Nuno F.

da Cruz, Philipp Rode and Michael McQuarrie

Article (Accepted version)

Original citation:
da Cruz, Nuno F. and Rode, Philipp and McQuarrie, Michael (2018) New urban governance: a
review of current themes and future priorities. Journal of Urban Affairs. ISSN 0735-2166 (In
Press)

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New Urban Governance:

A review of current themes and future priorities

Nuno F. da Cruz*, Philipp Rode, Michael McQuarrie

London School of Economics and Political Science

* Corresponding authors. LSE Cities, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United

Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6546; Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This review paper explores some of the key concepts, trends and approaches in contemporary

urban governance research. Based on a horizon scan of recent literature and a survey of local

government officials it provides a big picture on the topic and identifies areas for future

research. Bridging the gap between the scholarly research focus and the perceptions and

requirements of city administrators represents a major challenge for the field. Furthermore,

because global and comparative research on urban governance is confronted with an absence

of systematically collected, comparable data, the paper argues that future efforts will require

experimenting with methodologies that can generate new empirical insights.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of the New Urban Governance project by LSE Cities at the

London School of Economics and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. We

also acknowledge the research assistance provided by Nicole Badstuber. Finally, we are

grateful for the partnership and important contributions of UCLG and UN-Habitat to the

Urban Governance Survey. The findings, interpretation, and conclusions presented in this

article are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to any of

these entities.

1
Introduction

Approaches to urban governance are changing rapidly as cities struggle to adapt to the

challenges of the 21st century. Climate change, migration, security, and a more fragile global

economy are all driving urban change at a time when national governments continue to

hesitate with a full commitment to cities and urban development (Frug & Barron, 2008). In

many jurisdictions, financial transfers from national to sub-national governments have mostly

been stable or even slightly increasing (in absolute terms) over the years but these transfers

are often not proportionate to increasing responsibilities and challenges that cities have to

meet (United Cities and Local Governments, 2016). Resources rarely come with augmented

authority for cities, meaning that even where cities are secure in budgetary terms they often

have little autonomy for developing policy responses to meet these new and intractable

challenges.

In fact, the issue of available budgets versus the array and scope of responsibilities

undertaken by cities is just part of the story. The political and fiscal empowerment and

autonomy of city institutions (Travers, 2015), the coordination of strategies and interventions

at the subnational level (Arreortua, 2016; Rode, 2018), and the steady supply of skills

necessary to deal with the complexities of urban governance (Muñoz, Amador, Llamas,

Hernandez, & Sancho, 2017) are all examples of gateways through which national

governments can boost or curtail their commitment to cities. It has also been argued that these

urban governance constraints, in some contexts, may lead to exploitation and corruption (de

Sousa & Moriconi, 2013; Transparency International, 2015).

Urban governance is an appealing concept because local governments – which can be briefly

described as public bureaucracies and their political masters – do not exist in a vacuum. City

2
administrations negotiate their way through the policy process while being subject to, just to

name a few: the influence of other levels of government, the need to steer or coordinate with

other authorities, lobbying pressures, and democratic concerns (Stone, 1989 and 1993;

Mossberger & Stoker, 2001). Governance is also useful as an analytical lens because it does

not require a priori assumptions about the roles of the various actors regarding goal setting,

steering and implementation (Pierre, 2014). It rather emphasises the relationships and

interactions between these actors as well as the conditions and rules that frame those

relationships and interactions.

Despite its tactical usefulness as a concept, the theories and academic studies on urban

governance to date have not yet established a mature and consolidated field of study (Pierre,

2005 and 2014; Davies, 2014; Lucas, 2017). To some extent, this may be due to the

transformations that occurred in the decades since the most prominent theories of urban

governance were developed and the most involved empirical studies were conducted (e.g.

Dahl, 1961; Galaskiewicz, 1985; Logan & Molotch, 1987; Harvey, 1989; Orum, 1995;

McQuarrie & Marwell, 2009).1 As a consequence of these conceptual and explanatory

struggles, urban governance research has been dominated by case studies or by theoretical

claims with little empirical support. Certainly, well-designed and particularly longitudinal

case studies make a significant contribution to the field. But as recently put by Lucas (2017,

p. 82), there is “a growing chorus of urban politics scholars who have advocated a move

away from single-case studies of particular cities and toward a more comparative approach to

urban politics, policy, and governance.” The shifts “from government to governance” and

1
It should also be noted that the bulk of theoretical development has relied heavily on North

American and European cases (e.g. Stoker, 1998 and 2011; Brenner, 1999; Brenner & Theodore,

2002; Fontan, Hamel, Morin & Shragge, 2008; Frug & Barron, 2008).

3
“managerialism to entrepreneurialism,” for example, have been pitched as a clear trend in the

way cities are run for quite some time now (Harvey, 1989; Stone, 1989; Pierre, 2011; Koch,

2013). This is often understood as a process where the power or relevance of (local)

government civil servants and elected politicians decreased relative to private actors like

philanthropies, business associations, management consultants, and NGOs. But did it really

change that radically? Given the available evidence, can one be certain that local

governments retreated or were pushed to a role of mere “network coordinators” (Stoker,

2011) at a global scale? Or did the current discourse accept these claims based on cases that

overemphasized national or even sub-national institutional changes?

Still, collecting systematic data on urban governance in order to understand broad trends at a

global scale is extraordinarily difficult. However desirable such knowledge is, given the

importance of cities for meeting contemporary challenges, the field is somewhat doomed to

feeling its way. New methodologies are needed, but more than this the identification of key

sites of conflict and change and a greater emphasis on the Global South are necessary.

In both academic and public arenas, the dominating narrative of governance seems to evolve

around political issues of unequal power, democratisation, representation and public

participation. Issues linked to (multilevel) institutions of governance and state reform – and

how these impact on the pursuit of wider societal goals – seem to have less traction,

particularly in public discourse. This could be due to the sheer complexity of these issues,

and/or the lack of suitable evidence to develop effective political narratives.

