Constitutional change and community development : Communities first under the Welsh government.

This thesis is an original contribution to key debates on the politicisation, governance and scale of 'the community' in contemporary society (Etzioni, 1996; Bourdieu, 1989; Giddens, 1984; Taylor, 2003). It contributes to knowledge on constitutional change and community development in three key ways.Firstly, findings from micro-geographical case studies in Wales are situated within global debates on the fragmentation of governance into networks, hierarchies and scales (Rhodes, 1997; Brenner, 2004; Gore, 2008). These complex and contested subjects are used to uncover the relationship between state and civil society using Multi Level Governance (Armstrong & Wells, 2005), theory on territorial rescaling and multi-scalar governance. These theories are encapsulated within one strand of the Strategic Relational Approach (Jessop, 2008) to understand the state. Use of theory in this way ensures that the findings add to wide-ranging and existing knowledge rather than replicating it.Secondly, the research was carried out at a significant time in Welsh political history. Under devolution Communities First is the first national area-based community development programme to be exclusively designed and implemented by Ministers elected to represent the people of Wales. The thesis explores the impact of devolution on community development from the perspective of those involved at different levels of governance; from Ministers with a Wales-wide remit to community groups in neighbourhoods. It also explores the influence of UK regeneration policy and actors during the late 1990s (SEU, 2001; Lawless, 2011).Thirdly, the research questions have developed directly from existing research on Communities First in Wales (Adamson & Bromilley, 2008). Published at the outset of this PhD the research provided an empirical base from which to develop a relevant investigation of the Communities First programme using the theoretical tools noted above.