This project tries to bring together two strands of current urban debates – that on political leadership and that on citizen participation (community involvement). It is looking for conditions of a complementarity between leadership and community involvement by which the effectiveness as well as the legitimacy of urban governance (in the policy areas of economic competitiveness and social inclusion) can be increased or even stabilized.

The paper focuses on types and styles of urban leadership as well as on forms of community involvement by which such a complementarity and (more) effective and legitimate policy outcomes can be achieved.

The paper resulted from cooperation within the EU funded research project (PLUS).

There are contextual variables favouring certain leadership styles and forms of community involvement; however, they are not clearly determined. Contextual variables – and especially institutional structures – are placing constraints and highlighting options for political actions but it is up to the local actors to make use of the available ‘feasible set’, i.e. to exploit locally given options and to reshape existing constraints. This has been demonstrated by the analysed initiatives, where some cases demonstrated a certain ‘under-performance‘ in respect to a respective ‘favourable’ context and others equally ‘over-performed’ vis-à-vis a respective ‘unfavourable’ contextual background.

College of Urban planning & public affairs
Dr. Panagiotis Getimis

01/01/2004

Panagiotis Getimis and Hubert Heinelt

research

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Community development

Citizens' participation