Given these practical, research and data challenges, this review paper aims to identify key

areas of concern for future research on urban governance. To accomplish this, we start with a

4
systematic review of the literature on urban governance “challenges” and a survey of city

governments (LSE Cities, UN-Habitat & UCLG, 2016). Following these exercises and the

overarching interest in empirical insights into urban governance, we then derive “current”

and “emerging” themes. We then provide a review of the latest research within this broader

discussion and call for more in-depth analysis in the future.

Disconnect between urban governance research and practice

Contemporary urban governance research is characterised by a considerable disconnection

from actual concerns of urban managers, practitioners, and leaders. Using a dataset of 408

publications (308 journal articles, 41 conference papers, 37 book chapters and 22 books)

assembled through the search engines of two indexing services – Elsevier’s Scopus and

Thompson Reuters’ Web of Science – we identify key areas of concern for scholars

researching urban governance. Several filtering techniques (automatic – e.g. using “urban +

govern* + challeng*” as search terms – and manual – e.g. reading of the title, then the

abstracts or introductions) were employed to achieve this final set of relevant references. The

governance challenges addressed in each publication were recorded using more than 100

basic categories (which were sketched out qualitatively while reading the titles and

abstracts/introductions of the entries). The publication dates ranged from 1980 (one

publication) to 2015 (32 publications) although more than 50% of the sources in the dataset

were published in the 2011-2015 period. Any publication could refer to any number of the

listed challenge categories and, on average, each publication addresses eight governance

challenges. The 20 “most discussed” urban governance challenges in the academic literature

arising from this systematic review are presented in Table 1.

[Insert Table 1 here]

5
The most studied governance challenge, by far, is citizen participation. It is directly addressed

in more than a third of the publications included in the analysis. Other categories closely

related to this topic that also receive a high number of mentions include the engagement of

civil society organisations with decision-making and the lack of local governments’ political

engagement with the electorate. Taken together, issues around participation, democracy, and

engagement are taken up in nearly two-thirds of the articles included in our analysis. The

second most prominent area of concern is institutional shortcomings and capacity concerns.

Other significant issues are privatization, efficiency and adaptability.

Perhaps the strong bias towards issues of citizen participation identified here is a direct result

of the search strategy. While citizen participation is undoubtedly a topic of growing

importance (Reese, 2014), journals in the field of urban studies (and beyond) are covering

many different topics, including the more administrative and institutional issues which are

relevant to urban governance research and practice. It might be the case that this is not done

under the headline of “urban governance.” While different search terms would likely render

different results, it is still illuminating to grasp what sort of scholarly research is directly

linked to urban governance challenges and the overwhelming dominance of the question of

participation within it. It is possible that certain disciplinary silos are preventing a big picture

overview on urban governance and its development as a consolidated field of inquiry

(Sapotichne, Jones & Wolfe, 2007).

This focus on participatory governance is not specific to scholarly literature. It is mirrored in

the grey literature and as part of most international policy and development initiatives. For

example, it has been prominent as part of the preparatory processes for Habitat III – as a

6
content analysis of the six “issue papers” and 10 “policy papers” would certainly show2 – and

the final Quito Declaration on Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements for All (United

Nations, 2017).

But to what degree does the scholarly and developmental focus represent the real-world

concerns of city administrators and managers? The results of the Urban Governance Survey

developed by LSE Cities, UN Habitat, and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG)

seem to suggest very little (LSE Cities, UN-Habitat & UCLG, 2016). This survey was first

launched in the summer of 2014 (data collection from July to September) and 78 cities

completed it with their self-reported insights during this first round. The second round

included 51 additional cities, with data collected in the summer of 2016 (from July to

September, in the run-up to Habitat III), amounting to 127 participating city governments

from 53 countries and all continents. The survey was disseminated through the networks of

the project partners (most notably, the UCLG membership). After receiving an expression of

interest, the research team would confirm that the individual was a city representative (i.e.

he/she worked in the respective local government) and e-mail him/her a web link to the

online survey. Both the questionnaire and the online platform reporting the results were

available in English, Spanish and French.

The survey considered a range of governance issues, including political power, budget and

financing, multi-level governance, participation and accountability, strategic planning and

institutional change. For our current purposes, one question is particularly relevant: “To what

extent are the following issues challenges to governing your city?” The respondents were

2
The documentation of the preparatory process of Habitat III can be retrieved through

https://habitat3.org/preparatory-process

7
then asked to rate from 1 (not relevant) to 5 (highly relevant) a list of 20 different issues. The

results analysed here come from a sample of 56 city governments assembled by considering

the universe of cities that responded to this question and imposing a maximum of two cities

for the same country (to avoid country bias). The selection criterion for countries with more

than two entries was city population (i.e. the sample includes the most populous cities in the

universe of respondents). The sample includes data from all continents and 45 countries, with

stronger representation of cities from Europe (38%) and the Americas (29%). Regarding the

extent of responsibility of the respondents, most (about 67%) were department directors,

heads, coordinators or other top management positions. There was not a clear

overrepresentation of specific departments (therefore disciplines) in the sample, though about

a third of these top managers were from either the Planning (likely due to the substantive

content of the bulk of the questionnaire) or International Relations departments (likely due to

the dissemination through the UCLG network). Other representatives included middle

management and municipal public servants (about 27%) and Mayors or Councillors (6%).

The average tenure on the job of the respondents was 8.6 years. However, it should be noted

that it is unlikely that a single individual would have the expertise to fill out the whole

questionnaire. We expect that many of the persons responsible for submitting the responses

consulted with the relevant individuals in local government. Despite the usual limitations of

this type of data source (susceptibility to respondent’s own perceptions, non-random

selection, reliability issues of self-reported data, etc.) this survey is aimed at understanding

the concern of city managers and was designed with an awareness that academic work in the

area might not be reflecting those concerns particularly well. It also represents one of the very

few global efforts tackling the scarcity of urban governance data for empirical and

comparative research in this field.

