Political Communication and Local Governance: The Public Space in Front of the Gate in Song Prefectures and Counties

In this article I correlate the lack of a common European public space for information and communication with the lack of a sense of a common EU citizenship and common European identity. The demonstrable deficit in communication is both vertical and horizontal. It alienates citizens from their elected representatives but also from crucial current public affairs. Citizens remain thus ignorant about power brokering in Brussels. It affects equally people from different coutries, individual citizens across the Union. I argue that both the growing ignorance of European citizens about Europolitics and their mounting disaffection with it derive from an entrenched political communication deficit. I hold that this malaise sustains the longlasting EU political crisis and its notorious democracy deficit. The study locates these crucial political and communicative problems, but when examining policy efforts to remedy them, similar policy gaps and non-policymaking are manifest. I analyse the media landscape, which with regards to contents of political news and current affairs, is nationally based, nationally oriented and controlled. This is then juxtaposed with the prevailing condition of huge voids and gaps in publicising, screening and in monitoring Europolitics. I then correlate the broadly documented ignorance of Europeans about their common political affairs with the absence of pan-European common public space. Similarly, the documented disaffection and abstention of citizens from political activity and Europolitics more specifically is accounted for by the absence of a common European political communication system. I further argue that, in the twenty first century, the medium of television, which in synergy with new media such as the Internet becomes interactive, is the best instrument to fill these gaps of the still missing common pan-European public space. The new media landscape offers the technical preconditions for the development of ‘communications rights’ strategy and, thus, for the development of a common televised public space that can approach the functions of a pan-European public sphere by allowing both active information functions, debate and dialogue between Europeans horizontally. Notwithstanding these new technological possibilities and in spite of the pressing needs for trans-national communication on Europolitics and between citizens, such potential is not exploited by European leaders. This results effectively in the abandoning of the crucial requirements for political communication to the ‘forces of fate’. It is empirically proven that nationally entrenched and commercial media have quite different objectives and priorities from those necessary for the function of a complete political communication. The former assume localist or nationalist perspectives whereas the most dominant of latter ones pursue globalist and exclusively profit seeking strategies. By definition, neither category can serve the objectives of European integration and or serve citizens’ needs from the European perspective. So, although communications’ rights can now be readily deployed, although pan-European television channels can contribute to a complete and responsible political information and communication, and although these are fundamental prerequisites for the development of a common European identity, a European solidarity and for the much sought after European integration process, these means are not taken advantage of. Hence, the point is that this problematic condition frustrates both EU citizens and the objective of European integration.

Re- imagining public space: the vicissitudes of Japan’s privately owned public spaces

Eat, Swim, Pray

This study aimed to systematise existing approaches, principles, and trends related to the restoration and renovation of public spaces, while also identifying the actual needs of residents through surveys. Based on the findings, recommendations are proposed for the post-war development of public urban spaces. The primary methods used for data collection included visual analysis, individual surveys, and interviews with residents to determine their genuine needs. The results were structured using general scientific research methods. The survey revealed that 63% of respondents expressed a willingness to participate in the renovation and revival of damaged public urban spaces. 43% believed the restoration process should retain historical elements that existed prior to destruction, supplemented with new components. Among those surveyed, 31% preferred complete restoration to the pre-war state without alterations, while 36% wished to see elements of military memorial themes incorporated into the renewed public spaces. The study outlined key aspects highlighting the significance of public space in the functioning of a modern city and identifies major challenges associated with their post-war formation. Methodological recommendations have been provided to guide the formation, restoration, and renovation of public spaces, taking into account both residents’ interests and current trends. Existing approaches, ideas, and proposals for the renewal and renovation of public urban spaces have been systematised and supplemented with new concepts. Evaluation criteria for public urban spaces have been refined based on indicators such as functionaland spatial organisation, principles of public space formation, development prospects, and public participation. Mechanisms for civic engagement in the restoration and renovation of public spaces have been proposed for all stages – discussion, design, planning, and practical implementation. The findings of this study may be applied by designers and architects in developing projects for the reconstruction of war-damaged public spaces, as well as by local authorities during their implementation.

