The politics of partnership - The role of social partners in local economic development in Portugal

In the production of a dominant ideology for local economic policy, concepts of partnership currently play a key role. However, conceptualizations of partnership which inform the policy process are often weakened by a failure to recognize the unequal power relations between social partners, as well as by implicit assumptions of the existence of a range of partners available to be drawn into the local development process. This article explores current dominant notions of partnership and forms of economic governance and the role of international organizations in promoting particular ideologies of partnership. Through analysis of recent experiences in Portugal, this article examines how in practice the development of partnerships has been heavily constrained by the underdeveloped nature of local social partners, plus the unequal power relations between local and central state organizations and other locally based institutions. It is argued that policies promoting partnership must recognize these inequalities between partners and show awareness of the need to build up local institutional capacities for promoting economic development. Such policies are required in order to construct a politics of partnership embedded in democratic and participative processes of local development and to avoid the domination of the local development process by restricted local and national interests.