Rethinking Place Branding From a Political Perspective: Urban Governance, Public Diplomacy, and Sustainable Policy Making

2020 ◽  
pp. 000276422097506
Author(s):  
Xavier Ginesta ◽  
Jordi de San Eugenio
Keyword(s):  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Place Branding ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Local Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Theoretical Evolution

Place branding is a relatively new transdisciplinary academic discipline. It is an evolution of what some researchers understood as “place or city marketing,” “place selling,” and “place promotion.” The three concepts analyze the need that territories have to position themselves in order to compete in the global markets through an eminently economic perspective. However, place branding rejects the corporate world to address, as positioning axes, the tangible and intangible values of a specific region and, therefore, its identity. Furthermore, public administrations have had to adopt strategies that link residents when designing place brands that can guarantee long-term narratives and become effective mechanisms for spatial planning, urban governance, local development, or economic promotion. Citizens’ engagement, at the grassroots level, has become a key element for the successful conceptualization and implementation of place brands. The current discipline of place branding is therefore totally linked to the political order. Public administrations become key actors in the development of place branding campaigns, not only in the local context but also at the national and international levels. The aim of this article is to present a theoretical evolution of place branding in order to find the most common links with the political order, as well as to design a conceptual framework to fit this discipline into the context of political science. This theoretical evolution will be conceived taking into account the results of previous empirical research that the authors conducted for different Catalan public administrations. The results of this article show clear synergies between four basic concepts: the place brand, its aim to contribute to sustainable planning, its influence on public governance decisions and, finally, its capacity to be central in the definition of public diplomacy programs outside the usual state-centric domain. Therefore, place branding led by public administrations—this is what we can understand as “public branding”—has a major and inevitable political focus.

scholarly journals Contestando a “Ciência Social Norte-Americana”: críticas à postura conservadora das teorias do mainstream das Relações Internacionais / Disputing the "American Social Science": critical to conservative stance of the mainstream theories of IR

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 448-480
Author(s):  
Hermes Moreira Jr.
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

A concepção de uma disciplina acadêmica sistematizada para o estudo das relações internacionais se deu atrelada à necessidade de criação de um arcabouço teórico para a compreensão da dinâmica do sistema internacional e das possibilidades de mudança ou estabilidade da ordem política nesse sistema. Nesse sentido, o objetivo deste texto é demonstrar em que medida as teorias do chamado mainstream acadêmico, tradicionais na análise da política internacional, ao naturalizar a conformação da ordem política internacional e minimizar o papel das disputas entre as forças sociais na constituição das relações internacionais, exercem um papel favorável à manutenção da ordem hegemônica e conservação do status quo. Não obstante, perspectivas contestatórias reconheceram e evidenciaram os limites das teorias do mainstream e preencheram a lacuna político-acadêmica contida nas teorias tradicionais de Relações Internacionais ao longo do desenvolvimento de seu campo acadêmico e institucional. Abstract: The design of an academic discipline for the systematic study of international relations occurred tied to the need to establish a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics of the international system and the possibilities for change or stability of the political order in this system. Accordingly, this paper aims to demonstrate the extent to which the so-called mainstream academic theories, traditional analysis of international politics, to naturalize the conformation of the international political order and minimize the role of the disputes between the social forces in the constitution of international relations, play a role in favor of maintaining the hegemonic order and preserving the status quo. Nevertheless, prospects contesting recognized and showed the limits of the mainstream theories and filled the political and academic gap contained in traditional theories of international relations during the development of their academic and institutional concepts. 

The Political Economy of Local Governance in Yemen

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Benoit Challand ◽  
Joshua Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Self Rule

This paper provides an historical exploration of local governance in Yemen across the past sixty years. It highlights the presence of a strong tradition of local self-rule, self-help, and participation “from below” as well as the presence of a rival, official, political culture upheld by central elites that celebrates centralization and the strong state. Shifts in the predominance of one or the other tendency have coincided with shifts in the political economy of the Yemeni state(s). When it favored the local, central rulers were compelled to give space to local initiatives and Yemen experienced moments of political participation and local development.

Corruption and Political Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hazel Gray
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Capital Flight ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Settlement ◽  
The Way

This chapter contrasts the way that the political settlement in both countries shaped the pattern of redistribution, reform, and corruption within public finance and the implications that this had for economic transformation. Differences in the impact of corruption on economic transformation can be explained by the way that their political settlements generated distinct patterns of competition and collaboration between economic and political actors. In Vietnam corrupt activities led to investments that were frequently not productive; however, the greater financial discipline imposed by lower-level organizations led to a higher degree of investment overall in Vietnam that supported a more rapid economic transformation under liberalization than in Tanzania. Individuals or small factional networks within the VCP at the local level were, therefore, probably less able to engage in forms of corruption that simply led to capital flight as happened in Tanzania, where local level organizations were significantly weaker.

