Leisure, the local state and social order.

This paper investigates ways in which social theory has conceptualized the nature and function of state intervention in the field of leisure. The particular focus of the paper is on the nature of state mediation of leisure in Britain's inner cities which have been prone to periodic bouts of disorder and riot, particularly in the last five years. However, the paper does not constitute a pragmatic search for policies to solve urban disorders by managing either leisure or other service provision more effectively in the inner city (though such a task properly confronts professionals employed by the state); rather our concern here is to explain how particular state responses are mediated by professionals in the initiation and implementation of policy. The paper rejects the notion of a monolithic state responding in a uniform way to emerging social problems, and aims to illustrate the contribution of a theoretically informed analysis to an understanding of the state's role in promoting and controlling certain f...