Call for Papers: Making Southern Urban Policies

As part of the International Conference on Policy Diffusion and Development Cooperation in São Paulo, Brazil between 16-19 May 2018, UCL Urban Laboratory is a partner for the panel session Making Southern Urban Policies: International Agendas, Transnational Networks and National Programmes.

Extended submission deadline: 22 November 2017

Conveners

• Roberta Sakai (King's College London)
• Gabriela De Brelàz (Federal University of São Paulo - Unifesp)
• Abigail Friendly (Utrecht University)

Description

Debates on how the making of cities is influenced by the circulation of ideas and practices have contributed to the consolidation of policy diffusion as an analytical perspective in urban studies (Baker, Temenos, 2015; McCann, Ward, 2011; Robinson, 2011; Healey, Upton, 2010). This has led to the emergence, in different disciplines, of research concerned with the way cities in the so-called Global South have worked as sources of policy models around the world (e.g. Porto de Oliveira, 2016; Peck, Theodore, 2015; Healey, 2012). However, the major concentration on the analysis of Porto Alegre's participatory budgeting disregards how the interaction between different levels of governance has fostered the international diffusion of a variety of southern ideas and practices in the last years. In this sense, this session encourages contributions that interrogate both the influence of southern experts and institutions in the global arena and the engagement of developing countries and cities with the diffusion of certain concepts of urban development.

We look forward to receiving papers that focus on the following issues:

• How have ideas and practices (e.g. right to the city, urban agriculture, smart cities, social housing, slum upgrading, bus rapid transit) been mobilised and translated into policies in different contexts?
• What has been the role of South-South cooperation, paradiplomacy and city networks (e.g. UCLG, Metropolis and Mercociudades) in the promotion of southern experiences?
• How has the knowledge exchange between countries produced similar national policies in developing countries (e.g. housing policy, participatory urban planning)?
• How have international organisations (e.g. UN-Habitat, Cities Alliance, World Bank, UCLG) engaged with the valorisation of southern knowledge in the last years?
• How has Habitat III and other regional and global fora (e.g. World Urban Forum, Africities, IBSA) been able to strengthen the connections between southern institutions?

Contributions that consider similar questions not listed above are of course welcome.

Learn about the submission rules and send your work by creating an account here. 

References

Baker, T. and C. Temenos (2015). Urban Policy Mobilities Research: Introduction to a Debate. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 39: 824-827. DOI:10.1111/1468-2427.12252

Healey, P. and R. Upton (eds.) (2010). Crossing borders: International exchange and planning practices. London and New York, Routledge.

Healey, P. (2012). The universal and the contingent: Some reflections on the transnational flow of planning ideas and practices. Planning Theory 11(2): 188-207. DOI: 10.1177/1473095211419333

McCann, E. and K. Ward (eds.) (2011). Mobile urbanism: cities and policymaking in the global age. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.

Peck, J. and N. Theodore (2015). Fast Policy: Experimental Statecraft at the Thresholds of Neoliberalism. Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press.

Porto de Oliveira, O. (2017). International Policy Diffusion and Participatory Budgeting: Ambassadors of Participation, International Institutions and Transnational Networks. London, Palgrave Macmillan.

Robinson, J. (2011). The spaces of circulating knowledge: city strategies and global urban governmentality. In Mobile urbanism: cities and policymaking in the global age. E. McCann and K. Ward (eds.). Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.