The city as a global political actor

297 Pages·2019·6.78 MB·English

by  Bassens

The City as a Global Political Actor
This book engages with the thorny question of global urban political agency. It
critically assesses the now popular statement that in the context of paralysed and
failing nation state governments, cities can and will provide leadership in address-
ing global challenges.
Cities can act politically on the global scale, but the analysis of global urban politi-
cal agency needs to be firmly embedded in the field of urban studies. Collectively, the
chapters in this volume contextualize urban agency in time and space and pluralize it
by looking at how urban agency is nurtured through coalitions between a wide range of
public and private actors. The authors develop and critically assess the conceptual un-
derpinnings of the notion of global urban political agency from a variety of theoretical
and disciplinary perspectives. The second part contains several (theoretically informed)
empirical analyses of global urban political agency in cities around the globe.
This book geographically expands analysis by looking beyond global cities in
diverse contexts. It is highly recommended reading for scholars in the fields of in-
ternational relations and urban studies who are looking for an interdisciplinary and
empirically grounded understanding of global urban political agency, in a diversity
of contexts and a plurality of forms.
Stijn Oosterlynck is Associate Professor in Urban Sociology at the University of
Antwerp, Sociology department.
Luce Beeckmans is a full-time post-doctoral researcher at the Department of
Architecture & Urban Planning of Ghent University, Belgium.
David Bassens is Associate Professor of Economic Geography at the Vrije Universiteit
Brussels, where he is Associate Director of Cosmopolis: Centre for Urban Research.
Ben Derudder is Professor of Human Geography at Ghent University’s Department
of Geography, and an Associate Director of the Globalization and World Cities
(GaWC) research network.
Barbara Segaert is a scientific coordinator at the University Centre Saint-Ignatius
Antwerp (UCSIA), where she develops academic programmes on various topics of
contemporary relevance to society.
Luc Braeckmans is Director of Academic Affairs of the University Centre Saint-
Ignatius Antwerp (UCSIA). He is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at
the University of Antwerp, where he is also chair of the Centre for Andragogy.
Routledge Studies in Urbanism and the City
This series offers a forum for original and innovative research that engages
with key debates and concepts in the field. Titles within the series range from
empirical investigations to theoretical engagements, offering international
perspectives and multidisciplinary dialogues across the social sciences and
humanities, from urban studies, planning, geography, geohumanities, soci-
ology, politics, the arts, cultural studies, philosophy and literature.
Rebel Streets and the Informal Economy
Street Trade and the Law
Edited by Alison Brown
Mega-events and Urban Image Construction
Beijing and Rio de Janeiro
Anne-Marie Broudehoux
Urban Geopolitics
Rethinking Planning in Contested Cities
Edited by Jonathan Rokem and Camillo Boano
Contested Markets, Contested Cities
Gentrification and Urban Justice in Retail Spaces
Edited by Sara González
The City as a Global Political Actor
Edited by Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens,
Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and Luc Braeckmans
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
series/RSUC
The City as a Global Political
Actor
Edited by Stijn Oosterlynck,
Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens,
Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and
Luc Braeckmans
First published 2019
by Routledge
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business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce
Beeckmans, David Bassens, Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and
Luc Braeckmans; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens,
Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and Luc Braeckmans to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Oosterlynck, Stijn, editor. | Beeckmans, Luce, editor. |
Bassens, David, editor. | Derudder, Ben, editor. | Segaert,
Barbara, editor. | Braeckmans, Luc, 1953–editor.
Title: The city as a global political actor / [edited by Stijn
Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens, Ben Derudder,
Barbara Segaert, and Luc Braeckmans].
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. |
Series: Routledge studies in urbanism and the city |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018025188 | ISBN 9781138573574 (hbk: alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780203701508 (ebk) | ISBN 9781351330725 (mobi/kindle) |
ISBN 9781351330732 (epub) | ISBN 9781351330749 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Metropolitan government. |
Cities and towns–Political aspects. | International relations. |
Globalization–Political aspects.
Classification: LCC JS50 .C57 2018 | DDC 320.8/5–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025188
ISBN: 978-1-138-57357-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-70150-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
List of illustrations vii
List of contributors viii
List of editors xii
1 An urban studies take on global urban political agency 1
DAVID BASSENS, LUCE BEECkMANS, BEN DERUDDER
AND STIJN OOSTERLYNCk
PART I
The city as a site for political innovation 23
2 Reflecting on the ‘Global Parliament of Mayors’ project 25
ERIC CORIJN
3 Social inequality and transformation of the urban economy 39
ENzO MINGIONE
4 Voracious cities and obstructing states? 60
GILLES PINSON
5 Global-urban policymaking 86
kEVIN WARD
6 The politics of the (global) urban: city strategies as
repeated instances 100
JENNIFER ROBINSON
7 Whose urban agency is it anyway? 132
MICHELE ACUTO
vi Contents
PART II
Exploring city political agency around the globe 145
8 Greening the global city: the role of C40 cities as actors in
global environmental governance 147
SABINE BARTHOLD
9 Metropolitan regions as new scales and evolving policy
concepts in the European Union’s policy context 168
