Contemporary Political Theories of the European City

Abstract

While political economic perspectives of urban globalization tend to generalize the economic pressures upon socio-political transformations of cities, recent European research has stressed the institutional context of urban collective action. However, the structural bias of the European city model merely complements the criticized economization by a culturalist essentialization of urbanity, and thus fails to conceptualize political agency. In order to elaborate the theoretical foundations of a political counterhypothesis to urban globalization, this article clarifies the different historical and normative conceptions of institutional structure and agency in the urban context. Most research of cities implies — more or less implicitly — a common urban ideal which associates centrality with a local integration potential of plural societies. However, distinguishing between a historically embedded empirical category, a normative model of public space, and an analytical ideal-type of political agency helps to overcome the static structural conception of an essentially European urban culture and problematizes the role of knowledge models in reflectively constructing urban realities. Therefore, a dynamic and contextual relation between political economic functions, historic heritage, and normative frames might contribute to an open-ended comparative framework of urban collective action that can be applied to any ordinary city across and beyond Europe.

The Politics of the EU Urban Agenda: Mobilising the ‘Right to the City’ for European Governance?

“…Qualifying critical claims for radical-democratic change against global neoliberal dominance, Smith (2020) pointed to the historic-institutional power of national states as well as that of established actor-networks in structuring and controlling various contexts of social-political transnationalisation. Opening the structural coherency of European cities to plural politics, De Frantz (2008) had conceived the urban integration ideal as guiding and mobilising diverse collective responses to transnational state-transformation in contextually differentiated and open-ended institutional processes. As the urban agenda results from mutual engagement of research and policy, normative, practical and epistemological differences constitute global sustainable development as diverse transnational political processes (De Frantz 2008;; Barnett and Parnell 2016).…”

“…Elaborating European regional politics in the diverse contexts of cities, the urban notion guides joint objectives for integration of differences along established institutional paths but thus mobilises different interpretative responses to diversification, with open-ended contextual effects for state transformation (De Frantz 2008). To embed contention of power not only in diverse social practices (Barnett 2013(Barnett , 2014 but also in differentiated institutions and plural established networks (Smith 2020), interactive claims-making may contribute to reconstruct processes of governance (De Frantz 2008;2011;. As an emblematic case of transnational urban governance, the informal emergence of the UAEU may thus open soft EU urban policy as a field of functional conflicts, political deliberation, and contentious claims-making in European politics -with open-ended institutional outcomes of integration, fragmentation or politicization.…”

“…', the critical interpretative methods of this pilot study combine literature review and document analysis. To embed the hypotheses on UAEU cooperation (Purkarthofer 2019;Potjer, Hajer, and Pelzer 2018;Mamadouh 2018) in various urban functions, interests and claims of transnational governance processes (Pierre 2019;Barnett 2013;Smith 2020;De Frantz 2008), the discussion draws on findings from the literatures on soft EU urban policy (Atkinson and Zimmermann 2016), Europe of the Regions (Keating 2009(Keating , 2018Hooghe and Keating 1994) and the global urban agenda (Barnett and Parnell 2016;Caprotti et al 2017;Kaika 2017;Parnell 2016). To enquire into the political nature of such 'soft' urban governance, the different epistemological and practical perspectives of these literatures help embed the UAEU within the specific politicalinstitutional context of the EU and consider the wider transnational relevance of this stakeholder approach.…”

“…Instead of wide participation, concerns over incorporation of the rights to the city have led to critically question such functional approaches to transnational urban governance (Pierre 2019; Telle 2017). Therefore, this enquiry into the political dimensions of transnational stakeholder cooperation (Smith 2020;De Frantz 2008;Barnett 2013Barnett , 2014 has elaborated the conceptual bases for better understanding the ways in which UAEU partnerships actually contribute to European urban governance. Indeed, scrutinizing the set-up of the UAEU through the lenses of the Europe of the Regions (Hooghe and Keating 1994;Keating 2009Keating , 2018 and the global urban agenda (Barnett and Parnell 2016;Caprotti et al 2017;Kaika 2017;Parnell 2016) motivates a critical research agenda for politicizing transnational urban governance.…”

Urban Governance and the ‘European City’: Ideals and Realities in Dublin, Ireland

“…The re‐emergence of a ‘European city’ discourse as a self‐contained and distinct form, defined by a set of features that set it out as being in some way unique, can, at least in part, be seen as a response to such perspectives. As commented by De Frantz (: 467): ‘Roughly speaking, the global homogenization hypothesis stands now opposed to a European model where social and political institutions mediate globalization and diversify urban development paths’. Thus, the ‘European city’ is often held as an ideal socio‐spatial form which, through an association with social harmony, a balanced class structure, high‐quality urban form and design, high‐density and emphasis on public transport, is held opposite to a model of ghettoization, urban sprawl and car‐orientated modes of transportation, often associated with a US form of urbanization (Molnar, ).…”