The author considers the problems of forming the safety of family recreation in the structure of public spaces of resort regions. The subject of the study is the system of factors of public safety of family recreation, statistical data on the most important areas requiring attention from local authorities, organizers of recreation and entrepreneurs working in the field of recreation and tourism. In recent years, the topic of creating comfortable public spaces in resort towns has become increasingly relevant. With the increase in the flow of tourists, as well as the number of families choosing such places for recreation, there is a need to understand and improve the conditions for a safe family stay. Modern cities are complex ecological systems, where attention to various social groups is of paramount importance for the creation of high-quality public space. The priority in the creation of comfortable public urban spaces is the tasks of an integrated approach to safe and affordable family recreation, including for different age and social groups of the population in the recreational and communicative environment. The results of a population survey on the state of the public safety system are presented, taking into account the requirements and wishes of families for modern resort areas. Suggestions are given to improve the conditions for safe family recreation, which will create more favorable conditions for a comfortable stay of families in the resort region. Urban public spaces should not only be arteries for movement, but also areas where people can interact, enjoy cultural events and exchange experiences. Cities integrate elements that promote socialization into their infrastructure: open-air cafes, art objects, green spaces, as well as places for sports and active recreation.

Political Communication is a sub-field of Political Science and Communication that deals with the production, dissemination, procession and effects of information, both through the mass media of communication, the Newspaper Press, Radio, Television, Social Media, Ora-media and interpersonally within a political context. This study examines political communication in the 2015 General Elections with special/particular reference to Oyo State of Nigeria- “the wild, wild west”. The study analyses the political communication strategies of fourteen (14) political parties in thirty-three Local Government areas of Oyo State, the speeches of eight (8) gubernatorial/governorship candidates/ politicians (political speechifying), those who tried to influence the political process and the outcome of the 2015 election in the state. The paper examines the formal and informal conversations among members of the Oyo State public and did a content analysis of some of the Newspapers, Radio and Television Stations both government - owned and private ones that were used to cover the Presidential, Gubernatorial, National Assembly, and State Assembly Elections in the State. Policy recommendations are made for future political communication in Oyo State in particular, and Nigeria in general.

The research discussed in the article focuses on public space in urban areas and revitalization activities carried out by local governments. The goals of the paper are to identify the conditions and opportunities for the development of public space by local governments of Bulgaria and Poland, to find regularities (similarities and differences) and to assess the actions taken. The specific objective is to illustrate the process of planning and managing selected large revitalization investments in urban public spaces in Bulgaria and Poland. The research methods used comprise the analysis of literature, including official documents and acts of law and case studies. The paper analyzes the conditions and manifestations of activities taken by local governments regarding investment in public space (development and revitalization of public space programs and investing in real estate) in Bulgaria and Poland, using examples from selected cities. The authors selected two comparable urban areas: Varna in Bulgaria and Poznań in Poland, chosen intentionally due to the similarity of the two post-socialist bloc countries and the availability of information. Bulgarian and Polish state law and various acts of local law were analyzed. The experimental part of the publication introduces case studies of investments in the revitalization of real estate in public space managed by the local governments. It shows examples of projects which are relevant to the development of the cities under study.

Beyond being physical spaces, public spaces are critical for social interaction and social integration. Local governments have great influence over public spaces due to their authority to regulate, improve and open these spaces for use. Power conflicts between local governments and plan changes accelerate the transformation of these spaces. This article examines the effects of interventions and power dynamics in planning processes on the transformation of public spaces through the example of Atakum City Square. It presents a theoretical framework for public spaces and squares and evaluates how planning decisions and local government actions affect the functionality and social dynamics of public spaces. In the study, qualitative and quantitative methods are combined to collect data through spatial observations, interviews with local government representatives and user surveys. The main findings show that the power dynamics of local governments affect the functional structure of the square and lead to a narrowing of the diversity of activities. Despite physical improvements, social inclusion deficiencies persist. This study contributes to the literature by providing recommendations for the preservation of democratic and inclusive public spaces.

