Title first published in 2003. This book focuses on whether participatory governance can lead to sustainable and innovative outcomes. Using an empirical analysis of the development, implementation and review of an EU environmental management system - the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), it examines under which circumstances participatory governance might encourage sustainability and innovation.

This book analyses the ability of individuals to create meaning through communicative interaction and of what seems to constrain and enable actors in taking collectively binding political decisions.The book examines why, in some contexts, individuals consider something as evident and relevant for their action while others perceive them as nonsense or simply as ‘fake news’. As such, the book follows a research perspective based on a concept emphasizing that the core function of know...

This title was first published in 2001. Outlining the results of a three-country study, this text examines the impact of EU policy on the domestic, political and institutional environment. It tests ideas about new forms of governance that reflect the values of participation and empowerment of local interests, particularly through a close scrutiny of the environmental impact process. The book also analyzes the responses of the business sector in three countries - Germany, Greece and Great B...

Is the ‘golden age’ of democracy really over due to the pressures of globalisation and the erosion of the nation state?Within this book, Heinelt seeks to address the democratic deficit in political systems linked to limited Citizen Participation reflecting on the notion of democracy and participatory governance and how they relate to each other. Exploring democracy beyond the governmental structures and focusing on participatory governance in particular this book demonstrates that ...

Drawing on classical and emerging research perspectives, this comprehensive book provides an up-to-date review of local government in Europe.Featuring an impressive range of contributors from both eastern and western Europe, the book addresses three main topics: territorial reforms, democratic empowerment of citizens and the role of local leadership, as well as new trends in local finances.Acknowledging their inherent diversity, the book examines the ways that local governm...

This book offers a cross-national analysis of contemporary issues and challenges for the governing of urban regions. The case studies on Germany, Spain, France, Greece, The Netherlands, Finland, the UK, Switzerland, Australia, the US and Canada, place particular emphasis on the tensions building on metropolitan governing capacity and democratic legitimacy. The authors develop and use an analytical framework focused on the dynamics of place and make an original contribution to the debates o...

Unter der ebenso schlichten wie provokativen Überschrift „Regieren“ sollen in diesem Band Beiträge zum aktuellen Verständnis der Herausforderungen einer Ausrichtung von politischer Herrschaft auf die zielgerichtete Veränderung der Gesellschaft versammelt werden. In einem ersten Teil geht es um normativ-theoretische Grundlagenfrage des modernen Regierens. Im Mittelpunkt stehen hier Grundbegrifflichkeiten der Konzeptualisierung von Regieren sowie Fragen des Zusammenhangs von Vorstellungen de...

Some cities manage to mobilize innovation potentials and respond to challenges, such as demographic change and immigration as well as economic restructuring, while others do not. This book solves this problem by answering the following question: what are the conditions for the development of local innovation?In order to identify these conditions, the book explores case study cities which are perceived as success cases of local innovation by the respective local community, and somet...

Since the 1990s ‘beliefs’, ‘ideas’ or ‘knowledge’ as well as processes of communicative interactions such as persuasion, argumentation and learning have received increasing attention in social science for the understanding of political changes. This book makes a significant contribution to this scholarly debate and will be of interest to practitioners, showing on one side how climate change has received more and more attention in policy making at the local level and changed the urban agend...

As members of representative bodies at local levels of government, municipal councillors play a vital role in democratic decision-making most closely related to the daily lives of citizens. Interactions between councillors and citizens, between councillors themselves, and between councillors and their representative bodies, are therefore some of the most common features of contemporary democracy. The multiple forms these interactions take provide important insights into the different roles...

Angela Liberatore Governance shifted from a concept used by a few specialists to one quite widely (while surely not universally) used in policy making circles and pub lic debate. This does not mean that the interpretation of the concept is in the meantime uncontested or obvious. Analytical and policy debate is at times quite heated on whether "governance" means "privatisation of government" or rather involvement of various actors at various levels in policy making without 'dismantling' the...

Debates about multi-level governance have led to a profound restructuring of regional and local government. The second level of local government is under review in most European countries, with the aim to strengthen the institutional capacity of municipalities or to develop appropriate institutional structures for governing fragmented urban areas.This book provides a thematic and cross-national analysis of the key actors in local government that form the crucial components of effec...