Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations

Rhodes rejects the conventional assumption that central-local relations can be explained as hierarchical control exercised by Whitehall over local authorities. His power-dependence model instead treats central departments and local authorities as mutually interdependent organizations, each controlling resources the other needs. The discretion of each participant is shaped not by formal constitutional authority but by the goals, strategies, and relative power potential of the other. Outcomes emerge from bargaining and exchange within a complex set of interactions, not from command.

The book introduced the power-dependence framework for analyzing intergovernmental relations, built around resource exchange, bargaining, and policy communities. Rhodes later extended this into the study of policy networks, which became a central analytical tool in British public administration and comparative governance research. The framework was directly connected to his later 'hollowing out' thesis and the differentiated polity model developed in Understanding Governance. It remains widely cited in research on intergovernmental relations and network governance.

Corporatist approaches emphasize structured, tripartite bargaining between state, capital, and labor at the national level, often with a focus on formal interest intermediation. Rhodes draws on corporatism but argues that central-local relations are characterized by a more fragmented and variable pattern of mutual dependence across multiple policy communities. There is no single bargaining table; resource dependencies vary by policy area, and local authorities retain discretion through their control of implementation resources. The model is more pluralist and disaggregated than standard corporatist theory.

Rhodes himself revisited the model in the 1999 revised edition, acknowledging criticism and extending the analysis. The framework proved durable in part because it was adaptable: as British government underwent further centralization under Thatcher and Major, the resource dependencies shifted but did not disappear. Later work on the 'franchise state' and contracting-out showed that hollowing out continued and intensified, which Rhodes interpreted as consistent with his original insight about dispersed power, though the specific actors and resources had changed considerably.

The book grew from a commission by the Social Science Research Council's Panel on Central and Local Government Relationships, which asked Rhodes to review the existing literature and develop an analytical framework to guide research. It is primarily a bibliographic survey and theoretical synthesis rather than an original empirical study. The SSRC was sufficiently impressed with the framework to fund a number of research projects using it, making it a foundational text that shaped an entire research agenda rather than reporting findings from a single study.

Control and Power is the origin point for Rhodes's network approach. The power-dependence model's focus on resource exchange and policy communities directly underpinned the growth of policy network analysis in British government. His later work, including Understanding Governance, developed these ideas into the more ambitious claim that networks are a distinct mode of governance, not just a feature of central-local bargaining. The 1999 revised edition of Control and Power includes new chapters that explicitly trace this trajectory from power-dependence to policy networks to narratives and beliefs.