8
The most often cited challenge was “insufficient public budgets,” identified as an issue by

city representatives in 50% of the cities in the sample. This was followed by politicisation of

local issues, the complexity of managing contemporary urban issues, and maladapted or

outdated policy silos. 36% of cities stated that inflexible bureaucracies and rigid rules are

major factors constraining cities’ governance realities, and 30% singled out lack of municipal

autonomy (in relation to other tiers of government), overlapping responsibilities (unclear

jurisdictions) and vertical coordination issues (working across levels of governance) as

significant challenges to effective urban governance. According to these city officials,

participatory governance issues such as “limited access of citizens to policy-making” and the

lack of citizens’ “interest” or “trust” in government appear to be less problematic. Given the

size of the sample, we cannot make strong assertions regarding differences between world

regions or cities of different types. Still, governance challenges do seem to vary slightly from

region to region. All listed challenges seem to be more widespread in cities from the Global

South. In Africa, overlapping responsibilities top the ranking along with the politicisation of

local issues whereas, in India, the major challenge is the (horizontal) coordination of policy

sectors. In Latin America, where the array of mechanisms to influence policies available to

citizens seems to be comparatively higher (LSE Cities, UN-Habitat & UCLG, 2016), the lack

of interest of citizens on local issues is singled out as the most recurring problem. The full

ranking of challenges for the global sample is shown in Table 2.

[Insert Table 2 here]

Of course, these concerns reflect the interests as well as the experiences of urban managers.

Nonetheless, the disconnect between the issues prioritized by urban managers versus scholars

should at least give us pause. Considering how much hope is being placed on the capacity

9
and competence of cities to lead in the “transformational” efforts towards a more sustainable

global development, the level of mismatch between academic input and real-world needs

should be of concern (Parnell, 2016b). The fact that the level of “participation” is generally

equated to the “fairness” of policy outcomes is all the more worrisome. Currently, there are

only a handful of studies that adopt a critical approach to public participation and challenge

the view that it represents a panacea for structural inequalities (Lee, McQuarrie & Walker,

2015). Participation and engagement are not prominent concerns of academics only; activists

and academics have often emphasized the importance of community voice and

decentralisation in the name of greater democracy. But how does this square with cities

increasingly having to manage systems or complex international issues that are not

necessarily amenable to popular input? While government should clearly reflect the priorities

and interests of citizens, which can be effectively accommodated by innovations like

participatory governance, managing climate change or transport often requires decades of

commitment and investment by city leaders (Sennett, 2014). It is also not clear that cities can

manage these issues without significant investments from national and transnational scales of

government.

Indeed, as the world becomes increasingly urban, the challenges of urban governance have

become a central consideration as part of global development efforts (Parnell, 2016a). In

addition to the New Urban Agenda (NUA), the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

(United Nations, 2015b), adopted by the United Nations in September 2015, includes for the

first time a dedicated section on urban development – the so-called Urban Sustainable

Development Goals (SDG 11). The COP21 conference in Paris in December 2015 (United

Nations, 2015a), which led to the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change, also

received considerable support through city-level commitments on climate action.

10
But despite this growing interest and ambition, the field of urban governance is still

confronted with a lack of empirical evidence on the institutional arrangements that are

helping cities adapt to the complexities of social, environmental and technological change.

The ever-increasing deployment of sensors in urban environments that came along with the

ubiquity of the smartphone and the advent of big data, machine learning and “smart cities”

(Kitchin, 2016; Greenfield, 2017; Meijer & Thaens, 2018) supplies us with much more data

on service provision and usage – or on how cities are managed. But this sort of data is still

telling us very little about (1) the politics of decision-making, (2) the outcomes of particular

institutional settings, (3) the workings of multiscalar regimes and, paradoxically, (4) the new

power structures arising from these technological developments – or on how cities are

governed. Still, there is research that addresses these issues. And thus, in the following four

sections, we review the literature on current and emerging themes and challenges to urban

governance research and practice that warrant further empirical investigation and evidence.

Rather than stemming from the systematic review of the literature discussed above, the

themes discussed in depth in these sections engage with the top challenges shown in Table 2

(where the last theme, on innovations and technology, cuts across all those challenges).3

Given the breadth, complexity and multi-disciplinarily of urban governance scholarship, we

acknowledge that, to some extent, the selection of topics addressed in these sections may be

subjective and contestable. Other authors from other disciplinary backgrounds could have

3
For example, “Insufficient public budgets” relates to the issues discussed in “Recalibrating

multilevel governance and city diplomacy,” “Politicisation of local issues” relates to the issues

discussed in “Softening the edges between politics and technocracy,” and “Interdependence of policy

issues” relates to the issues addressed in “Linking institutional arrangements to policy outcomes.”

11
chosen to highlight different themes, questions, methods and avenues for future research. In

addition to the input received by practitioners (through the survey), our choices arise from

our own reading of the extant literature. They represent the areas for which new

methodologies and enhanced empirical findings would contribute to a deeper understanding

of institutional evolution and administrative reforms in cities in the 21st century.

Current themes and challenges to urban governance research and practice

The well-documented transitions “from managerialism to entrepreneurialism” and “from

government to governance” brought about deregulation, increased flexibility of planning and

the greater involvement of the private sector, but also decreasing interest in developing the

public sector and ensuring socioeconomic equality (Harvey, 1989; Rhodes, 1997; Stoker,

1998; Greiving and Kemper 1999; Imbroscio, 2003; Heere, 2004; Blumenthal & Bröchler,

2006). All along these processes, which took many shapes and forms around the globe, there

were also calls for a move from an “active” to an “enabling” state (Organisation for

Economic Co-operation and Development, 1996) with the aim of removing barriers to the

market, increasing plurality and citizen involvement in governance (Röber & Schröter, 2002;

Evans, Joas, Sundback & Theobald, 2006).

