‘How Can We Explain Diversity in Metropolitan Governance within a Country?’ Some Reflections on Recent Developments in Germany

Abstract

In the debate on metropolitan governance, a commonly expressed hypothesis is that the reconstruction of statehood can take metropolitan governance along a variety of paths. This is especially true for Germany, where we can identify a great diversity of organizational forms of cooperation at the level of metropolitan agglomerations. This article addresses the question of how diversity within a country with more or less uniform institutional structures can be explained on the basis of a comparison of three German regions. We examine whether and how such differences can be explained as a combination of structural and other variables. Our starting hypothesis is that casespecific structural variables matter -for example, the position of the core cities of the regions in the international hierarchy of cities, the economic structure of the regions, or the dominance or polarization within the regional party system. Furthermore, the hypothesis will be considered that spatially embedded cooperative actor behaviour and actor-related factors, including political leadership and specific incentive structures or windows of opportunities, also matter. We conclude that such a double reading of the transformation of metropolitan governance is the most appropriate way to understand differences in metropolitan governance arrangements.

Inter-municipal cooperation: from cooperation through rules to cooperation through networks – empirical evidence from Puglia

“…It is known that the subjects have the ability to remodel the restrictions and to exploit the potential of a territory, to overcome institutional fragmentation, and to create a functionally adapted structure of metropolitan governance. This, however, is not sufficient; it is essential for the subjects to exhibit cooperative behaviour -a 'positive coordination' that relies on interaction, communication, negotiation and goal-sharing in order to reach a common vision and to promote cooperation stability (Heinelt & Zimmermann, 2011). Within metropolitan governance, two conflicting situations may occur: 'progressive' characterized by a dynamic and integrated organization, 'regressive' dominated by the fragmentation and the secession.…”

Boundary work for implementing adaptive management: A water sector application

“…use and source of knowledge, and the related boundary work strategy and effectiveness criteria) and as dependent variable, the evidences of barriers, and boundary work practices, respectively. We derived the evidences from the interview and focus group data, triangulated with the review of documentary sources, including public and internal reports of HWU, and relevant peer-reviewed publications dealing with: landscape planning in Fuhrberg (von Haaren and Bathke, 2008), WFD in Lower Saxony Newig, 2007, 2008), metropolitan governance in Hannover (Heinelt and Zimmermann, 2011). Triangulation refers to the application of different research methods in the study of the same phenomenon to increase the confidence in the results (Yin, 2008).…”

La solidarité métropolitaine à l’épreuve des politiques

“…On pourrait alors penser que le paysage espagnol serait quadrillé d'une pluralité de modèles de gouvernance métropolitaine, comme dans les États fédéraux tels que l'Allemagne (Heinelt et Zimmermann, 2011). On doit pourtant constater une tendance commune : la réticence des gouvernements régionaux à accorder une reconnaissance politique et institutionnelle au phénomène métropolitain (Rodríguez-Álvarez, 2002).…”