The concept of sustainability has been used by city governments worldwide to promote urban development. For some the term represents an archetypal postpolitical construct that enables urban populations and policy makers to confront collective problems in a consensus-driven way. In short, it enables a new conflict-free politics to emerge within cities. This paper uses the example of Taipei, Taiwan to explore how sustainable development agendas in a postcolonial city, which has a relatively young democratic system, are articulated and with what effects. It examines the utility of recent postpolitical writing as an explanatory frame for contemporary political changes. It documents how and in what ways postpolitical agendas have been established and how they have been used to nullify conflict by shifting attention away from grassroots concerns over globally oriented developmentalism.

Starting in early 2016, a new wave of dockless ICT-based Public Bike Sharing Systems (PBSS 2.0) has grown rapidly in many Chinese cities and is now spreading globally. Whilst there is a growing literature on sharing and a substantial technical literature on the earlier breed of docked PBSS 1.0, there is no critical academic study of this new bike sharing phenomenon. This paper seeks to contribute to social scientific debates on sharing and mobilities by exploring the nature of sharing engendered by these disruptive forms of bike sharing. Focused on a case study of Shanghai (China) and based upon a series of stakeholder interviews and media analysis, this paper explores the extent to which these systems represent more economically reproductive "transactional" or disruptive and "transformational" modalities of sharing. By exploring the social, spatial and environmental relations produced by these new "hybrid mobiles", we conclude that PBSS 2.0 represents a retrenchment and extension of existing exploitative capitalist relations. Whilst we temper this conclusion in the knowledge that it is very early in its evolution, we argue that in its current form PBSS 2.0 is unlikely to achieve the societal transformations often cited as a benefit of the hybridisation of virtual and physical mobility.

Abstracti jur_941 274..294Urban policy agendas are increasingly focused on the mobilization of active citizens and the propagation of cosmopolitan identities. This reflects a growing convergence between countries in urban policy thinking and practice, and greater uniformity in the terms and concepts that are used in different countries. This article draws on empirical evidence from Taipei, Taiwan to explore the form and character of changing urban policy agendas and their impacts on urban environments and communities. Taipei has undergone radical social, economic and political change in recent decades, and in the 2000s policymakers readily adopted the discourses of cosmopolitanism and community empowerment to legitimate major redevelopment projects. We develop the argument that this turn to cosmopolitanism lies at the heart of a paradox. On the one hand it is presented by policymakers as a radical, emancipatory programme that reflects wider shifts in the aspirations and expectations of increasingly active and globally oriented citizens. On the other hand, the term is used to underpin reactionary or conservative agendas that seek to sustain and extend existing power relations. The article argues that greater academic and policy attention needs to be given to the socially situated nature of cosmopolitanism and its characterizations in diverse contexts.

The current literature on Chinese urban studies and governmentality undertheorises the reform of local governance with regard to the activation and empowerment of community in China. Inspired by Dean’s and Sigley’s discussions of non-liberal or ‘Chinese governmentality’, this paper seeks to understand and conceptualise one of China’s most noted examples of community development, the so-called Shanghai model, using the Foucauldian concept of pastorship. Understood here as distinct from the notion of ‘advanced liberal’ governmentality, it is argued that Shanghai’s community governance depends on the governing concepts and technologies associated with the socio-political construction of the ‘pastoral’ relationship between local Party leaders and citizens. By focusing on the case study of Luwan district and one of its grass-roots community organisations (Wuliqiao Street Office), this paper will demonstrate the characteristics, institutionalisation and limitations of, pastoral governance.

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