Explaining "Power to": Incubation and Agenda Building in an Urban Regime. (May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ravazzi, Stefania; Belligni, Silvano
• Is Part Of: Urban affairs review. Volume 52:Number 3(2016:May)
• Page Start: 323
• Page End: 347
• Publication Date: 2016-05
• Subjects: urban regime -- urban governance -- agenda -- policy change; City planning -- Periodicals; Aménagement urbain; Développement urbain; Planification urbaine; Politique urbaine; Recherche; Sociologie urbaine; Urbanisme; Ville; États-Unis; Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 307.76
• DOI: 10.1177/1078087415598579
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1078-0874

Abstract

The urban regime theory has placed the decisional power of urban policy makers in the foreground. From this perspective, enduring governing coalitions can in fact manage to change the consolidated urban policy mix to foster great changes in the social and economic context. The urban regime theory labels this capacity "power to." Although this higher capacity has frequently been affirmed, the literature has neglected to look at the framing mechanisms and the policy-making processes that allow a new agenda to emerge and be implemented. The present article has the aim of addressing this matter and in particular of trying to answer two main questions: (1) If an incubation phase lays the foundations for the emergence of a new policy agenda, how does this process take place? (2) Is the new agenda a by-product of sectorial policy negotiations or is it the output of a collective effort? The findings of an in-depth analysis of a case study are presented and discussed to address these questions.