TRACK 4: GOVERNANCE

Institutions, actors and ideas crossing boundaries and enabling learning 

Chairs:

• Mustafa Kemal Bayırbağ, Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara
• Mehmet Penpecioğlu, Izmir Institute of Technology
• Elisa Privitera, University of Toronto Scarborough
• Eva Purkarthofer, Aalto University

The world is facing multiple crises, including accelerated climate change, increasing social and economic inequalities, and devastating wars. These crises pose global challenges; yet, they require policy responses at various scales, from the international to the European, national, regional, until the local one. Where established administrative arrangements do not fit the challenges at hand, flexible “soft spaces”, crossing territorial boundaries, promise more accurate and less bureaucratic solutions. However, their informal governance models are potentially undemocratic and sometimes render transformative actions difficult to implement. 

Track 4 “Governance” discusses the broad range of governance arrangements framing planning and enabling transition. This covers the institutional aspects of governance, i.e. the rules, laws, and procedural requirements shaping planning, as well as the possibilities opened by community practices and actors (co-)operating within these structural settings, and how these practices might lead to generative conflicts, institutional learning, and enhanced reflexivity. We explore the transboundary nature of challenges and responses, referring both to the need for new spatial framings, and for crossing boundaries between administrative silos, scientific disciplines, and various communities. We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions, as well as methodology- and policy-oriented discussions on governance and planning practices. 

Track 4 focuses on five major themes:

• Institutions, e.g. the dynamic nature and relationship of planning systems and planning cultures; the regulatory and sectoral policy inputs coming from the EU level; change, reform, and innovation of institutional settings; tensions between various governance arrangements (e.g. top-down/bottom-up, local/regional, hard/soft)
• Actors, e.g. community engagement, participatory planning, and collaborative governance; social movements and commoning practices as confrontations to planetary crises; actors as catalysts and drivers of transformative action
• Ideas, e.g. policy narratives for transitions towards degrowth, digitalisation, renewable energy, sustainable food systems, inclusiveness, and spatial justice; transfer and mobility of planning ideas, concepts and practices; local interpretations of pervasive narratives such as sustainability 
• Learning, e.g. challenges and opportunities related to reflexive governance and institutional learning; conditions for innovation and the role of actors therein; generative conflict and dissensus in planning practice; potential and challenges of different institutional backgrounds, knowledges and languages
• Boundaries, e.g. planning in cross-border regions and functional spaces; borders as social constructs, administrative challenges and lived realities; tensions between different levels of governance; policy coordination and integration related to planning; planning in light of geopolitics and European integration

Keywords:

planning system, planning culture, soft space, policy transfer, mobilities, geopolitics, transboundary planning, border, functional region, scale, institution, actor, collaboration, participation, Europeanisation, EU policymaking, reflexive urban governance, local participatory governance, social movement, urban commons/commoning, equitable urban policies, inclusiveness, cohesion