Urban Political Science and the Challenge of Urban Governance

Abstract

Abstract The study of urban politics has been prone to some of the same cycles and trends as the wider field of political science (Stoker, 1998a). Fifty years ago—as in political science in general—the focus was on institutions. Urban politics was the study of city government: its legal competences and structure and its core actors—mayors, councillors, bureaucrats. The literature was often descriptive and generally concerned with examining semi-constitutional questions and administrative doctrines about the appropriateness of local autonomy or how best politicians could hold bureaucrats to account without undermining the distinctive contribution of each.

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