LIST OF PANELS

The circulation of urban policies as well as models and concepts of urban governance (e.g. the “Barcelona model” for urban regeneration) has become a new research interest within the broad realm of policy diffusion and transfer literature. Notably, proponents of the concept of “policy mobilities” have suggested shifting the focus of transfer and diffusion studies to what happens at the urban level, investigating the travelling of policies, ideas, models and best practices among cities (McCann and Ward 2011). These developments paralleled studies on “city diplomacy” and the role of “transnational city networks” in propagating best practices and policy ideas, which have also shed light on growing exchanges of knowledge occurring among local governments (Montero 2017, Rashidi and Patt 2018, Bellinson and Chu 2019). Literature has investigated the origins of these models, the processes and forces through which they became mobile, and their local impacts (adoption, rejection, adaptation).

A significant part of the literature about urban governance is dedicated to citizen participation. This object has been interestingly captured by the literature dedicated to the development and diffusion of instruments of participation. It shows how international organisations have become important promoters of participatory instruments (Baiocchi and Ganuza 2017, Porto do Oliveira 2017), allowing them to travel in all directions (i.e. South-South, etc). Other works have approached how local contextual factors shape participation (Röcke 2014, Ureta 2016), looking at the way they are conceived by promoters of citizen participation; the way in which they are transformed within the very transfer/diffusion process; the way through which they are implemented by policymakers in a different context; and the way in which local structures and institutional arrangements impact the process of adoption and adaptation. Recent works have also introduced the idea of “decontextualisation” of participatory devices (Amelung and Grabner 2017), to underline the activity of reworking and “theorisation” (Strang and Meyer 1993). Decontextualisation is fundamental to transform some selected local lessons into “universal”, “ready-to-use” solutions and policies, and in this way ensure their transferability within a global quest for “urban solutionism” (Montero 2020).

Drawing from these developments, this panel aims at further exploring the aspects of theorisation, branding and local appropriation of travelling models of urban governance. Urban governance models, knowledge and best practices become a trending research topic because they articulate different manifestations of “tacit, culturally embedded beliefs” (Dolowitz 2017). Namely, they combine potential ideological and cultural bias from diverse international organisations (Pétric, 2012), and from other actors involved in the process of theorizing and branding. As such, the production of urban governance models, the way they travel and compete with local approaches and the reception context drive new research perspectives, suggesting a deepening of our understanding of these distinct processes of theorising, branding and appropriating. In particular “work cultures” matter in the process (Müller 2013, Pojani and Stead, 2015, Romano 2021) and could be taken into consideration in the analysis.  

This panel invites papers deepening our understanding of the aspects of theorisation, branding and local appropriation of urban policies and urban governance model. Paper can investigate how specific understandings and framings of international organisations and cooperation agencies, consultants, philanthropic organizations, etc are “injected” into universal models and best-practices to be promoted all over the world. Contributions can explore how models are designed, looking also at the impacts of work cultures and ideologies. On the side of local reception, papers can interrogate how the views of local policy-makers, contractors, citizens, shape the appropriation of these policy models and solutions. Papers can also contribute to explore the critical role played by existing institutional arrangements (formal and informal) in shaping the local process of knowledge utilisation and adoption. Possible research questions are: 

• How are urban models constructed and theorised by international organisations, cooperation agencies and other relevant actors promoting their mobility? 

• How do these same models manage to be branded as suitable policy solutions? Why are some local experiences recognised worth of diffusion while others remain under the radar? 

• Can we infer some ‘embedded culture’ from travelling models? Why are urban concepts sometimes difficult to translate into other settings? Why do networks sometimes fail to inspire transfer?

• Between window-dressing and actual political change, what are the concrete outcomes of policy transfer and knowledge utilisation in the long run? 

Amelung, Nina, and Louisa Grabner. 2017. “Making Citizen Panels a ‘Universal Bestseller’: Transnational Mobilization Practices of Public Participation Advocates.” In The Professionalization of Public Participation, eds. Laurence Bherer, Mario Gauthier, and Louis Simard. London: Taylor and Francis.

Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, and Ernesto Ganuza. 2016. Popular Democracy: The Paradox of Participation. Stanford: Standford University Press.

Bellinson, Ryan, and Eric Chu. 2019. “Learning Pathways and the Governance of Innovations in Urban Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation.” Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 21(1): 76–89.

Dolowitz, David P. 2017. “Transfer and Learning: One Coin Two Elements.” Novos Estudos (107): 35–56.

McCann, Eugene, and Kevin Ward. 2013. “A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Policy Transfer Research: Geographies, Assemblages, Mobilities and Mutations.” Policy Studies 34(1): 2–18.

McCann, Eugene, Kevin Ward, and Allan Cochrane. 2011. Mobile Urbanism: Cities and Policymaking in the Global Age.

Montero, Sergio. 2017. “Worlding Bogotá’s Ciclovía: From Urban Experiment to International ‘Best Practice.’” Latin American Perspectives 44(2): 111–31.

———. 2020. “Leveraging Bogotá: Sustainable Development, Global Philanthropy and the Rise of Urban Solutionism.” Urban Studies 57(11): 2263–81.

Müller, Birgit, ed. 2013. The Gloss of Harmony: The Politics of Policy-Making in Multilateral Organisations. Pluto Press.

Pétric, Boris-Mathieu. 2012. Democracy at Large: NGOs, Political Foundations, Think Tanks and International Organizations. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pojani, Dorina, and Dominic Stead. 2015. “Going Dutch? The Export of Sustainable Land-Use and Transport Planning Concepts from the Netherlands.” Urban Studies 52(9): 1558–76.

Porto de Oliveira, Osmany. 2017. International Policy Diffusion and Participatory Budgeting: Ambassadors of Participation, International Institutions and Transnational Networks. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pradeau, Gilles. 2021. “The Diffusion of Democratic Innovations.” In Handbook of Policy Transfer, Diffusion and Circulation, ed. Osmany Porto de Oliveira. EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING.

Rashidi, Kaveh, and Anthony Patt. 2018. “Subsistence over Symbolism: The Role of Transnational Municipal Networks on Cities’ Climate Policy Innovation and Adoption.” Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 23(4): 507–23.

Röcke, Anja. 2014. Framing Citizen Participation: Participatory Budgeting in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Romano, Giulia C. 2021. “Understanding the Role of Culture in Policy Transfers.” In Handbook of Policy Transfer, Diffusion and Circulation, ed. Osmany Porto de Oliveira. EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING.

Stone, Diane, Osmany Porto de Oliveira, and Leslie A. Pal. 2020. “Transnational Policy Transfer: The Circulation of Ideas, Power and Development Models.” Policy and Society 39(1): 1–18.

Strang, David, and John W. Meyer. 1993. “Institutional Conditions for Diffusion.” Theory and Society 22(4): 487–511.

Ureta, Sebastián. 2016. “A Failed Platform: The Citizen Consensus Conference Travels to Chile.” Public Understanding of Science 25(4): 499–511.