As part of our Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi are delighted to invite you to a Workshop on Comparing Governance Modes in Large Metropolis by Patrick Le Galès of Centre d’études européennes, Sciences Po, Paris.
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This paper (written jointly with Tommaso Vitale) challenges the often-made assumption that large cities are so complex that they have become ungovernable or that globalization pressures make political and policy choices irrelevant. By going beyond rational or positivist views of governance, it argues that the process of governing a city is never fully complete, nor linear. Large metropolises are characterized by myriad actors, powerful interest groups, diverse inhabitants, networks and assemblages of public sector institutions and global investors, developers, and others in the development industry. The extent to which urban societies are governed may change across cities and time and the processes of government and governance are always a work in progress, but even so, crucial changes in modes of governance can have long-term consequences for their inhabitants. Governance failures may have severe negative effects, e.g. housing shortages, low education, crime, low productivity, health, etc. A systematic analysis of the literature shows the need to describe and document how processes of governance operate in relation to major urban development projects and the implementation of public policies and concomitantly, the implications of such practices for urban politics, inequalities, sustainable development and growth thus connecting the analysis of the governance processes to their outcomes.
Patrick Le Galès, is CNRS Research Professor of Politics and Sociology, at Sciences Po Paris, where he coordinates two research groups, viz. ‘Cities are back in town’ and ‘Restructuring the state’. His research deals with European cities and the great global metropolis; economic sociology and political economy, in particular the making of a market society and comparative public policy, and sociology of the state in Europe. He is currently president of the Society for Advanced Socio-economics (SASE), a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and a former editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. He has won many awards, including the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Research in 2002 for his book“European Cities, social conflicts and governance” (OUP, 2002). He has published or edited eleven books and is currently working on two new books, “Globalising urban bourgeoisies, mobility and rootedness of managers in European cities” (with A. Andreotti and J. Moreno Fuentes) and “Les instruments de l’action publique: débats et développements” (with C. Halpern and P. Lascoumes) to be published in 2013.
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This is the thirty third in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: Marie-Hélène Zerah at marie-helene.zerah@ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org
