Private sector involvement in urban governance: The case of Business Improvement Districts and Town Centre Management partnerships in England

Although it has many merits, the voluminous literature on urban governance gives scant attention to the actual involvement and positioning of business elites and businesses within Public-Private Partnerships. There is also little consensus among academics as to why the private sector become involved in such schemes. This paper begins to address these issues through a critical empirical examination of how and why the private sector is involved with three English Town Centre Management (TCM) partnerships and the Business Improvement District (BID) subsidiaries all three partnerships have recently developed. In order to do this, the empirical study is guided by a conceptual framework that foregrounds the relationship between (a) the opening up and monitoring of ‘institutional space’ by partnerships and the state, and (b) the motivations and ‘constrained agency’ of the business elites. The paper demonstrates that the positioning of the private sector is more multifarious and fractured than previous studies of urban governance have suggested. It also reveals that business elites and businesses view their participation as an ‘investment’ that needs to accrue significant financial returns and that partnership and state officials are highly selective in their choice of ‘who governs’.     

关于发展中国城市群GIS的探讨

城群GIS是适应城市群区域管治的需要,透过跨政府部门、跨行政区域的政府、企业、学术团体和公众之间的协作,共建和共享地理、人口、经济、资源等空间信息基础设施,发展多种多样的地理信息应用系统,服务于城市区域规划、环境保护、资源利用、大型基础设施建设、灾害防护方面的决策与行动。该文提出了城市群GIS概念,并探讨其功能和架构、关键技术、项目组织、系统实施问题,以期推动学术界对于跨组织、协作型城市群GIS的研究。     

矿山环境治理过程中资金运作模式探索与实践

矿山环境治理恢复基金制度之所以取代矿山地质环境治理恢复保证金制度,目的之一是通过基金的合理运营,为矿山环境治理提供长效稳定的资金保障。通过对矿山地质环境治理恢复保证金制度中的资金问题进行剖析,从基金来源、基金运营、基金投入三个方面提出矿山环境治理过程中新的商业运作模式,并从市场化角度对社会资本进入矿山复绿和综合利用进行了探索,以期对矿山环境治理恢复基金制度的建立提供一定的指导和参考。     

Collaborative Governance and Conflict Management: Lessons Learned and Good Practices from a Case Study in the Amazon Basin

Abstract

Given the linkages between natural resources and social conflicts, evidence increasingly shows that successful natural resource management requires conflict mitigation and prevention. However, there may be a gap in practice between knowing what processes and tools need to be used to manage conservation conflicts and how to actually implement them. We present learning from a practice-based case study of conflict management in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon that aimed to develop natural resource governance institutions and build stakeholder capacity, including of indigenous groups, to navigate existing conflict resolution mechanisms. Through applying good practices in conservation conflict management and collaborative governance, we generated important lessons on the practical considerations involved in collaborative conservation. These lessons, while specific to our case, could be applied to a variety of protected areas facing complex social-ecological systems dynamics and wicked problems.     

城市情感地理与空间治理：广州市区宣传类户外广告案例

受人文地理“情感转向”思潮的影响,城市公共空间研究开始关注情感对空间的构建作用,情感空间的营造与城市空间的治理存在一定的耦合关联。本文以广州市区的宣传类户外广告为例,援引情感地理与空间治理的相关理论,采用访谈、文本分析等方法,探讨宣传类户外广告在营造情感氛围过程中与城市空间的内在关联,进而讨论情感氛围与城市空间治理的联系。研究发现,户外广告尤其是宣传类户外广告通过视觉表征生产情感空间,由身体-街区-城市三个尺度构成情感化的公共空间,置身城市公共空间的个体在宣传类户外广告的话语作用下重构对城市空间的想象,产生“归属感”“认同感”和“安全感”等情感,并通过视觉、情感等非表征形式使居民在自我审视中加深群体文化认同,使空间治理内化。研究将情感地理的研究放置在城市这一中观尺度,通过广州市区宣传类户外广告的讨论丰富了情感地理的实证研究,同时对拓展情感地理研究的尺度与视角进行了有益探索。     

人类命运共同体视域中的国家传统疆域与新疆域

领土疆域是现代国家存在和发展的客观地理空间实体,对国家的长治久安和繁荣稳定具有根本现实意义。在人类社会发展的演进历程中,人类社会共同体在有着固定地理边界的领土上建立了现代国家,然而随着人类探索世界的范围因认知能力、科学技术及经济全球化等变化而扩展,国家地理疆域的形态也由此发生了深刻变化。现代国家的地理疆域已经从领土、近海和近空传统地理空间,向深海、远洋、太空、极地和信息等现代地理空间延展。总的来看,现代国家疆域的形态特征的变化主要表现为,由二维空间向多维空间的变化,从确定性空间向不确定空间延展,从地理空间迈向向利益空间发展,从主权空间向战略空间扩展。在现代国家的地理疆域已经发生变化的前提下,中国在构建人类命运共同体中提出了以和平、主权、普惠、共治为治理原则来治理国际关系新疆域,这不仅为治理国际关系新疆域贡献了中国智慧,也有效推动了中国疆域治理迈向更高台阶。     

