Local government and the wider local state have experienced dramatic change in the last decade in the global North. A decade of turbulence has been marked by geographically uneven austerity and unprecedented expenditure reductions, rising demand for local services, regulatory change, and the national government ambitions for local financial 'self-sufficiency' and reduced dependence upon central grants. Fiscal stress has intensified pressures on local government actors to close funding gaps by making savings and finding new sources of income, drawing them into new strategies, arrangements, and instruments. Local government faces an uncertain future amidst climate change, demographic shifts, technological transitions, and post-pandemic recovery. This period of change and uncertainty raises fundamental questions about what local government and the local state is for and how it can be funded and financed.
We welcome conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions as well as international and/or comparative cases from the research community in relation to these and other relevant themes: