Consulting as a threat to local democracy? Flexible management consultants, pacified citizens, and political tactics of strategic development in German cities

Vogelpohl, Anne

doi:10.1080/02723638.2018.1452872

Cited by 21 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Aside from the similarities of facing an entrepreneurial crisis and consulting a global management firm, these cities display several important differences. Therefore, I chose a sample of six case studies with specific similarities and differences in regard to the state of their consulting projects and their financing models (Vogelpohl, 2017(Vogelpohl, , 2018. Table 1 gives an insight into the perceived crises, expectations, and impacts of the consulting projects examined here.…”

Section: Management Consultants In Six German Cities: the Empirical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The consultants are able to carry out their standard methodical programme and may fill it with their contacts' ideas -and thus fill the gap between methodical know-how and the missing local political knowledge. So new local networks often do not include the broader public (Vogelpohl, 2018) but comprise only established decision makers. What emerges is an 'old boys' network' (HAL24_consult).…”

Section: Networked Knowledge and Thinking Through Comparingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…] provided input, in the sense of participation' (E21_polit). In the shadow of these new local networks, however, the diversity of voices is often small and people who are not deliberately invited to participate have no chance to speak to the ongoing urban policy process (Vogelpohl, 2018).…”

Section: External Perspective and Channelling Local Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Global expertise, local convincing power: Management consultants and preserving the entrepreneurial city

Vogelpohl

2018

Urban Studies

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The advice of management consultancies on urban policy is particularly influential in moments of crisis involving entrepreneurial principles. As global experts, management consultants appear as appropriate assistants for steering growth-oriented, competitive urban development. In order to show how consultants turn the urban into an entrepreneurial project to be managed, I discuss the literature on urban policy and consultants then examine the activities of private management consultancies in six German cities. Empirically, I first explore the specificities of urban policy advice given by globally operating consultancies (their methodological approach and the projectisation of the urban; global networks and comparative–competitive thinking; fast databases; reputation; externality). Second, I critically reflect on how the consultants’ advice is fundamentally reshaped by local actors in the process of policy making (through participation, appropriation, slowdown and politicisation). The paper thus critically evaluates the rise of expertise–policy relations and calls attention to mechanisms for patching the fractures of the entrepreneurial city.

show abstract

Section: Management Consultants In Six German Cities: the Empirical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Networked Knowledge and Thinking Through Comparingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Global expertise, local convincing power: Management consultants and preserving the entrepreneurial city

Vogelpohl

2018

Urban Studies

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The argument for a temporal turn is also an argument for a relational one (Massey, 2005). The relational turn in urban geography is not new, yet the renewed interest in this epistemological thread brings new actors into debates and analyses of urban policy failure, not only focusing on policy makers (McCann & Ward, 2011;Ward, 2018), but also activists (Temenos, 2017;Lauermann & Vogelpohl, 2019), everyday actors (Baker et al, 2020;Jacobs & Lees, 2013), and planners and consultants (Colven, 2020;Larner & Laurie, 2010;Rapoport, 2015;Vogelpohl, 2018). Expanding the scope of study to encompass new relationships can broaden and enrich the spatial analysis of urban geographies of policy, taking into account different power structures that make up local contexts and expanding the scope of possibility for urban politics.…”

Section: Next Stepsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The urban politics of policy failure

Temenos

Lauermann

2020

Urban Geography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Growing attention to the urban politics of policy failure focuses on the ways in which policymaking is politicized before, during, and after moments of failure, and the effects of policy failure in urban political process. We argue three trends are apparent: (1) Policy failure is arelational process rather than an end state, emerging from long term interactions between political actors and governance institutions. (2) In urban politics the definitions of "failure" and "success" can be fluid, and rhetorically weaponized for political gain. (3) Policy failures can have generative effects after apolicy fails, for instance, by catalyzing funding or establishing institutional path dependencies. This collection contributes to urban geography by establishing avocabulary and set of analytical techniques for researching spatial aspects of policy failure. The authors in this special issue build an empirical and theoretical baseline for future research, illustrating diverse mechanisms and outcomes of urban policy failure.

show abstract

“…Like many types of circulating policy expertise, these sustainability models and designs could be critiqued for promoting standardised, ‘silver bullet policies’ (Peck, 2011) that reflect the priorities of consultants (Vogelpohl, 2018) and urban elites (Smith et al, 2014) rather than local residents. For example, Harris and Moore (2015: 106) signal a ‘convergence of sustainable city visions through the domination of a few influential singular city “models”… e.g.…”

Section: Speculative Design In Urban Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualising sustainability at the Olympics

Lauermann

2019

Urban Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cities are increasingly central to sustainability discourse, as urban lifestyles and infrastructure are framed as solutions to global environmental problems such as climate change. This framing relies on geographically referenced visualisations such as architectural renderings, maps, and geospatial models, which portray environmental futures by envisioning the ‘sustainable city’. By showing what sustainability might look like in a future city, these geovisualisations strategically link urban planning interventions to global environmental policy debates. This process is explored through a case study of sustainability design proposed in Olympic cities. Aspiring Olympic hosts regularly adopt sustainability narratives of global–urban sustainability. In an effort to cast their events as ‘the most sustainable Games ever’, city leaders experiment with urban design (e.g. temporary stadiums, zero-carbon building design, or large-scale environmental restoration projects) and link them to global environmental debates. Visual analysis techniques are used to code architectural and geospatial images in 61 Olympic planning proposals, and to evaluate the use of visualisation practices in urban politics. While these designs are quite speculative, the visual artefacts produced through the planning process can be used as political tools for catalysing investment and projecting policy leadership.

show abstract

Consulting as a threat to local democracy? Flexible management consultants, pacified citizens, and political tactics of strategic development in German cities

Cited by 21 publications

References 50 publications

Global expertise, local convincing power: Management consultants and preserving the entrepreneurial city

Global expertise, local convincing power: Management consultants and preserving the entrepreneurial city

The urban politics of policy failure

Visualising sustainability at the Olympics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About