City and Regime in the American Republic

Organizational Environments, Framing Processes, and the Diffusion of the Program to Address Global Climate Change Among Local Governments in the United States

“…Therefore, innovative practices are likely to spread first to organizations already involved in activities that are compatible with the practice, since organizational change agents and innovation champions can bridge, amplify, and extend the frames of the practice so that they connect with the existing organizational activities' frames, without having to engage in complex organizational frame-transformation processes. 11 Traditional research on urban development and local politics has described cities as "growth machines," or coalitions of local real estate and business elites united with local government officials in the pursuit of economic development (Elkin, 1987;Mollenkopf, 1983;Molotch, 1976). Since 10 Snow et al (1986) identify four types of frame-alignment processes: frame bridging, which links two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames; frame amplification, which clarifies and invigorates an interpretive frame; frame extension, which extends the boundaries of a primary frame to encompass interests that are incidental to the primary objectives of movement organizers; and frame transformation, which introduces and nurtures new values and reframes erroneous beliefs.…”

On the origin, meaning, and evaluation of urban governance

“…One way is the 'regime method' pioneered by Fainstein & Fainstein (1983), Elkin (1987), andStone (1987). The 'regime analyst' tries to establish that the various actors in urban governance have formed a regime Á defined as a long term partnership among governmental and non-governmental agents Á to govern a city in a way that satisfies the interests of that regime (Stoker 1995, 63).…”

The enlargement of local power in trans-scalar strategies of planning: recent tendencies in two European cases

“…After the frequent use of elitist and pluralist approaches from the 1950s until the early 1980s, the concept of urban regime theory emerged and, in a few years time, became a new dominant approach to analysing urban politics in American political and policy sciences (Fainstein et al 1983;Elkin 1985;Logan and Molotch 1987;Stone 1989). Adherents of the urban regime theory claimed to give more systematic attention to and a more theoretical explanation for the organisation of power in urban development policies than preceding approaches.…”

“…The in-depth historical search by Elkin into the conceptual roots of the American Republic convincingly clarified the emergence of this type of regime and the many variable forms it may take in local practices (Elkin 1985). Elkin demonstrated that decisions on local development are not simply produced by those in local political power but primarily by those in charge of economic production and investment.…”