Track 7a. Local and Regional Governance
Track Chairs:
Jenny Fairbrass, Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
Meg Holden, Urban Studies and Geography, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.
Contacts: j.fairbrass@uea.ac.uk; mholden@sfu.ca
Goals and objectives of the track
There is a growing body of empirical evidence that suggests that if sustainability is ever to be fully realised it requires the active support and participation of a wide range of societal actors, including governmental bodies, businesses and civil society actors, who will need to have strong and effective relationships. This track chooses to focus on two key actors in the governance of sustainability located at the local and the regional level of governance.
Firstly, we are concerned with local governments, who have been considered central to efforts to advance sustainability since the inclusion of Local Agenda 21 within the outcomes of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. At each international climate and sustainable development summit since this time, local governments, and cities in particular, have offered increasingly ambitious solution suites, and demanded increasingly central treatment within the dialogue and decision-making. Some research dismisses the work of cities and local governments within sustainable development as green city branding and competitive ecological modernization that does not change the course of urban development fundamentally toward a more sustainable development path. Others see local scale work, particularly when pursued across government, nongovernment, and private institutions and citizen effort, as the only viable locus of real solutions to monumental challenges to sustainability, resilience, equity and justice, and governability. This track welcomes contributions to our learning about what has happened at the scale of cities and local government, by what motivations, means and mechanisms, and where possibilities lie for further advancing sustainability at the local scale now and in the future. Equally, players at the regional level of governance have the potential to play a critical role. In the context of this panel, when we refer to ‘regional governance actors’ we are especially concerned with the role played by the European Union (EU). Arguably, the EU, with its direct and influential reach at the global, regional, national and sub-national tiers of governance has the potential to play a major driving, enabling, persuasive role in achieving sustainability gaols. The EU is a focal point for other governance actors and can itself act to compel other actors to deliver in terms of sustainability.
Accordingly, the central research questions posed by this track are:
- What role do local and regional (EU) actors play in the achievement of sustainability goals? Are they leaders, partners and/or supporting bodies?
- How effective have the local and EU actors been in promoting or delivering sustainability? How? Why?
- With which other actors do local and EU bodies have significant relationships in terms of achieving sustainability, why, and to what effect?
In sum, this track particularly welcomes papers that critically analyse and evaluate the nature and influence of local and regional actors in relation to sustainability. Papers that make a strong conceptual and a robust empirical contribution and which indicate the extent to which the (new) governance structures operate across multiple tiers or in diverse contexts are particularly welcome.
You may submit your abstract by visiting the Ex Ordo abstract submission system (you will be required to setup an account first): http://isdrs2016.exordo.com/