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Central to this research lays the concept of private sector-led urban development projects (Heurkens, 2010). Such projects involve project developers taking a leading role and local authorities adopting a facilitating role, in managing the development of an urban area, based on a clear public-private role division. Such a development strategy is quite common in Anglo-Saxon urban development practices, but is less known in Continental European practices. Nonetheless, since the beginning of the millennium such a development strategy also occurred in the Netherlands in the form of ‘concessions’. However, remarkably little empirical knowledge is available about how public and private actors collaborate on and manage private sector-led urban development projects. Moreover, it remains unclear what the effects of such projects are. This dissertation provides an understanding of the various characteristics of private sector-led urban development projects by conducting empirical case study research in the institutional contexts of the Netherlands and the UK. The research provides an answer to the following research question: What can we learn from private sector-led urban development projects in the Netherlands and UK in terms of the collaborative and managerial roles of public and private actors, and the effects of their (inter)actions? Indications for a market-oriented Dutch urban development practice Urban development practice in the Netherlands has been subject to changes pointing towards more private sector involvement in the built environment in the past decades. Although the current economic recession might indicate otherwise, there are several motives that indicate a continuation of private sector involvement and a private leadership role in Dutch urban development projects in the future. First, a shift towards more market-oriented development practice is the result of an evolutionary process of increased ‘neoliberalization’ and the adoption of Anglo-Saxon principles in Dutch society. Despite its Rhineland roots with a focus on welfare provision, in the Netherlands several neoliberal principles (privatization, decentralization, deregulation) have been adopted by government and incorporated in the management of organizations (Bakker et al., 2005). Hence, market institutionalization on the one hand, and rising civic emancipation on the other, in current Western societies prevents a return towards hierarchical governance. Second, the result of such changes is the emergence of a market-oriented type of planning practice based on the concept of ‘development planning’. Public-Private Partnerships and the ‘forward integration’ of market parties (De Zeeuw, 2007) enforce the role of market actors. In historical perspective, Boelens et al. (2006) argue that Dutch spatial planning always has been characterized by public-private collaborations in which governments facilitated private and civic entrepreneurship. Therefore, post-war public-led spatial planning with necessary government intervention was a ‘temporary hiccup’, an exception to the rule. Third, the European Commission expresses concerns about the hybrid role of public actors in Dutch institutionalized PPP joint ventures. EU legislation opts for formal public-private role divisions in realizing urban projects based on Anglo-Saxon law that comply with the legislative tendering principles of competition, transparency, equality, and public legitimacy. Fourth, experiences with joint ventures in the Netherlands are less positive as often is advocated. Such institutionalized public-private entities have seldom generated the assumed added value, caused by misconceptions about the objectives of both partners grounded in incompatible value systems. This results in contra-productive levels of distrust, time-consuming partnership formations, lack of transparency, and compromising decision-making processes (Teisman & Klijn, 2002), providing a need for other forms of collaboration. Finally, current financial retrenchments in the public sector and debates about the possible abundance of Dutch active land development policies point towards a lean and mean government that moves away from risk-bearing participation and investment in urban projects and leaves this to the market. Importantly, Van der Krabben (2011b) argues that the Dutch active public land development policies can be considered as an international exception, and advocates for facilitating land development policies. In this light, it becomes highly relevant to study private sector-led urban development as a future Dutch urban development strategy. Integrative urban management approach This research is rooted in the research school of Urban Area Development within the Department of Real Estate and Housing at the Faculty of Architecture (Delft University of Technology). It is a relatively young academic domain which views urban development most profoundly as a complex management assignment (Bruil et al., 2004; Franzen et al., 2011). This academic school uses an integrative perspective with a strong practice-orientation and carries out solution-oriented design research. Here, the integration involves bridging various actor interests, spatial functions, spatial scales, academic domains, knowledge and skills, development goals, and links process with content aspects. Such a perspective does justice to complex societal processes. Therefore it provides a fruitful ground for studying urban development aimed at developing conceptual knowledge and product for science and practice. Such integrative perspective and practice-orientation forms the basis of this research and has been applied in the following manner. In order to create an understanding of the roles of public and private actors in private sector-led urban development, this research takes a management perspective based on an integrative management approach. This involves viewing management more broadly as ‘any type of direct influencing’ urban development projects, and therefore aims at bridging often separated management theories (Osborne, 2000a). Hence, an integrative management approach assists in both understanding urban development practices and projects and constructing useful conceptual tools for practitioners and academics. Integrative approaches attempt to combine a number of different elements into a more holistic management approach (Black & Porter, 2000). Importantly, it does not view the management of projects in isolation but in its entire complexity and dynamics. Therefore, our management approach combines two integrative management theories; the open systems theory (De Leeuw, 2002) and contingency theory. The former provides opportunities to study the management of a project in a structured manner. The latter emphasizes that there is no universally effective way of managing and recognizes the importance of contextual circumstances. Hence, an integrative management approach favors incorporating theories from multiple academic domains such as political science, economics, law, business administration, and organizational and management concepts. Hence, it moves away from the classical academic division between planning theory and property theory, and organization and management theories. It positions itself in between such academic domains, and aims at bridging theoretical viewpoints by following the concept of planning ánd markets (Alexander, 2001) rather than concepts such as ‘planning versus markets’, public versus private sector, and organization versus management. Also, such an integrative view values the complexity and dynamics of empirical urban development practices. More specifically, this research studies urban development projects as object, as urban areas are the focus point of spatial intervention and public-private interaction (Daamen, 2010), and thus collaboration and management. Here, public planning processes and private development processes merge with each other. Thus, our research continues to build upon the importance of studying and reflecting on empirical practices and projects (e.g. Healey, 2006). In addition to these authors, this research does so by using meaningful integrative concepts that reflect empirical realities of urban projects. Thereby, this research serves to bridge management sciences with management practices (Van Aken, 2004; Mintzberg, 2010) through iterative processes of reflecting on science and practice. Moreover, the integrative management approach applied in this research assists in filling an academic gap, namely the lack of management knowledge about public-private interaction in urban development projects. Despite the vast amount of literature on the governance of planning practices (e.g. DiGaetano & Strom, 2003), and Public-Private Partnerships (e.g. Osborne, 2000b), remarkable little knowledge exists about what shifting public-private relationships mean for day-to-day management by public and private actors in development projects. Hence, here we follow the main argument made by public administration scholar Klijn (2008) who claims that it is such direct actor influence that brings about the most significant change to the built environment. An integrative urban management model (see Figure 2.3) based on the open systems approach has been constructed which forms a conceptual representation of empirical private sectorled urban development projects. This model serves as an analytical tool to comprehend the complexity of managing such projects. In this research, several theoretical insights about publicprivate relations and roles are used to understand different contextual and organizational factors that affect the management of private sector-led urban development projects. Hence, a project context exists

