Analyzing Urban Politics: A Mobilization–Governance Framework

One of the questions when undertaking comparative research into local politics and processes of collective organization is what frame should be used. In recent decades, many scholars have opted for the urban regime. There is however much debate about the usefulness of this concept for comparative purposes, with the urban regime accused of being theoretically both too narrow as well as too general. In three Dutch case studies, researchers have sought a middle way by applying the urban regime's four building blocks (agenda, coalition, resources, and scheme of cooperation) as a heuristic framework. The results show that this approach has several advantages, especially for comparative purposes, as it provides a clear oversight as to which agendas dominate where and when, and how certain coalitions, resources, and schemes of cooperation align. These benefits however require close attention to certain points: researchers should interpret the building blocks consistently and try to avoid overlap and repetition between them.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using the Urban Regime Framework to Study Processes of Urban Governance: Agendas, Coalitions, Resources, and Schemes of Cooperation

Ostaaijen

2023

“…3 Indeed, where ideas are considered at all, for example with respect to policy goals, they are seen as inextricably rooted in institutions (Orren and Skowronek 2004, 82-5; see also, Smith 2014, 127-8). Fortunately, there is a bourgeoning literature on the role of ideas in driving political development (see, e.g., Béland and Cox 2011;Berman 1998;Blyth 2002;Hall 1989;Hay 2011;King and Smith 2014;Lieberman 2011;Schmidt 2008;Smith 2006a;Weir 1989) which has inspired more recent efforts to apply these insights to the urban context (Bradford 2016;Dilworth and Weaver 2020;McGovern 2020;Rast 2019;Sidney 2010;Weaver 2016). One of the crucial arguments advanced by these accounts is that ideas can be drivers of political development, independent of the role of economic interests and of the endogenous effects of institutions themselves on institutional change.…”

Section: Distinguishing Between Change and Urban Political Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Along similar lines, Burns and Thomas maintain that cities are subject to "multiple political arrangements" that condition the policy agenda within urban regimes (Burns and Thomas 2015). Furthermore, Stephen McGovern's "mobilization-governance" framework suggests that urban political development is driven by multiple sources-namely the political economy and racial politics-that operate both in respect of the mobilization/ demobilization of electoral coalitions and in regard to urban governance (McGovern 2020).…”

Section: Urban Political Orders and Urban Political Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here the case of the carceral state helps to illuminate the conservative urban order, though in the final section I will demonstrate that a full understanding of the emergence of the carceral state requires close attention to the intercurrence of multiple urban orders. As Stone (2015) and McGovern (2020) have argued, the punitive shift in the national and urban policy through which the carceral state was constructed is a major development with which urbanists must grapple (Stone 2015). The rise of the carceral state plays a mulitfacted role in urban political development, including: the criminalization of certain practices (e.g., begging); the creation of new police practices (e.g., stop and frisk); the imprisonment of vast proportions of city neighborhoods accelerated by the "Truth in Sentencing" elements of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act; and the post-sentence "arrested citizenship" of many urban residents (Lerman and Weaver 2014).…”

Section: The Conservative Urban Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Charting Change in the City: Urban Political Orders and Urban Political Development

Weaver

2021

Cities matter. They are often the sites in which the helping hand and the clenched fist of the state makes first contact with the citizen. They are engines of national economic growth and, often, the source of political movements that become national and transnational in scope. Yet, the theoretical tools available to study change at the urban level are limited. This article seeks to address this shortcoming by offering a new account of urban political development. I argue that urban political development is driven by the impact of multiple political orders. My aim is to highlight three apparently contradictory patterns of urban political development: the imposition of urban austerity measures, the rise of the urban carceral state, and the emergence of progressive economic policymaking, such as local minimum wage ordinances. I suggest that these shifts reflect underlying operation and competition among neoliberal, conservative and egalitarian political orders respectively.

“…More recently, a number of urban scholars have begun to call into question materialist accounts of preference formation, focusing in particular on how ideas may cause actors to interpret their interests in ways that cannot be explained by material conditions alone (Bradford 2016;Dilworth and Weaver 2020;McGovern 2020;Rast 2019;Sidney 2010;Weaver 2016aWeaver , 2016bWeaver , 2020Weaver , 2021. For example, Timothy Weaver (2016a) shows how materialist arguments fail to account for a puzzling outcome in the development of enterprise zones in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1980s and 1990s-the weakness of business support for the initiatives despite promises of tax breaks, regulatory relief, and other benefits to business.…”

Section: Preference Formation and Social Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Political Development and the Social Construction of Interests: The Case of Chicago's Dearborn Park

Rast

2021

Studies of political power and governance in U.S. cities have long been dominated by political economy approaches in which the material interests of political actors are seen as the principal drivers of preferences and behavior. More recently, scholars from the emerging field of urban political development have questioned this view, arguing that ideas may play an important role—along with material factors—in determining what actors desire. Less understood, however, is where ideas of this nature come from. This article identifies social learning as one possible source. Social learning can be understood as a change in perceptions and behavior that results from experiences of some kind that provide important policy lessons. Through a case study of a near-downtown housing development in Chicago, I show how social learning caused actors to reinterpret their interests and behave in ways contrary to what materialist arguments would predict.