Taken together, these shifts have led to more networked forms of governance (Powell 1990;

Klijn & Koppenjan, 2016), expanding the number and diversity of actors involved in an

increasingly nonlinear policy-making process that challenges hierarchical integration

(Greiving & Kemper, 1999; Hajer & Versteeg, 2005). New public management reforms,

quasi-market mechanisms and the proliferation of public agencies have added to this

challenge (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005; Dunleavy,

Margetts, Bastow & Tinkler, 2006; Catney, Dixon & Henneberry, 2008). Furthermore, the

12
ongoing privatisation of urban services, infrastructure delivery and operation (Thornley,

1996; Cowell & Martin, 2003; Harvey, 2005 and 2007) constrained accountability and

strategic visioning and increased the complexity of governing cities. Finally, bridging

geographic scales is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly as a result of urban

expansion and in cases where administrative boundaries are unable to catch up and match the

functional integration of metropolitan regions (Shaw & Sykes, 2005; Angel, Parent & Civco,

2012; Ahrend, Gamper & Schumann, 2014; Angel, 2017; Eklund, 2018).

If, on the one hand, many researchers dwell on city governance and institutional change

without extensive empirical backing, on the other hand, there are others who focus on data

leaving the politics aside. The strand of literature that engages with new data – for

governance rather than on governance – typically hosts research that proposes to design and

deploy models for “knowing and governing cities” (Kitchin, Lauriault & McArdle, 2015, p.

6). In some cases, the idea is endorsing “evidence-based” policy-making as opposed to the

sole reliance on political rhetoric (Moreno Pires, Magee & Holden, 2017; da Cruz, in press).

However, the frustration with “inefficient,” “unfair” and/or sometimes “irrational” politics

lead many to go as far as suggesting replacing traditional democratic processes with expert-

driven technocratic governance or incentive-based interventions into people’s preferences

(Lowe, 2013). In a context of extreme and growing inequality such approaches are at least

problematic if not likely to fail.

Evidently, indicator, benchmarking, dashboard and data visualisation initiatives are

politically-infused, even if this is unacknowledged or the projects are naïvely conceived

(Kitchin, Lauriault & McArdle, 2015). Empirical research on urban governance may

therefore have to embrace the “political” and attempt to map and scrutinise different

13
institutional arrangements, formalise the complex multi-scalar relationships between actors,

engage with political management and nudging of stakeholders, and critically analyse

governance and policy innovations.

Softening the edges between politics and technocracy

The challenges cited by practitioners and academics (see previous section) can be broadly

divided into issues of democracy, legitimacy, and inclusion, on one hand, and administration,

technical management, and innovation on the other. On the “administrative side,” urban

policy and decision-making is shaped by the (in)flexibility of rules, procedures and

organisational models, by the availability of resources (e.g. finance, skills and knowledge),

by the complexity of the issues at hand (including their volatility and interdependency), and

by the coordination of the different actors involved (horizontal and vertical coordination,

“underlap” and “overlap” problems – see Lodge & Wegrich, 2014; Wegrich & Štimac, 2014).

On the “democracy side,” there are the issues of decentralisation and autonomy (what

responsibilities over what policy areas at what governance level?), political cycles and

campaigning (e.g. populism and short-termism), integrity (e.g. control of corruption),

representation, inclusion, citizenship, and trust in government.

Since successful governance depends on sound legal frameworks, multi-scalar institutional

relationships, and innovative policies (McGuirk, 2003; Allen & Cochrane, 2007; Frug, 2014;

Pierre, 2014; Hajdarowicz, in press), urban governance scholars and practitioners will have to

engage with issues from both “sides” – i.e. they will have to deal with both the political and

the technocratic facets of urban governance. However, most applied research and concrete

reforms on the ground adopt either one or the other as the focus or entry point to address the

struggles and intricacies of urban and metropolitan systems. In a nutshell, this results in an

14
emphasis on the organisational/technocratic solutions to specific problems or on the locus of

political power.

An example of technocratic approaches to urban governance is the process of municipal

amalgamation.4 Although ultimately the decision is “political,” in these processes the

administrative boundaries are removed and the number of municipalities (i.e. local

governments) is reduced to take advantage of technically-defined, and often highly

contentious, economies of scale. There are several dissonant accounts regarding the success

of these reforms, e.g. in Denmark (Blom-Hansen, 2010), Israel (Reingewertz, 2012), and

Australia (Drew & Dollery, 2014) and – particularly important for the accord between

politics and technocracy being discussed here – there is some evidence of detrimental effects

for political efficacy (Lassen and Serritzlew, 2011). Other noteworthy cases concern

technical (“rational,” “apolitical”) tools to guide public investment decisions (Chen & Jim,

2008; De Lara, de Palma, Kilani & Piperno, 2013) and the goodness-of-fit of the array of

organisational models available to local governments to deliver essential infrastructure

services – ranging from in-house production to full divestiture, with a particular emphasis in

corporatisation and public-private partnerships (da Cruz and Marques, 2012).

Within the urban politics scholarship, a fair amount of attention has been devoted to issues of

devolution (Allen & Cochrane, 2007), leadership (Teles, 2014), form of government (Bae &

Feiock, 2013) accountability (Gordon, 2016), and legitimacy and representation (Davies &

4
In theory, amalgamation is not necessarily a technocratic topic. The guiding reason behind the

process could also be a matter of allowing for stronger local governments and improving the quality

of democracy. However, empirical evidence shows that amalgamation often turns out to be the result

of a technocratic approach that focuses on economic efficiency and cost savings (Tavares, 2018).

15
Imbroscio, 2009). The narratives about the changing cast of private and public actors (Pierre,

2011) have inspired moves towards “social investments” that promote further

democratisation, participation, and cooperation between government, voluntary sector and the

business community – see, for example, the recommendations of the Commission for a

Socially Sustainable Malmö (Stigendal & Östergren, 2013, p. 6) to “reduce the differences in

living conditions and make societal systems more equitable.” These and other dimensions of

governance – such as “at large elections versus district elections, the power of the mayor

versus the power of the city council, enabling long-term decision-making when local officials

come and go every four years” (Frug, 2014, p. 3) – will certainly continue to be important

lines of enquiry.

