7: The Role of Elected Mayors: Findings and Analysis

Contemporary research on the structures of local government leadership has increasingly sought to integrate the connections between leadership and place (Ayres & Stafford, 2014; Collinge, Gibney, & Mabey, 2010; Hambleton, 2015a). This has involved a terminology associated with public enterprise, as well as ‘local place’, ‘place making’ and ‘place identities’ (Collinge et al., 2010; Fenwick & Johnston, 2020a). As discussed above, transformations in the political leadership of local government embody new ways of working which engage communities that are more diverse than ever before. Similarly, local government leaders increasingly work beyond local and national boundaries. These more collaborative modes of leadership operate at the boundary amid a diverse group of stakeholders from public, private and voluntary sectors including frontline services such as public health, social care services and law enforcement in safeguarding the distribution of crucial decentralised public services. These address local place and the needs of communities and citizens. As the findings from our study illustrate, the role and function of the ‘elected mayor’ is misperceived in terms of fuzziness, confusion, indistinctness and complexity which surrounds these more innovative attempts at city leadership. Conventional interpretations claim that sweeping innovative tactics challenge urban governance and the structures of city leadership. On the one hand, this is due to the tautness of talented individuals which acts as a prerequisite for collaboration, and on the other hand, the obligation towards safeguarding pursuits of risk, resilient and networked communities in progressing the policies of economic growth.