Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy / Edition 1

by Jefferey M. Sellers

Overview

Cities play a growing role in governing. This new role fits within a context that nation-states, global market forces and cities themselves continue to define. The analysis of this book focuses on how local efforts in the distinct European systems of France and Germany as well as American counterparts have provided for environmental quality and social inclusion alongside local economic development. Only in certain European settings has policy making at multiple levels accomplished all three objectives at once. In those settings, effective governance from below has relied on adequate support from higher levels of governments and a favorable position in the global economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521657075
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/04/2002
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	422
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.94(d)

Table of Contents

1. Understanding the post-industrial political economy; 2. Pathways of post-industrial transformation; 3. The real world of decentralization; 4. The strategies of urban regimes; 5. The making of urban regimes; 6. The shaping of movement politics; 7. The politics of the post-industrial trilemma; Appendix A. City profiles; Appendix B. Background of the research; Appendix C. Supplemental tables.

Editorial Reviews

"Richly detailed, reflecting years of work in three languages and a deft flexiblity in qualitative and quantitative research methods..." Political Science Quarterly

"Sellers demonstrates that in many urban areas the political process is effective... With abundant evidence from choices on growth promotion, environment quality, and social equity, he shows that local regimes and officials play critical roles within the national infrastructures... A competent study recommended for advanced students of comparative public policy. Upper-division undergraduates and above." Choice

"Jefferey Sellers innovates repeatedly...He contributes to urban politics, public policy, comparative politics, political parties, legal studies, and planning, and most of all, shows how these are not separate but interrelated parts of the same whole...To do fieldwork in three languages and nine cities, assemble masses of information (maybe 10 times as much as in most similar monographs), integrate it smoothly, and present it as a coherent, readable account is most unusual. Sellers does more: He presents a framed perspective, summarized in multiple tables and charts, to contextualize cities and clarify their sociopolitical dynamics. Read Governing from Below closely...Much is here." Perspectives on Politics

"Sellers mounts a serious...theoretical challenge to dominant neo-classical and neo-Marxist accounts of urban political economy that focus on global cities and the inevitable forces of external capital within processes of economic globalization. This book will therefore be of interest not only to policy-makers but also urban sociologists, political scientiests, and geographers. I highly recommend it for graduate courses in and related to urban studies." - Canadian Journal of Law and Society Randy Lippert, University of Windsor

From the Publisher