Cases of research and policies that harmoniously address both worlds are uncommon (though

see Weir, 1995 and 1999; Marwell, 2007). Pieterse (2017) bucks that trend with a discussion

of how the South African constitutional and legal provisions – that provide for strong,

autonomous and integrated metropolitan governments – enabled the City of Johannesburg to

use transport planning and infrastructure investments to confront spatial inequalities resulting

from decades of oppressive racial government. This public transit-oriented developmental

initiative represents an instructive case study from the Global South, showing how the vision

and plans for social and spatial transformations in the Johannesburg metropolitan area

brought together politics and evidentiary analysis.

Linking institutional arrangements to policy outcomes

New institutional economics and agency theory have shed light on many issues such as

vertical integration, incentive mechanisms and even the interactions between the institutional

environment and organisational models. The recognition of the hybridisation and

16
juxtaposition of hierarchies and markets led theorists from many disciplines to refer to the

concept of “governance structures” (Menard, 1996). Sociological institutionalism has

emphasised the informal and cultural dimensions of organizations and their environments and

theorised the processes through which institutions impact on symbolic systems, relationships,

and practical routines (McQuarrie & Marwell, 2009). However, the spectrum of institutional

arrangements and policy outcomes is so incredibly broad that what we currently know about

the links between these depends on what question(s) we ask.

Regardless, institutional design, mutability, and adaptability are central issues for urban

governance. Institutions are often intractable and conservative, but they are also necessary for

the coordination of people and resources. It is certainly true that calls for improving

institutional arrangements tend to be commonly associated with addressing policy problems:

“After all, if political institutions emerge as a historical product of particular struggles, it is

only natural that these institutions are designed to help resolve precisely those conflicts”

(Hajer, 2003, p. 177). Yet, this assumes that we can assess institutional performance in

relation to policy outcomes. And while considerable work has been done on the effects of

institutional arrangements on political and social outcomes scholars have also stressed the

limitations of institutional determinism (Radaelli, Dente & Dossi, 2012). There are numerous

problems with measuring policy outcomes. Above all, linking institutions and policy

outcomes has been challenged by the long causal chain, long time lags and a large number of

interfering variables that exist between the two (Pierson, 2000, Radaelli, Dente & Dossi,

2012).

Although examples of urban research that scrutinise the links between institutional

arrangements and policy outcomes (whilst embedding the issue in a discussion of

17
governance) are not widespread, there are a few exceptions.5 For example, Rode (2017)

discusses the institutional changes that enabled the integration of urban planning and

transport policies in London and Berlin. This research shows that the hierarchy-network

duality is inadequate to account for institutional change in cities. The successful integration

of urban form and transport seems to require top-down hierarchical organization and new

forms of metagovernance that ensure the buy-in of more loosely and self-organized networks

of actors. While network arrangements without hierarchy lead to ineffectual policy

implementation, coercive decision-making hinders the development of a sense of common

purpose and understanding, trust, and a range of other social conditions necessary for

integration. To further complicate the matter, the extent to which planning and policy

integration requires centralization (at any given level of governance) may ultimately depend

on the policy sectors in question (spatial and transport planning, for example, seems to

demand greater autonomy for the metropolitan level).

In the radically different case of Shenzhen – the first “special economic zone” in China and

currently its first low-carbon “ecocity” –successive urban plans have been important

governing instruments in providing a roadmap for the city’s socioeconomic and spatial

transformation (Ng, 2017). In this city, an understanding of the historical developments –

where the initial control of land clusters by state-owned enterprises was followed by the re-

municipalisation of spatial planning and development, which was then followed by the

liberalisation of nationalised “collectively owned” land and the creation of various

5
There are, however, countless examples of research that explores the outcomes – mostly in terms of

“cost” or “economic efficiency” – of different institutional arrangements on service delivery (usually

without a profound engagement with the politics involved, in its broadest sense). For a review of this

strand of literature see, for example, Bel, Fageda & Warner (2010).

18
mechanisms and regulations – is key to uncover path dependencies and contemplate future

policies. While industrial Chinese cities face unparalleled pollution challenges, Shenzhen’s

low-carbon urbanism has been mainly driven by land shortages which, in turn, stemmed from

central government tax, economic, and administrative reforms.

How the institutions of governance are designed within a city make certain kinds of political

interests and choices easier to adopt than others (Pierre, 2011). But being at the centre of a

feedback loop – institutions “somehow” influence policy outcomes that may “somehow” lead

to institutional reform – and contingent on so many aspects, such as the policy sectors in

question, how should political leaders engage with their design? For now, the answer seems

to be continuing to explore the links between institutional arrangements and policy outcomes

in real cities and metropolitan areas (e.g. see Collin & Robertson, 2005). For example, on the

tensions between administrative borders and functional territories, the Organisation for

Economic Co-operation and Development (2015) suggests a series of guidelines for effective

reforms based on evidence suggesting that “metropolitan governance may not be the only

solution, but certainly a critical part of the solution to improve growth and well-being” (p.

11). Currently, institutions dedicated to some sort of metropolitan governance are common,

but only rarely have strong powers.

Emerging themes and challenges to urban governance research and

practice

Against a background of limited authority/capacity and higher stakes/expectations, many

cities innovate to meet the challenges. Yet our understanding and theories of urban

governance are still mostly shaped by work that was done in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g.

Peterson, 1981; Logan & Molotch, 1987; Harvey, 1989; Stone, 1989). This work paved the

19
way for comparative research (Denters & Mossberger, 2006) and helped in reorienting the

debate about power and in facilitating the analysis of urban politics beyond the formal

institutions of government in North American cities and beyond (Mossberger & Stoker,

2001). But it was also a source of some “theoretical confusion” (Mossberger & Stoker, 2001,

p. 810) and too “self-contained” (Sapotichne, Jones & Wolfe, 2007, p. 77), when there would

certainly be benefits to a multidisciplinary research programme. In the meantime, much has

changed. Currently, cities are making use of contemporary technological developments to

become “smarter” (Kitchin, 2016). They are utilizing more participatory forms of governance

(Jun, 2013; McQuarrie, 2013). Bureaucracies and technocracies are becoming more relational

in order to maintain their legitimacy (da Cruz, McQuarrie & Rode, 2018). And city

governments have developed international associations and networks to disseminate

innovations and develop ideas (Tavares, 2016).

