Join us on this episode of the governance podcast between Simon Kaye and Mark Pennington for a conversation on the impact of Elinor Ostrom's work on public policy. Simon Kaye discusses his latest report for the New Local on how the ideas of self-governance and community power can transform public services in the UK.
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Read the Report
Think Big, Act Small: Elinor Ostrom's Radical Vision for Community Power
The Guest
Having been awarded a PhD in democratic theory from the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London in 2015, Simon Kaye has worked as a researcher and educator in academia and think tanks, with roles at UCL’s Constitution Unit, The Hansard Society, Queen Mary, and King’s College London. His last role was as Research Director at the Project for Modern Democracy, running projects on Whitehall reform and the rebalancing of UK economic policy.
Simon has written and spoken on a diversity of subjects, including democracy and voting systems, localism and self-governance, political economy, historical methods, constitutions, conspiracy theories, and post-truth. He has published work in venues including History and Theory, Critical Review, European Political Science, and The Fabian Society. He has also penned articles for popular publications such as The Independent, Politics.co.uk, CityMetric, and CapX. He has contributed to several podcasts to talk about his research, presented at festivals and international conferences, participated in public lectures and panel debates, won several competitive academic fellowships, and appeared on BBC News as a political commentator.
Simon’s research at New Local is focused around the Community Paradigm, drawing on his expertise in democracy and political economy. His major projects include work on mutual aid groups, the new working practices and relationships that emerged during the 2020 pandemic, and the landmark research of Nobel Prize-winner Elinor Ostrom into governance systems and community management of common resources. New Local’s Ostrom project is a direct development of the original Community Paradigm and forms the intellectual grounding for much of our work on public service reform and the need for more autonomous and empowered communities.
Skip Ahead
00:26: the New Local have recently produced a very interesting policy report which tries to apply some of the ideas of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom to look at aspects of a possible policy reform agenda in the UK and perhaps other countries. Those of you who follow our podcast will know that the Ostrom’s work is quite important at our Centre because of their focus on the relationship between formal and informal institutions of governance. So Simon, welcome to the podcast. I wonder if we could start off by you giving a bit of background on what you do at New Local.
02:25: You’ve produced with New Local what I think is an excellent report on Ostrom. I wonder if you could say more about why and how the New Local has become aware of the Ostroms' work?
06:40: If we think about some of the ideas in the report, as part of this community paradigm, you are pushing an agenda which is emphasizing this idea of decentralisation, of communities taking control of how public services are delivered, or assets are managed—the idea of communities having the space to craft their own hybrids between communities, markets and states. What would you say to the idea that in the UK people have been arguing for decentralisation for many years, there’s lots of complaints in the British government about over-centralisation, and yet the decentralisation agenda never really seems to take root. What do you think it is about the Ostrom agenda that can possibly mak
