Scales, Regimes, and the Urban Governance of Glasgow

Abstract

Over the last two decades, urban regime theory has become one of the most dominant paradigms of thought in urban studies. In particular, regime theory offers a complex account of urban governance, or how local governments, the business communities, and community organizations gain the capacity to shape the policies that affect cities, that is, govern. Although regime theory is a dominant theory in urban studies, it does, nevertheless, have its share of detractors, and one criticism has been its failure to take into account geographical scale. While there is an acknowledgment in urban regime theory of wider economic processes, such as the broad transformations in international and national trade, investment, finance, etc., or the role played by federal or state governments, the bias has remained mostly local, particularly in regards to urban governance. In urban regime theory literature the policies and actions of international and national institutions either nicely conjoin with local interests or are nearly totally absent. Due to this oversight, urban regime theory tends to underemphasize how the capacity to govern a city effectively is sometimes the result of the interaction of actions of people at multiple scales. This article attempts to address this oversight in an analysis of Glasgow, Scotland, during the 1980s. By focusing on the role of the European City of Culture in the revitalization of the city, this article demonstrates how the capacity for a ruling coalition to transform the city and to govern effectively was the consequence of the policy and administrative actions undertaken at other geographical scales.

Whose legacy is it, anyway? A tale of conflicting agendas in the building of the Hamilton Pan Am Soccer Stadium

“…Even proponents have agreed that there needs to be further research on how one measures a regime -and at what point in these measurements does a regime exist -and concede that its dependence on case study research is problematic (Mossberger and Stoker 2001). However, these problems have not stopped scholars from attempting to apply regime theory in other national contexts, such as Birmingham and Bristol (DiGaetano and Klemanski 1993), London (Dowding et al 1999), Sydney (McGuirk 2003 and Glasgow (Tretter 2008). …”

A corporate responsibility? The constitution of fly-in, fly-out mining companies as governance partners in remote, mine-affected localities

“…The first explains the broader conditions in which corporate actors have been constituted as legitimate players in urban policy and planning as local authorities seek to leverage private resources that are increasingly essential to urban development (Lowndes and Skelcher, 1998;Tretter, 2008). Since no single actor has a monopoly over these resources, a governing regime is established between relevant actors through informal bargaining and civic cooperation based on mutual self-interest (Harding et al, 2000).…”

“…One of the most dominant paradigms in urban governance research -otherwise known as urban regime theory (Bassett, 1996;Harding et al, 2000;Stoker, 1998;Tretter, 2008) -has placed the question of corporate sector involvement in, and influence over, the governance of cities at the heart of its analysis. Briefly, urban regime theory examines:…”

Tourism development in China since 1949: a regime perspective

“…The external causal factors vary, but generally referred to the contexts that the studied regime is related to or embedded in, namely the socio-cultural, economic, and political environments (DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993;Stone, 1989). It is at this point that the regime concept receives much criticism, for both the international regime and urban regime literature implies a general neglect of the context in regime (trans)formation Lauria, 1997;Mossberger and Stoker, 2001;Ward, 1996), though some research do acknowledge the socio-cultural, economic, and political factors at work (Collins, 2008;Stone, 1993;Tretter, 2008).…”

“…Originating in a political economy frame, a regime is conceptualised as an autonomous force that mediates between basic causal factors and outcomes (Stone, 1993). However, its applications indicate a strong focus on the analysis of internal dynamics at the expense of that of external factors Lauria, 1997;Mossberger and Stoker, 2001;Tretter, 2008;Ward, 1996). By examining both the broader setting and the internal dynamics which have shaped China's tourism development, this paper hopes to narrow the gap.…”