Cities and urban areas are contested spaces. They are spaces with powerful coalitions of interests, but also voiceless poor urban dwellers. Local politicians, city managers, private entrepreneurs, residents: whose interests determine and stimulate place making and urban development? In other words, who makes our cities and urban spaces, who ‘owns’ them, who governs them? And what are the (spatial) politics around these processes?
The Introduction to European Politics seminar deals with cities in Europe and the global South, their actors, their contexts, their motivations, networks, and strategies, as well as with the underlying processes and the regulating instruments (institutions) that determine decisions there.
In this context, the seminar explores different central themes. First, it examines the political economy of cities, reviewing urban governance concepts and theories that explain and offer models how different actors come together in managing common affairs and fuse their resources in cities. Further, the seminar introduces a range of key concepts and different approaches relevant for contemporary urban governance and the analysis of spatial politics in Europe and beyond. In addition, the seminar will zoom in on concepts and strategies of participation as well as their prerequisites (such as social capital) aiming to involve residents and promote ‘governance from below’.
The seminar combines literature-based lectures on theoretic approaches on these three themes with practical case experiences and examples in metropolitan areas across all world regions, comparing them to contemporary urban developments in Europe.