Innovation in urban policy and governance is often constrained by the need for active support

from politicians, business leaders, and civil servants which means that cities are regularly

limited by the ideology and policy preferences of people who may lack democratic

legitimacy. Indeed, governance today mobilizes an array of actors beyond government,

including philanthropies, business associations, professional consultants, banks, citizen

organizations, planners, and media outlets. The Urban Governance Survey (LSE Cities, UN-

Habitat & UCLG, 2016) shows that cities have developed an incredible array of institutional

mixes to both manage challenges and deal with their national governments, but multi-scalar

relationships are decisive.

Other work in this field endeavours to develop a depoliticized “science of cities.” Although

this branch of urban science mostly seeks to unearth universal principles that guide the

20
interplay among space, and sociotechnical and socioeconomic dynamics and relations

(Bettencourt & West, 2010; Bettencourt, 2013), some of this work is more propositional and

with direct relevance to urban governance research (Batty, 2013). In reality, from models that

are capable of showing cities as they really are, it is only a short leap to models for better

“city-making.” The advent of “big data,” sophisticated agent-based modelling, advances in

nudge theory and other developments are all impending on urban planning and management.

Still, it appears likely that institutional arrangements, the political management of different

stakeholders, and policy innovation will continue to be critical. The most promising

developments are in the area of actual practice, rather than transformative theoretical

paradigms (Stone, 2017).

Recalibrating multilevel governance and city diplomacy

Although cities are rather older political entities when compared to nation-states – and

despite the occasional enthusiasm for their capacity to respond to transnational problems (see

e.g. Barber, 2013) – it is fair to consider that, to a large extent, the future of urban

development is highly dependent on decisions made at the national or state level. The NUA,

for instance, was negotiated and adopted by nation-states and, ultimately, it is going to be

implemented or dismissed by nation-states. It is certainly essential that cities upgrade their

institutional capacities but, perhaps even more crucially, nation-states need to develop

national urban policies that allow local governments to fulfil their crucial roles. Effective

moves towards empowering city or metropolitan governments to establish a transition to a

more sustainable society are rare. Most countries both in the Global North and South do not

seem to welcome these reforms.

21
The case of India, where the lack of autonomy and authority is restricting the ability of cities

to deal with the swift urban growth, is a prime example (arguably, as is the U.S., Frug &

Barron, 2008). In India there is a palpable “anti-urban” bias in the federal political system

where state governments yield a disproportionate amount of power (Ahluwalia, 2017).

Despite an (ineffectual) constitutional amendment that instructed state governments to

transfer a set of specified functions to local governments, the only way out of this governance

gridlock seems to be establishing a direct link between the federal Government of India and

local governments, bypassing – or at least bridging – state governments. This strategy has

been pursued through a series of new “national missions” that envisage reforms and

strengthening capacity for planning and management at the local level. However, although

strategic leadership by the Government of India is welcome, state governments will continue

to be the main actors in crafting a multilevel governance system where city governments can

assume the responsibilities assigned to them by the constitution (Gore & Gopakumar, 2015;

Ahluwalia, 2017).

Europe is a fertile ground to study multilevel governance and city diplomacy because of the

distinctiveness of the European Union (EU) as a transnational scale of governance that

nonetheless possesses considerable authority. Indeed, in the EU, intergovernmental relations

are becoming more negotiated, cities and regions are expected to be more self-reliant, and

top-down hierarchical control is giving way to a division of labour between cities, regions,

and central government (Pierre, 2017). The tensions between cities’ competences and

resources and the variegated institutional shortcoming of central governments have led EU

bodies and subnational structures to engage each other directly.6 In addition to (and, often,

6
For example, many EU programs in the area of sustainability and climate change target cities and

regions more than the member state national governments (Mocca, 2017).

22
because of) EU-sponsored projects and initiatives, cities are increasingly participating in

international networks. This multilevel governance framework and inter-city networking have

created an arena that is both competitive (e.g. access to EU funds) and collaborative (e.g.

access to other cities’ know-how).

Engaging in multilevel governance and cross-border networks entails costs (Mocca, 2017).

To gain reputation as a knowledgeable and credible network partner cities need to invest –

some European cities, for instance, open European Offices in Brussels to monitor EU

programmes and initiatives (Pierre, 2017). Surely, there are political and electoral benefits to

be captured from serious commitment to some of the issues sponsored by the EU

(environmental protection being a major theme). However, the trade-offs are also expected to

be positive from a financial point of view.

In the same way, establishing transnational networks around areas such as climate change,

education, healthcare, or transport can lead to substantial savings if the acquired knowledge

helps to make better decisions (e.g. regarding costly infrastructure investments). Tavares

(2016) found around 120 networks of cities around the world which led the author to posit

that subnational activism in the international arena is growing at a rate that far exceeds that of

sovereign states. Frustration with national, federal or state inertia is possibly expanding the

type and nature of multi-scalar relationships relevant to urban governance. Although local

decision-makers would welcome roadmaps on when and how to engage in city diplomacy

(Acuto, Morissette & Tsouros, 2016), the field is still facing the aforementioned methods and

data challenges. The way “glurbanisation” works from both below and above, across borders

and at different scale remains fairly unexplained (Matusitz, 2010).

