Integrated Multilevel Urban Governance Analysis: Comparing Neostructuralist and Neo-Weberian Approaches

Abstract

Now that the ontological status of the concept of governance has been clarified and the most important terminological distinctions have been drawn, we are equipped with the basic analytical toolkit which will allow us to go deeper into the debates on multilevel urban governance. We can turn to the task which was previously mentioned as crucial for this venture, namely the challenge to search for an integrated framework of urban governance research that also meets the requirements of systematic and comparative multilevel analysis. As a means to draw near this challenge, I will introduce and critically compare two well-debated contemporary schools of thought, both of which have made a decisive contribution to the theoretical debates on multilevel urban governance in recent years. Proponents of these approaches have asked how prevailing modes of urban governance have become manifest throughout Western Europe today and have made suggestions as concerns the most appropriate ways and means to analyze and compare these governance dynamics. In doing so, both schools have suggested a multilevel, context-sensitive approach, rejecting functionalist, universalistic and deterministic readings.