Ideologia e política

Experiences of state/community partnerships in the field of land and housing in developing countries have had mixed results in attaining their goals of improving access to shelter for low-income households. Drawing upon evidence from Porto Alegre, Brazil, this paper argues that partnerships may represent an opportunity when the relationship is based on accountability and transparency, on common goals and shared responsibilities, even when resources are scarce. The role of the public partner was to provide technical and organizational assistance and act as a mediator between coops and private interests. The role of the cooperatives was to mobilize as a cooperative and develop a savings and organizational capacity. The partners carried out these roles and developed new ones during the construction of the partnership. The partnership however was not exempt from difficulties. Besides frictions between state officials and cooperators and among types of cooperatives, external constraints jeopardized the development of the organizations. Land use restrictions, lack of access to construction finance and lack of a supportive legislative and policy framework still constitute shortcomings for the development of low-income housing cooperatives in Brazil.

O que é um líder na percepção de um líder? Esta é a questão que a autora enfrenta, utilizando um instrumento psicossocial e psicanalítico em bairros populares de João Pessoa. A partir deste marco teórico de análise é possível perceber que as identidades assinaladas não são similares, mas contrastantes. De fato, as entrevistas realizadas permitem registrar uma clara contradição entre a identidade do líder no espaço individual-familiar e no espaço social-coletivo em que o sujeito se encontra inserido. Por sua vez, esta contradição parece emergir como elemento novo no estudo das relações entre os movimentos sociais e políticas públicas.

Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs) are increasing in size, scope and number on the global arena. They reflect a tendency for city governments to coordinate environmental action through networked forms of governance. In this article, we argue that a new generation of TMNs has entered the global scene to help cities steer their efforts to handle environmental issues. In contrast to the characteristics of older TMNs as public, inclusive, and self-governed, new-generation TMNs are influenced by private actors, they are exclusive, and employ enforcement mechanisms to secure the fulfilment of network goals. To underline the diversity of TMNs and thus better understand urban networked governance, we present a case study of the 100 Resilient Cities initiative covering its conduct in 2013–2019. Looking at its actor composition and membership terms, we identify a hybrid nature different from the one described in earlier literature on European TMNs primarily. This subscription to a hybrid form of governance calls for a larger discussion on the implications of this shift in governance type and on the extent to which hybridisation implies a shift of power from the public to the private sphere.

Water is not only a valuable substance, but is also valued in different ways dependent on substantive social, ecological, and historical conditions. The concept of water value positionality is introduced to describe the dynamic ensemble of meanings forged from cooperation and competition in the allocation, use, and conservation of water. Positionality helps us to understand water conflicts as individuals and groups struggling to legitimise their valuation of water. The explanatory function of positionality is demonstrated with an empirical case study in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. Hegemonic positionality depicts water as an economic resource required for regional development and urban growth. This has been increasingly challenged by sectors of the state apparatus who call for the monetary valuation of water. Beyond these two perspectives, there exists a vast range of water values articulated by the local communities in their struggle for survival and political affirmation. The conclusion is that, in the process of constantly revaluing water, there are temporary 'positions of value' that last and change with sociocultural and politicoecological experiences.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, was probably the largest event in a long series of megasummits on environmental protection and sustainable development. Roughly 44000 participants descended on Rio de Janeiro to take part in ten days of preparatory committee meetings, informal consultations, side events, and the actual conference. Yet despite this unprecedented high attendance by participants from governments and civil society, the outcome of the conference is less than many had hoped for. In this paper I review the outcomes of the 2012 Rio conference in detail, with a special focus on its contributions towards the reform of the institutional framework for sustainable development. Following this review, I discuss the way ahead and options for structural reform to restrengthen earth system governance.

Nowadays there is an imperative for governments to be more responsive to community needs, and public sector modernisation programmes are introducing opportunities for citizen participation. We look at citizen participation initiatives through the lenses of institutional and stakeholder theories. Using survey data and exogenous variables we analyse experiences in thirty OECD and MERCOSUR local governments. We find that the possible gains in legitimacy and trust explain the efforts made towards citizen participation. In addition, the different levels of commitment towards meaningful citizen participation suggest that factors such as power and urgency can be complementary to legitimacy when analysing citizen participation.

The idea of a group of developing countries with shared characteristics, challenges, and needs, distinct from those of developed countries, has been central to sustainable development discourse and policy for decades. However, in the years since the original Rio conference it has become increasingly apparent that it is difficult to sustain this notion of a single developing world. Within the context of unfolding diversity, a central claim of the present paper is that lumping all countries together under the expansive category of ‘developing’ risks obfuscating the complex challenges, solutions, and fragmented geopolitics of sustainable development. Instead, it is necessary to use the terms developing country, countries, or world far more selectively, mindful that they may conceal just about as much as they reveal. In the paper I proceed to consider a number of alternative national, subnational, and transnational spatial categorisations which might be deployed to better describe and/or analyse the evolving nature, effective governance, and politics of sustainable development challenges across space.

This paper interrogates and expands understandings of agency in processes of knowledge circulation by focusing on actors switching their position from the demand-side to the supply side of policy knowledge. In doing so, we contribute to recent debates about the importance of accounting to other scales beyond the local–global binary that dominates the policy mobility literature and to the politics of policy translation and dissemination. Emphasis is given to the performative role of domestic actors and their practices in localising mobile policies of urban regeneration in ‘gateway cities’ while leveraging and recirculating knowledge within their national contexts. Conceptualised as policy brokers and policy entrepreneurs, such actors are attuned to the local dynamics and able to distil context-specific lessons that are sensitive to national regulatory frameworks, funding and political contingencies. We focus on two urban megaprojects of waterfront regeneration in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro that introduced new practices of land monetisation while making use of inter-referencing, drawing on in-depth interviews with policy actors and archival material. We argue that an attention to ‘follow the reformatted model’ reveals how policy models mutate as they conform to contextual factors and to particular interests. The analysis of such processes allows us to transcend the local–global dichotomy and to trace multiscalar connections between multiple projects.