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In seeking to counter adverse economic impacts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments quickly announced major infrastructure stimulus packages alongside a series of governance reforms to speed delivery. Despite significant differences between political, institutional and policy contexts of countries, clear trends emerged, most notably discourses of promise promoting the possibilities of state-led infrastructure allied to reforms to expedite delivery. Using case studies of Australia, Aotearoa-New Zealand and the UK, we draw upon theories of postpolitics and states of exception to explain how these approaches comprise a form of infrastructuralism that both elevates the criticality of infrastructure at the same time as depoliticising infrastructure planning. We argue that the promises of Building Back Better did not constitute the radical rupture from earlier practices initially promised and that in future crises we need to resist the closure of political space that typically accompanies emergency measures and ask 'what infrastructure, for whom and where?'

In seeking to counter adverse economic impacts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments quickly announced major infrastructure stimulus packages alongside a series of governance reforms to speed delivery. Despite significant differences between political, institutional and policy contexts of countries, clear trends emerged, most notably discourses of promise promoting the possibilities of state-led infrastructure allied to reforms to expedite delivery. Using case studies of Australia, Aotearoa-New Zealand and the UK, we draw upon theories of postpolitics and states of exception to explain how these approaches comprise a form of infrastructuralism that both elevates the criticality of infrastructure at the same time as depoliticising infrastructure planning. We argue that the promises of Building Back Better did not constitute the radical rupture from earlier practices initially promised and that in future crises we need to resist the closure of political space that typically accompanies emergency measures and ask 'what infrastructure, for whom and where?'

Abstract
This article examines the changing scalar political relations underpinning English city-regional governance. Drawing on case study research in Greater Manchester, the article demonstrates how locally rooted discourses around inclusive growth and inclusive economies have been deployed to challenge the city-region's historically dominant agglomeration-based model. Using the analytical lens of scalar postpolitics, the article shows how the earlier technocratic approach adopted by national and city-region leaders attracted criticism in the face of continuing socio-spatial inequalities within Greater Manchester. We highlight the contrasting experiences of Oldham and Trafford, two boroughs of Greater Manchester, to reveal how local geographies were central to challenging the previously dominant model and promoting new thinking around inclusive growth and inclusive economies.

AbstractThis article develops a framework for analysing region‐building processes as spatiotemporal constructs, involving competing spatial imaginaries and attempts at consolidating these through institution building. Central here is the performative role of what we refer to as 'soft space imaginaries' in the 'phased' building of regions for planning and economic development over time. We demonstrate how this understanding can be used to examine the phased enactment of successive waves of region‐building by tracing the evolution of multiple soft spatial imaginaries in north‐west England. The analysis exposes the variable logics, alliances of actors, and tactics used to build momentum and secure legitimacy around preferred imaginaries which advocates often promoted on the grounds that they somehow reflected 'real geographies' or 'real economies'. In this context, soft space imaginaries are seen to play an integral role in intellectual case making about the contemporaneous form and purpose of subnational governance. Yet our analysis also exposes the durability of past soft space imaginaries and their continued impact on efforts to build new soft spaces. What emerges is an understanding of soft space imaginaries as more than just superficial representations. They can help determine where government investment is channelled and into what kinds of policies.

This article aims to improve our understanding of postpoliticization by examining the role of 'ordinary' urban protest movements, using the example of a protest in Alexandra Park, an inner city park in Manchester. The critical literature on postpolitics has improved our understanding of exceptional, large scale protests, but we know much less about how smaller scale protests emerge and in time wind down. Our research is revealing of the post-politicising tactics of the city authorities in containing protest and of how the protesters lost momentum, focusing on contesting techno-managerial processes for consultation and undertaking scientific surveys. Whilst universalising claims were made about democratic enfranchisement, the authorities were able to counter and diffuse these.

A range of new spaces of English planning have emerged in recent years. One new space of clear import is the sub-region. In this paper we seek to gain a better understanding of why sub-regional spaces emerge, how they are used and how planning functions through them. Drawing upon an analysis of three English regions and interviews with actors the paper identifies four types of sub-regional planning that highlight the relationship between accountable, legally sanctioned territorial spaces on the one hand and more informal, open and strategic sub-regional spaces on the other. Sub-regional planning provides an important if not critical strategic parallel to regulatory planning though the relationship between the two is characterised by complexity, contestation, experimentation and impermanence. Among other issues raised by this contemporary reworking of planning is the emergence of an accountability gap through the uncoupling of formal democratic processes embedded within territories and the more diffuse practices of strategic plan making.

This paper develops a novel framework for analysing how planning became implicated in the Irish boom, bubble and bust years, as planners and politicians alike focused on generating positive visions for the future, whilst variously working to displace, defer and transfer the political tensions of the present. Empirically we focus on both national planning reforms and the high hopes for city regional planning in Cork Ireland after the publication of an innovative, non-statutory strategic plan in 2001. A decade or so later, the plan has faltered, unable to broker a sustained commitment to its core principles from all partners. The reasons for this, we argue, relate to the wider problems of planning in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger years, as an economic boom got translated into a property bubble, something that few officials cared to recognize or challenge publicly at the time. There were, however, doubters-but they were sidelined or vilified. Framing our analysis in terms of recent literature on soft spaces and post-politics, we argue that soft space planning for metropolitan Cork exposes deep-seated problems in Irish planning. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.

This paper examines the proliferation of soft spaces of governance, focusing on planning. We move beyond more functional explanations to explore the politics of soft spaces, more specifically how soft space forms of governance operate as integral to processes of neoliberalisation, highlighting how such state for ms facilitate neoliberalisation through their flexibility and variability. Recent state restructuring of the planning sector and emerging trends for soft spaces in England under the Coalition government proposals are discussed.

Strategies for sustainable development have been produced aplenty in recent years, with numbers increasing in the context of devolution. This article examines the way in which they have developed. We examine the role of strategies for sustainable development as a metagovernance and policy integration device. The limited evidence of diversity in approaches to sustainable development post-devolution is a key finding.