We thank the anonymous referees for useful suggestions and comments that have significantly improved the paper. We would also like to thank participants at NOPSA 2017 for comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and Tor Midtbø for consecutive comments and suggestions throughout the writing process.
Governance networks are increasingly important in urban planning, in policy implementation and in service provision, and are often organized to improve efficiency and innovation in the pursuit of some public purpose. We argue that their democratic merits, in addition to their efficiency and output aspects, must be taken into consideration if they are to be understood as legitimate problem solvers on behalf of a local democratic authority. Here we draw on entrepreneurial and deliberative perspectives on urban governance, and work out criteria for assessing network performance. The insights of both perspectives are needed, we argue, to study legitimacy in contemporary urban policies, and we ask whether it is possible to strike a balance between democratic procedural standards and producing the desired outcomes. Empirically we compare the performance of a network with a strong entrepreneurial orientation with that of a network with a deliberative orientation, both located in the same city and operating within the same time frame.
This paper addresses modes and effects of local government involvement in development projects. In particular, it examines public–private interactions with regard to networking and power relations. The study is based on four development projects involving local authorities, located in two neighbouring municipalities in northern Norway. In these we find that most relationships are balanced and that a networking mode underpins the capacity of ‘getting things done’ or ‘power to’. ‘Power over’ relations, however, are observed over time, related to critical events in the implementation of the projects, and demanding explanations that exceed network analysis approaches. Rather than being classified as a distinct type of governance, networking and networks should be regarded as elements of varying importance in processes that also involve hierarchical and market-based inputs. In the processes studied, we found municipal leaders capable of resuming control by staging metagoverning activities.
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