Yseult Marique: Q&A on Open Access Publication

Professor Yseult Marique and co-authors Eugenio Vaccari, Laura N. Coordes, and Geo Quinot have published the new book, Municipalities in Financial Distress: An Environmental, Social and Governance Critique (Edward Elgar, 2025), with the support of the University’s Open Access Fund.

We spoke to Professor Marique from Essex Law School who told us more about this incredibly timely study, its origins, and why the authors chose to publish it Open Access. The book is freely available to download now.

How does it feel to see your work online and in print at last?

The publication of this book, the outcome of intense collaboration with three amazingly generous colleagues (Eugenio Vaccari, Laura Coordes and Geo Quinot), is exciting ! This gives me a sense of reaching a key milestone in our on-going discussions and expanding interdisciplinary network.

What was the original inspiration for publishing a monograph, and given that you and your fellow authors are based in three different countries – the USA, South Africa, and the UK – how did you all come together on the project?

The project started more than seven years ago when we started to hear that English local authorities were financially struggling following a long period of austerity. My colleague came up with the idea to look at the USA where Detroit had just gone through a formal process of bankruptcy and to see how local financial distress was managed in general in other countries. 

This led INSOL International to grant financial support for research comparing ca. 20 countries across the world. We then could identify some trends and differences, and we wanted to deepen our analysis of a small number of systems with sufficient similarities, yet interesting differentiation. Hence, the book focused on England, the USA and South Africa.

Looking to your study, are towns and cities in all three nations battling with the same financial hardships? 

Although the ways in which local governments are funded in England, the USA and South Africa is very different, with the USA having an extremely developed municipal bond market that we do not find in England and South Africa, we also found interesting similarities across the three systems. 

For instance, all the countries recognise the continuity of essential services to an extent and public health and safety challenges arise in times of financial distress. In addition, in all three countries, restoring the long-term financial viability of local governments after a period of distress proves to be challenging. With some notable exceptions such as Detroit, local authorities are often embroiled in financial trouble for long period of time or in a repetitive manner.

What solutions, if any, are available to them?

The factors causing financial distress can be manifold; so that it is not possible to identify a one-size-fits-all solution. However, it could be possible to try to detect problems as early as possible in order to seek to prevent the financial troubles from escalading and getting out of control.

What made you choose Open Access publication and how did you find the process?

Municipal financial distress is a very topical issue in England. There have been recent parliamentary reports and a NAO report on the sustainability of local government finances. The UK government had launched a consultation process to reform them. Similarly, the topic is also much in the spotlight in South Africa, and in other jurisdictions such as India or China. So we wanted to ensure the broader accessibility to our findings in the hope that they could contribute to the wider policy conversation in some way or another. The Open Access Team at Essex has been extremely helpful in guiding us during the process which they made very easy to navigate throughout.

In what ways do you plan to take advantage of the book being Open Access?

We are discussing our book at a range of events – from India to Belgium, to other events in the UK in the coming months. So having the book in Open Access makes it very easy to direct the audience and panellists to the book. We also plan to explain the book on our blog, and having the book in open access should make it more accessible for our members to access it. Finally, we have mentioned the book on LinkedIn and again the fact that the book is Open Access makes it more accessible for our respective networks in North America, Europe and Africa. 

Is it too soon to ask what’s next for you?

It is still a bit soon to say much about the next project indeed. But our research into municipal finances made us aware that there were a range of very interesting, yet under-explored, issues in local government finances in the UK. So, Eugenio and I are coordinating a project seeking to map how local government spend public money across a number of policies and across the UK. 

We hope to be able to say more about this project after the Summer. Watch this space!

Municipalities in Financial Distress: An Environmental, Social and Governance Critique (Edward Elgar, 2025) is freely available to download now.

The Open Access Fund

The University of Essex's institutional Open Access Fund enables Essex authors to publish their research open access and to share their findings without barriers. You can explore your Open Access options with our dedicated forms: for longform works such as books and chapters, and for articles.