The Politics of Urban Restructuring: A Review Essay

Urban Regime Theory: A Normative-Empirical Critique

“…For an understanding of urban regime theory, it is important to acknowledge the relationship between the work of Elkin and Stone. In the early 1980s, the work leading to the classic analyses of regimes in Dallas (Elkin, 1987) and Atlanta (Stone, 1989) was based on mutual concerns (Elkin, 1985b). These commentaries, however, were different in emphasis.…”

“…Thus, the unrefined pluralist notion that groups have equal access to the decision making process is perceived to be flawed. Regime theory subscribes to this notion of a division of labor between state and market in which ownership of productive assets rests largely in the hands of the private sector while the machinery of government is subject to popular control (Elkin, 1987;Stone, 1989). It is concerned with the interface between the public and private sectors and, according to Stone (1993Stone ( , 1998a, the regime is the organism which mediates the relationship between popular control of the political process and private control of the economy.…”

“…Collaboration between governmental and non-governmental actors is necessary for governance outputs to be achieved. While urban regimes may be difficult to build (Stone, 1989), if they are not built, governing inertia will result. Regimes are, therefore, worthy political institutions.…”

“…The starting point of this article is that contrary to the views of critics who view regime theory as localist (Di Gaetano, 1997;Ward, 1997aWard, , 1997b and intentionalist (Painter, 1997), it is best understood as a theory of structuring (Abrams, 1982;Stone, 1989). It is concerned specifically with how the dialectic between market control of production and popular control of government affects political action in US cities.…”

“…It is concerned specifically with how the dialectic between market control of production and popular control of government affects political action in US cities. However, there are deficits in regime theory that undermine the political objectives of its founding authors, Elkin (1987) and Stone (1989).…”