能源地缘政治与能源权力研究

围绕油气资源的权力博弈仍然是当今世界最主要的能源权力争夺,但不同时代的能源权力的属性有所不同,能源安全与能源战略内涵也有所不同。论文在系统梳理能源地缘政治基础上,提出了能源权力的概念,并从地缘政治格局、能源安全观、能源网络和全球能源治理4个方面进行了具体阐述。研究认为：① 以能源分布、产销空间变化及其规律性总结是传统能源地缘政治研究的核心,油气资源地理分布的不平衡性是能源权力产生的最直接因素。② 从石油危机时代到未来新能源时代,能源安全观的不同是影响国际能源地缘政治权力变化的重要因素。③ 能源的商品属性和地缘属性决定了能源贸易不仅是经济行为,其空间的流动与国际政治关系密切。生产与消费的分离使得油气二次分配过程中的贸易控制和通道控制对能源权力重构产生重要影响。④ 全球能源权力巨变和复杂错综的能源权力网络将引发全球能源治理体系的新秩序。权力的主体从国家、国际组织、跨国公司转变为全球能源网络中利益共同体,能源治理的主题从一国之利益走向了全球能源权力的再分配过程。展望未来,如何在理论上建构新时代的能源权力的理论体系,深化气候变化和新能源等因素影响下的世界能源权力的演变、地理空间与权力的相互依赖关系、权力秩序的重构及其效应、全球能源治理机制及其治理模式等研究,对科学认知和研判世界能源形势与能源战略的演化具有重要的意义,也是能源地缘政治学研究的重要方向性命题。     

Governing industrial estates on Jakarta's periurban area: From shadow government to network governance

This article investigates the way in which periurban politics have mediated foreign direct investment relocations and facilitated the spatial restructuring of the Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA), one of the largest and fastest‐growing megaurban regions in Asia. We conducted a series of in‐depth interviews in Cikarang, the largest, most developed industrial estate corridor in the urban periphery of JMA. We identified institutional settings, power struggles and governance mechanisms underlying the industrial estate transitions in the past three decades. We found that periurban governance in JMA has resulted in poor infrastructure connectivity and tight interactor and inter‐regional competition. As global economic turbulence and decentralization policies restrict the effectiveness of privatization strategies, network strategies are trialled to promote sustainability and inclusiveness in JMA's industrial estates and towns.     

Between coercion and consent: the politics of “Cooperative Governance” at a time of “Austerity Localism” in London

At a time of “austerity localism”, this paper explores how local authorities in London, England, are simultaneously addressing the dual pressures of delivering fiscal retrenchment and of enrolling citizens in new participatory public service arrangements, asking whether “these trends pull against one another, in opposite directions, or whether they are the tough and tender dimensions of a singular process: austerian management” Drawing on empirical research into the London Borough of Lambeth’s Cooperative Council agenda, as well as Foucauldian and Gramscian critiques of participatory network governance theories and practice, this paper shows how participatory forms of governance can be folded into the logic of hierarchy and coercion through various governmental technologies of performance and agency (consent), and through tactics of administrative domination (coercion). As budget cuts continue to affect local government in England, this paper concludes that although small experiments in participatory governance may persist, the dominant mode of governance is likely to shift towards more hierarchical and coercive forms.     

深汕特别合作区协同共治型区域治理模式研究

伴随金融风暴引发了全球资本重组,资本的空间修复客观要求以新的跨界区域治理模式组织资本与劳动力关系,而中国传统跨界产业园区建设路径依赖于区域发展中“省-地方”分层设权治理模式。以珠三角地区的深汕特别合作区为例,通过深度访谈与文本分析法,发现深汕特别合作区形成的多主体共同参与、分工合作的协同共治型区域治理模式是在传统路径依赖基础上的一次制度创新。通过分析模式产生的产业经济背景、政策制度背景与现实发展概况,并解构深汕特别合作区行政组织架构、空间发展政策及利益分配机制,发现省政府的放松管制与资源注入,地方政府的优势互补、分工协同是协同共治型区域治理模式的本质特征,而这一区域治理模式的产生将会对中国区域产业政策与空间政策及政府职能转型提供新的经验与启示。