded contradictory to the M.P., but contradictory discourses are often mobilised to achieve government as happened in this case (Rose, 1996b, 1993). The reforms therefore reflect the heterogeneous nature of the devices mobilised to achieve government. The customer would participate actively in a local community as a subject with rights and responsibilities to his or her community. Once so constituted, these subjects would then supposedly exert pressure on local authorities to deliver desired goods and services. Through the customer, central government would exert pressure on local authorities to meet objectives

such as efficiency without seeming to intrude into the daily affairs of these authorities for " . . . I consumerism' has sought to provide users of services with

more choice and more influence on decisions about policies and services as a spur to improved quality and value for money" (Sanderson, 2001, p. 299). There is a real possibility that citizens may come to see local authorities as service-providing bureaux, and not the community they are articulated to be.

The active and responsible members of the community would compel local authorities to meet their needs through economic development initiatives and effective financial management. Local authorities would be enticed to make their communities attractive in competition with other communities so that they do not lose their citizens. The local space was seen as an economically advantageous unit of governmentality with the potential to provide goods and services more efficiently than centralised delivery (see Rose, 2000). The local authorities were constituted as mechanisms for the provision of goods and services needed by their 11 consumers" . It would be easier to hold them to

account for these, instead of local democracy (Hucker, 1997). The discourse of devolution would be the means through which the excessive powers of the state could be counteracted by conferring on individuals the right to make their own choices. The devolution of responsibility would constitute self-regulating communities through enhancing personal and individual values, attributes that are important to democracy (Boston, et al., 1991).

The discourse of community and customer ran strong in the discursive formations associated with the Local Government Amendment Act (No. 3) 1 989 and 1996 and in reforms to local government generally. Local authorities were to serve their communities and promote local democracy. The community was to be characterised by citizens who are actively involved in the democratic process. Such citizens would be actively involved in decisions affecting their lives. The government of such communities was to be guided by the wider ambitions of cutting central expenditures but at the same time enrol local

citizens to be actively involved in achieving these efficiencies. The individuals were therefore to pay for any services whose consumption could be traced to them. The activities of local authorities would be visible to the centre through expertise that measure and transport over distance and time, enabling evaluation of how local authorities were meeting local needs (see Robson,

1992).