Power and Policy Networks in Urban Governance: Local Government and Property-led Regeneration in Dublin

Abstract

Using Dublin as a case study, this paper examines how the locus of power in urban governance is reshaped through the emergence of networked governing practices. Specifically, the paper takes the intersection of central government property-led regeneration initiatives with local government planning regulation in Dublin as a forum in which to explore the multiscaled policy networks constituting urban governance and the role of local government, particularly local government planners, within them. The paper employs a Latourian notion of the social production of power in interactions to analyse the power-flows through the networked practices of urban governance and to suggest strategies for the empowerment of local government within them.