Nigeria’s present insecurity situation has compelled various theories aimed at surmounting the condition. However, most of the theories emphasize ethno-religious dimensions than the character of policymaking to overcome the insecurity. Pundits barely deliberate the nexus between Nigeria’s present insecurity and relegation of local governments’ political communication (LGPC) in intergovernmental policymaking relations (IPR) to neutralize the circumstance. Incidentally, the overwhelming victims of Nigeria’s present insecurity domicile within local government jurisdictions. Consequently, the study aims to accentuate what LGPC offers the Nigerian state to overcome the recent insecurity. Its all-encompassing objective is to promote consideration of LGPC in IPR to effectively overwhelm the current insecurity. It eclectically deploys political communication theory, a constructed Functional Intergovernmental Relations Model and political culture theory as its theoretic framework of analysis. The study’s methodological orientation is explorative qualitative research design, based on secondary analyzed textual and interview qualitative data. It finds that non-consideration of LGPC as inputs – utilizing Nigerian local governments’ experiences, advocacies, activisms, human cum material resources and policy suggestions - in the IPR to mitigate the insecurity ultimately worsens the circumstance. Incessant discounting of local government inputs in the problem-solving policymaking schemes by the higher tiers demonstrates why Nigeria's present insecurity remains intractable. The reality of IPR in Nigeria is that feedback of local governments for the resolution of societal disorders like insecurity is habitually disregarded. Conclusively, the study theorizes that Nigeria's present insecurity will continue to exacerbate if local government contributions are not considered in the alleviation dynamics.

Whose public space?

Public space is planned space. The discourse that takes place among federal, municipal and local governments, as well as the interaction that takes place on the street between people, informs the agenda and values inherent in policy and social norms. Urban revitalization strategies and city bylaws produce public and private spaces, thereby informing the cityscape within which everyone interacts. This study examines the contribution, circulation and regulation of transgressive actions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in order to consider what these actions reveal about power relations in the urban environment and the production of public space. This research uses both a policy case study and urban theory to investigate the means by which public and private spaces are produced and imbued with the ideologies that shape and maintain these spaces in Winnipeg's downtown area.

This chapter focuses on the Nationalists' reconfiguration of the public and political space in the city of Nanchang before and with the New Life Movement of 1934. It discusses how the Nationalists moved the boundary between public space and political space and modified how these two spaces interacted. A fundamental part of the citizen-making process was that of mobilizing and encouraging participation in the activities organized by the party and, by extension, by the local government. In Nanchang the city-building process started as soon as the Nationalists took power, but it reached a crescendo in the mid-1930s, alongside the Nationalists' organization of mass mobilization. The involvement of adult members of society through the New Life Movement introduced a strong political connotation into community services and civics training and suggests that the public space in which individuals would act as citizens had become increasingly politicized. Keywords:1930s Nanchang; city-building process; civics training; community services; New Life Movement