CAROLA FRICkE
10 Building city political agency across scales: the Johannesburg
International Relations Strategy 187
ELISABETH PEYROUX
11 A closer look at the role of international accolades in worlding
Cape Town’s urban politics 207
LAURA NkULA-WENz
12 Urban rehabilitation and residential struggles in the
post-socialist city of Budapest 227
GERGELY OLT AND LUDOVIC LEPELTIER-kUTASI
13 Aspiring global nations? Tracing the actors behind Belgrade’s
‘nationally important’ waterfront 250
JORN kOELEMAIJ
Index 275
Illustrations
Figures
9.1 Hierarchical relationships between collective actors in the
EU multi-scalar system 174
11.1 Interurban networks of Cape Town as WDC 2014 216
12.1 Rehabilitation areas in Budapest 234
13.1 Location of Belgrade Waterfront within the city 260
13.2 A large billboard next to the historical central train station
of Belgrade advertises Belgrade Waterfront 261
13.3 The Belgrade Waterfront gallery presents the model to
anyone who is interested in seeing how the project is
supposed to be realized 261
Tables
9.1 Comparing approaches in academic literature related to
metropolitan regions 175
13.1 List of respondents Belgrade Waterfront research 269
Contributors
Michele Acuto is Chair of Global Urban Politics in the Faculty of Architec-
ture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, where he
is also Director of AURIN (the Australian Urban Research Infrastruc-
ture Network), and the Connected Cities Lab. He is also a Senior Fellow
of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Bosch Foundation
Global Governance Futures Program. Michele was previously Direc-
tor of the City Leadership Lab and Professor of Diplomacy and Urban
Theory at University College London, and Barter Fellow of the Oxford
Programme for the Future of Cities at the University of Oxford. He also
taught at the University of Canberra, University of Southern California,
Australian National University and National University of Singapore.
Outside academia, Michele worked for the Institute of E uropean Affairs
in Dublin, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the
kimberley Process for conflict diamonds, the European Commission’s
response to pandemic threats. He has also worked for several years on
city leadership and city networks with, amongst others, Arup, World
Health Organization, World Bank Group, the C40 Climate Leadership
Group, and UN-Habitat. Michele is the author of several articles, pub-
lications and policy documents on the link between urban governance
and international politics, having recently served as co-chair of the
Nature Sustainability Expert Panel on ‘science and the future of cities’.
Sabine Barthold is a PhD Candidate in Urban Studies at the Center for Met-
ropolitan Studies and Fellow of the German National Academic Foun-
dation at TU Berlin. She studied at the New School for Social Research
and obtained a degree in Sociology and Political Science from Dres-
den University. Her research interests range from post-socialist urban
transformations to urban climate governance and eco-modernization
in global cities and draws from theories of Urban Sociology as well as
Critical Geography and Urban Political Ecology. Her current research
is focussed on inter-urban knowledge and policy transfer within the C40
Cities Climate Leadership Group and the ways that city networks engage
as global actors in international climate governance.
Contributors ix
Eric Corijn is cultural philosopher and social scientist, Professor of Urban
Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, founder of Cosmopolis, Centre
for Urban Research, vice-chair of the Brussels Studies Institute and
Director of the Brussels Academy.
Carola Fricke is a researcher and lecturer for Human Geography at the
University of Freiburg. She received her PhD from the Berlin University
of Technology. Her PhD project explored the evolution of metropoli-
tan policies in various contexts, including the European Union, France
and Germany. She moreover researches urban and regional policies
in Europe from a comparative perspective, as well as cross-border
governance in the field of spatial planning. She is part of the Interna-
tional Metropolitan Research Consortium (IMRC), a research collective
focussed on comparing processes of metropolitanization within Europe
and globally. Methodologically, her work on policy analysis incorporates
an interpretive- constructivist perspective, a spatial dimension and a
qualitative empirical approach.
Jorn Koelemaij is a PhD candidate in Social and Economic Geography
at Ghent University. Having a background in Human Geography and
Urban Studies (University of Amsterdam), his research project focusses
on three main issues: (1) global city aspirations and policies in the non-
Western world; (2) the geography of transnational capital investment in
real estate and its impact on (mobile) urban development strategies; and
(3) the applicability and comparability of the concept of neoliberal ur-
banism in different historical-institutional contexts.
Ludovic Lepeltier-Kutasi is a PhD Student in Social Geography (UMR
CITERES-EMAM, University of Tours), fellow at the CEFRES
French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences of Prague.
Currently he is finishing his PhD thesis about the role of former state
housing in contemporary urban dynamics in Budapest, focussing on the
case of Magdolna, in the 8th district. His approach is inductive, char-
acterized by the consideration of fine scales of observation and ethno-
graphic methods.
Enzo Mingione is Professor of Sociology at the University of Milano-
Bicocca. He has been the President of the Research Committee on Urban
and Regional Development, one of the founders of the International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research and a trustee of the Foundation
of Urban and Regional Studies. His main fields of interest are urban soci-
ology, poverty, social politics, social exclusion, labour market, informal
sector and economic sociology. Among his books are Social Conflict and
the City, Blackwell, Oxford (1981); Beyond Employment, together with
Nanneke Redclift (eds), Blackwell, Oxford (1985); Fragmented Societies,
Blackwell, Oxford (1991); (Ed) Urban poverty and the Underclass, Black-
well, Oxford (1996).