UNSPECIFIED. (1997) Fiduciary government: Decentering property and taxpayers' interests. SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES, 6 (2). 235-&. ISSN 0964-6639

Abstract

This article explores fiduciary duty in the context of local government. It focuses on the way the duty currently functions - owed to local taxpayers - and the discursive possibilities of alternative formulations for progressive, critical local government practice. The article argues fiduciary duty to the taxpayer has been deployed to promote neo-conservative and neo-liberal norms. This is not simply a consequence of application but goes to the very heart of the way taxpayers' interests and the fiduciary relationship have been conceptualized. The article therefore considers alternative paradigms, including the implications of developing a fiduciary framework which centres the most vulnerable interests within a non-property-based relationship. However, while a more progressive model can clearly be developed, it does not by itself resolve difficult political questions. Radical reformulation may be useful at the level of critique, however, its combination of legal form and radical idealism may prove less productive (even counterproductive) as a normative strategy of political and legal re-visioning.

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