Political Steering and Bureaucratic Autonomy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Questionnaire Data ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Bureaucratic Autonomy ◽  
Large N ◽  
New Public ◽  
Political Steering

This chapter draws attention to the effects of vertical specialization of organizations and how it affects public governance. The chapter documents that agency officials pay significantly less attention to signals from executive politicians than their counterparts within ministerial (cabinet-level) departments. This finding also holds when controlling for variation in tasks, the political salience of issue areas, and officials’ rank. In addition, it is documented that the greater the organizational capacity available within the respective ministerial departments, the more agency personnel tend to assign weight to signals from the political leadership. Expert concerns are strongly emphasized at both levels; however, agency personnel are more sensitive to the influence of affected parties. The chapter applies large-N questionnaire data at four points in time (1986, 1996, 2006, and 2016) that spans three decades and shifting administrative doctrines: New Public Management as well as post-New Public Management.

scholarly journals Local Government and Local Development: Bridging the Gap through Critical Discourse: Evidence from the Commonwealth Caribbean

2012 ◽  
pp. 5-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eris D Schoburgh
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Wealth Creation ◽  
Organisational Capacity ◽  
Developmental Role

Local development, whether construed broadly as community development or more narrowly as local as economic development (LED) is not always associated with local government but rather is the purview of a central government department or agency in Anglophone Caribbean policy systems. However with the emergence of ‘local place - and people-oriented approaches’ to development that offer new propositions about how to respond to risks and opportunities brought by globalization, local government is seen increasingly as an appropriate institutional context in which to pursue short-range objectives, such as creation of market opportunities and redressing the disparities within national economies; as well as the long-range goal of social transformation. A developmental role for local government raises two questions that form the central concerns of this paper: What are the institutional and organisational imperatives of a developmental role for local government? To what extent have these imperatives been addressed in reform? A critical analysis of local government reform policies in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica revealed substantive convergence around local development as an outcome of reform but also important divergence in the approach to achieving this goal which suggests the absence of a cohesive model. The paper argues for a new agenda in reform that links local government more consistently with a local development strategy. It asserts that such a strategy must incorporate gender equality, the informal economy and institutional organisational capacity in the process of transformation and as a basis for creating a local context in which all types of resources can be maximized in the process of wealth creation in a locality.

scholarly journals Platonic metaphysics and the ontology of international relations: a sketch

2021 ◽  
pp. 004711782110214
Author(s):  
King-Ho Leung
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
World Order ◽  
Social World ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Individual

This article offers a reading of Plato in light of the recent debates concerning the unique ‘ontology’ of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline. In particular, this article suggests that Plato’s metaphysical account of the integral connection between human individual, the domestic state and world order can offer IR an alternative outlook to the ‘political scientific’ schema of ‘levels of analysis’. This article argues that Plato’s metaphysical conception of world order can not only provide IR theory with a way to re-imagine the relation between the human, the state and world order. Moreover, Plato’s outlook can highlight or even call into question the post-metaphysical presuppositions of contemporary IR theory in its ‘borrowed ontology’ from modern social science, which can in turn facilitate IR’s re-interpretation of its own ‘ontology’ as well as its distinct contributions to the understanding of the various aspects of the social world and human life.

History, Politics, and the Constitution: Ethnic Conflict and Constitutional Adjudication in Postcommunist Bulgaria

Slavic Review ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venelin I. Ganev
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication

Infamously, the 1991 Bulgarian Constitution contains a provision banning political parties “formed on an ethnic basis.” In the early 1990s, the neo-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party invoked this provision when it asked the country's Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the political party of the beleaguered Turkish minority. In this article, Venelin I. Ganev analyzes the conflicting arguments presented in the course of the constitutional trial that ensued and shows how the justices’ anxieties about the possible effects of politicized ethnicity were interwoven into broader debates about the scope of the constitutional normative shift that marked the end of the communist era, about the relevance of historical memory to constitutional reasoning, and about the nature of democratic politics in a multiethnic society. Ganev also argues that the constitutional interpretation articulated by the Court has become an essential component of Bulgaria's emerging political order. More broadly, he illuminates the complexity of some of the major issues that frame the study of ethnopolitics in postcommunist eastern Europe: the varied dimensions of the “politics of remembrance“; the ambiguities of transitional justice; the dilemmas inherent in the construction of a rights-centered legality; and the challenges involved in establishing a forward-looking, pluralist system of governance.

scholarly journals Security expertise and international hierarchy: the case of ‘The Asia-Pacific Epistemic Community’

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Jerdén
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Social Order ◽  
International Security ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Stability ◽  
General Explanation

AbstractMany states partially relinquish sovereignty in return for physical protection from a more powerful state. Mainstream theory on international hierarchies holds that such decisions are based on rational assessments of the relative qualities of the political order being offered. Such assessments, however, are bound to be contingent, and as such a reflection of the power to shape understandings of reality. Through a study of the remarkably persistent US-led security hierarchy in East Asia, this article puts forward the concept of the ‘epistemic community’ as a general explanation of how such understandings are shaped and, hence, why states accept subordinate positions in international hierarchies. The article conceptualises a transnational and multidisciplinary network of experts on international security – ‘The Asia-Pacific Epistemic Community’ – and demonstrates how it operates to convince East Asian policymakers that the current US-led social order is the best choice for maintaining regional ‘stability’.

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