The 'community' concept in local government community plans: defining community in regional Australia

The 'community' concept in local government community plans: defining community in regional Australia

The concept of community is synonymous with local governance. It is relied upon to speak to populations and to define the values of a region. This paper draws on an analysis of non-metropolitan local government community plans (n = 71) from Queensland, Australia, to examine the ways that the community concept is rendered by local governments. Via a critical discourse analysis of these ‘official’ documents, we argue that the community concept functions as a signifier of identity, place and cohesion, with these significations outlining how citizens are positioned to contribute to the formation and maintenance of the civic order, and how local governments are operationalised into practice. We argue that this represents a limited interpretation of the community concept and offer a conceptualisation of a more affective and human-centred vision of community as communitas. Accordingly, this paper develops theoretical insights into the ways that the discursive framing of concepts like community inform enactments of local governance.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Local Government Studies on 19 Nov 2025, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2025.2591611