23
Questioning innovations and technology

The now much less prominent (Osborne, 2006) New Public Management approach to

administration endorsed specialisation, competition and the deployment of incentives as the

drivers of institutional and public sector reform. These ideas are still influential in many parts

of the world, including at the level of city governments. However, as argued by Dunleavy,

Margets, Bastow & Tinkler (2006), they lost momentum and their effects are being actively

reversed in many jurisdictions. Still, the scenario foreseen by these authors, corresponding to

“a potential transition to a more genuinely integrated, agile, and holistic government” (p. 489)

centred in information technologies – the so-called “Digital Era Governance” turn – has not

been fully realised.

Undoubtedly, city governments and agencies have been modernising. Many public sector

organisations – such as Transport for London and the New York Police Department – have

been leading in the wide-ranging implementation of technological advancements to improve

their day-to-day operations and are increasingly considering ways of tapping into the

potential of using sensors, big data and real-time information. Sometimes, the use of new (or

not so new) technologies in cities and by cities lead to new governance processes and

structures (like the deployment of “city labs,” Meijer & Thaens, 2018). In addition, the

deployment of these networked technologies raise new problems to local governments related

to cybersecurity (Macmanus, Caruson & Mcphee, 2013). In fact, new digital technology is

changing the way city governments operate and how they relate to society (Ash, Kitchin &

Leszczynski, 2016; De Vries, Bekkers & Tummers, 2016; Kitchin, 2016). “Civic

technology,” for example, is a burgeoning field of research and practice (Kontokosta, 2016).

And the German “energy transition” is a concrete case of socio-technological change which

tends to overwhelm existing institutional arrangements at all levels of governance.

24
Advances in technology, the cost reduction of specialised hardware, and the open source and

open data movements are redrafting the rules of the game for public services, community

engagement and urban entrepreneurship (Meijer & Thaens, 2018). However, our

understanding of the implications of these changes is still meagre. Although pressures are

being placed on local governments around the world, most of these “smart” technologies are

not subjected to research not to mention more propositional perspectives on how to improve

the relevant capacities. The performance of public services, democracy and citizenship

mediated by digital technologies has not been empirically analysed. Preconceived ideas about

how urban institutions should embrace technological change often turn out to be naïve or

even ignorant when confronted with the actual realities of urban governance in cities around

the world, the inner workings of the networked objects, services and spaces, and how they

might impact on politics (Greenfield, 2017). In fact, the literature offers very little on the

political implications of urban and digital governance innovations. Most empirical studies on

public sector innovations focus their attention on whether the operational goals set by those

who endorsed the digital innovations were achieved or not.

Urban governance innovations can also occur without such a direct link to technological

change. Or they may use digital information and communication technologies as an element

of a narrative that envisages more extensive institutional and societal changes. In Rio de

Janeiro, one Mayor was able to establish an unprecedented climate of political consensus by

creating an image of leader that adopts an apolitical “what-works” approach to urban

governance (Paschoal & Wegrich, 2017). In this global city, governance innovations –

namely, the Rio Operations Centre (Centro de Operação Rio), the Unified Service Hotline

(Rio 1746) and the Social Participation Laboratory (Lab.Rio, the Rio de Janeiro “city lab”) –

25
were used as a means to set out a particular vision for the city, with impacts on the social

dynamics and even the very physical form of the metropolis and design of the built

environment (Ivester, 2017). These innovations fitted nicely within the broader strategy of the

mayor’s “rational” governing style and use of managerial tools and were instrumental to

strengthen his control over the city’s governance.

Indeed, urban governance and policy innovations go far beyond the possibilities created

through technological change. They may lie in new ways of funding infrastructure, capturing

land values or even in the changing profiles and/or career trajectories targeted by local

governments for top-level management positions. Many of the current reform ideas where

digital technologies play a major role are being regarded as a “rediscovery of technocracy”

(Esmark, 2017). And although most societal problems will not have a technology fix, the

ubiquity of digital devices and the transformative power of the Information Age inevitably

place technology at the core of new urban governance – and they open the prospect of new

forms of power, as well as liberation, that need new tools for management and regulation.

One should expect and welcome the continuation and enhancement of discussions between

technology enthusiasts (e.g. that claim that data-driven policing was responsible for a

considerable drop in urban crime) and critics (e.g. that point out the dangers of algorithm-

driven racial profiling and reinforcement of inequalities).

Cities have complicated elements, which can be designed and controlled (say traffic

management). But cities are also embedded by complex human systems and complex

problems have no single or optimal solutions. Any technological apparatuses developed for

cities need to embrace this complexity and be designed to produce suitable “enabling

environments” instead of univocal solutions (Mitleton-Kelly, 2015). Complexity is inherent

26
to democracy, and one of the features that attracts people to live in cities. The development of

citizen-centric digital governance tools (United Nations, 2017) needs to take this into

account, as well as to be forthright regarding their direct and indirect impacts in the way

cities are governed while ensuring democratic value systems are going to be protected.

Conclusion

We need to enhance our understanding of urban governance and, before that is possible, we

need to generate new data on how cities are governed. The absence of data to support more

robust assertions about the way governance works in cities – and of suitable methods to

gather these data – is a key limitation of this field. However, gathering and analysing data on

contemporary urban governance is complicated by the variety of cultural and legal contexts

that cities operate in and by accessing information on actual governance practices.

Furthermore, the broad scope of the topic and the ambiguous definitions of both

“governance” and “city” limit operationalisation and comparative analysis. Although there

are many case studies of cities, policies, and governance innovations (e.g. Häikiö, 2007,

Gilbert, 2015), it has been challenging to depart from those to a unifying theory of urban

governance. The absence of systematically collected comparable data and the limitations of

the governance concept itself have been limiting the possibilities of empirical research

(Reese, 2014).

Much hope is placed in the capacity of cities to respond to key global challenges and their

competence to lead transformations towards a more sustainable model of development. Cities

are often test beds for innovative, risky or controversial approaches to social or

environmental problems. Being leaner – and less able to tap into traditional sources of public

revenue – local governments are frequently keen to experiment with new ways of governing,

27
planning, generating income (or reducing spending), and managing public assets and

services. However, it is far from clear that cities are at the optimal scale or have the right

attributes to deal with many of these pervading challenges and conducting the necessary

reforms. It might be the case that the hope placed on cities is more due to disappointment

with nation-states and their poor or sluggish response than to the real capacity of cities to take

on these responsibilities. It is also unclear how far urban governance innovations – i.e.

innovations of the institutional mode of interaction between actors in the urban context – can

address the capacity limitations and ever more complex challenges that cities have to deal

with.

