This thesis explores the relationship between contemporary governance restructuring in Dublin and funding arrangements for Area Partnership Companies (APCs) under the 2000-2006 Local Development and Social Inclusion Programme (LDSIP) by means of an empirical case study. It analyses how governance changes and associated impacts on funding arrangements for APCs are experienced, perceived and explained by individuals from different professional and institutional backgrounds. Particular emphasis is placed on the rise of control-focused business-like performance and monitoring practices and their impact on the plans and activities of APCs. The analysis of empirical material indicates that contemporary neo-liberal policies and practices associated with the Strategic Management Initiative (SMI) have been instrumental in modifying the local partnership model in Ireland and more specifically, the governance framework and practices of APCs. These policies and practices are investigated against the backdrop of three sets of key themes that have been identified based on the review of empirical material: first, the gradual alignment of APCs with the apparatus of the state; second, the design and implementation of accountability procedures underlying the allocation of funding; and, third, the adoption of managerial practices and value-for-money (VFM) criteria for the public sector. This thesis underscores that the re-organisation of the local partnership model has been influenced by the ethos of the New Public Managerialism (NPM), which became a prominent strategy for governance re-structuring in OECD countries throughout the 1990s. Empirical evidence suggests that the influence of governance restructuring on contemporary funding arrangements for APCs in Dublin facilitated: • their transition from quasi independent players into a new regulatory framework for local development controlled by the state, and • their transformation from area-based development models based on the ethos of local partnership and participatory democracy towards service delivery agencies of the state. The key objective of the research is to investigate the extent to which the theoretical frameworks provided by actor-network theory (ANT), urban regime theory (URT) and the regulation approach (RA) can explain the current design of funding arrangements for APCs in the context of contemporary governance restructuring in Ireland and the associated proliferation of market-led principles and practices. The assessment of the empirical data in the light of the three competing theories suggests that theoretical concepts associated with the regulation approach are best suited to explain the observed relationship between governance restructuring and funding arrangements for APCs during the metamorphosis of the local partnership model in Dublin.