We need governance solutions that are inclusive but that nonetheless meet the technical

challenges of the 21st century. All of this will have to be accomplished in a context where

globalisation (Brenner, 1999; Servon & Pink, 2015), increasing inequalities (Lee, McQuarrie

& Walker, 2015; Mcdaniel, 2016), climate change (Kwon, Jang & Feiock, 2014; United

Nations, 2015a) and rapid technological development (Macmanus, Caruson & Mcphee, 2013;

Greenfield, 2017) are key disrupting forces. But before attempting to deal with all these

hugely complex dilemmas, we first need to understand how urban governance works and how

much it is dependent on context.

Although the actual governance challenges on the ground may vary across world regions or

cities of different types, these geographical differences are not as profound as for substantive

policy challenges (overpopulation, air pollution, aging or shrinking populations, etc.). The

little evidence we have seems to show an apparent lack of clear regional trends regarding

most urban governance features (LSE Cities, UN-Habitat & UCLG, 2016). Issues of

authority, capacity to coordinate institutional relations, among many other governance

28
questions impact on all jurisdictions irrespective of their economic status or geographical

locations. International research initiatives addressing different aspects of organisation of

authority, responsibility and citizenship help illustrate the dearth of geographical patterns of

urban governance – see, for example, the recent evidence from Germany, Poland, Spain,

Sweden, Switzerland and the US on issues of metropolitan governance and citizenship

(Kübler, 2018; Lackowska & Mikuła, 2018; Lidström, 2018; Lidström & Schaap, 2018;

Owens & Sumner, 2018; Vallbé, Magre & Tomàs, 2018; Walter-Rogg, 2018). Still, how

exactly, to what extent, and what are the key drivers or determinants involved in perceived

differences is still largely unknown. “National champion” cities seem to have more ability to

be “sovereign” and hold the authority to design their own institutional environments and

attract more resources. But this may have an adverse effect on second tier cities from the

same national polity. In federal systems it may be harder for cities to achieve this status. But

this may produce a more diverse urban ecology. In any case, more research on these issues is

needed.

Recent international developments, such as the UK referendum vote to leave the EU or the

U.S. elections, prompted many analysts to come to grips with the effects of inequalities and

globalisation. Many believe that, although in many cases responsible for the upsurge in

inequality, cities can be part of the solution. Similarly, the world is observing rising

greenhouse emissions as a result an overall increase in welfare and human development that

comes with urbanisation. But cities have better environmental efficiency per capita due to

economies of agglomeration. The pursuit of more sustainable and just (Feinstein, 2010) cities

may well be the answer to many of these issues. But the attainment will hinge on getting

urban governance right.

29
As demonstrated by the wide array of issues touched upon in this review paper, engaging

with modern-day urban governance study and practice will require an interdisciplinary – and,

we argue, mostly empirical – research agenda and insights deriving from different

methodological approaches and diverse global contexts. By presenting a set of articles that

explore the relationships between institutional settings, national urban policies and city-

specific reforms and changes whilst also offering perspectives on current urban governance

challenges and future opportunities in Brazil, China, Europe, India and South Africa, this

special issue lays a foundation for that agenda.

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Table 1. Top 20 urban governance challenges in the reviewed literature.

Number of
Ranking Urban governance challenge category
publications

1 Citizen participation (individual citizens) in decision-making 147 (36%)

2 Current institutional shortcomings (not fit for purpose, obsolete) 80 (20%)

3 Government capability (general) 73 (18%)

4 Civil society organisation engagement with decision-making 62 (15%)

5 Working across government tiers (vertical coordination) 60 (15%)

6 Jurisdictional boundaries 59 (14%)

7 Private sector involvement in governance 56 (14%)

8 Institutional fragmentation 54 (13%)

9 Governance restructuring/reform 48 (12%)

10 Public budget constraints 48 (12%)

11 Political engagement with electorate 45 (11%)

12 Cooperative/partnership governance 45 (11%)

13 Government's access to skills & knowledge 45 (11%)

14 Adapting governance structures to changing circumstances 44 (11%)

15 Private sector delivery of public services 43 (11%)

16 Government efficiency 42 (10%)

17 Implementation of policy 42 (10%)

18 Government management capability 41 (10%)

19 Information/skills deficit for engagement with citizens 40 (10%)

20 Government's strategic management/vision 39 (10%)

43
Table 2. Cities that answered “very relevant” or “highly relevant” to the question “to what

extent are the following issues challenges to governing your city?” Data from LSE Cities, UN-

Habitat & UCLG (2016).

Number of
Ranking Urban governance challenge category
cities

1 Insufficient public budgets 28 (50%)

2 Politicisation of local issues 21 (38%)

3 Interdependence of policy issues 21 (38%)

4 Inflexible bureaucracies / rigid rules 20 (36%)

5 Lack of municipal autonomy 17 (30%)

6 Overlapping responsibilities 17 (30%)

7 Working across different tiers of government 17 (30%)

8 Access to useful information 16 (29%)

9 Lack of respect for laws and regulations 15 (27%)

10 Lack of capacity to enforce laws and regulations 15 (27%)

11 Lack of skills in local government 14 (25%)

12 Uncertainty of funding 14 (25%)

13 Risks of corruption 13 (23%)

14 Limited scope of responsibilities 13 (23%)

15 Coordination of different sectors / departments 13 (23%)

16 Limited access of citizens to policy-making 11 (20%)

17 Lack of interest of citizens on local issues 11 (20%)

18 Lack of trust in local government 10 (18%)

19 Lack of political stability 8 (14%)

20 Underrepresentation of vulnerable groups 6 (11%)

44