Urban governance and public leisure policies: a comparative analysis framework

Abstract

In the last few decades, the literature on leisure policies has evolved, thanks to a better understanding of the effects and impacts of public leisure actions rather than a comprehensive study of that field's public policy process. This has resulted in the development of a corpus focused on knowledge for policies rather than knowledge of policies, particularly in the study of urban governance and of the co-production of services with the non-profit and private sectors. The purpose of this article is to further explore the theoretical and conceptual implications of urban governance applied to the analysis of public leisure policies. It also aims to draw inspiration from the main approaches of urban policy analysis in order to propose an analytical framework applicable to an empirical process for comparative analysis mainly focused on describing the dynamics of local governance. The main purpose of this framework is to analyse the actors, governance mechanisms and factors that characterise the development of local leisure policies while giving special consideration to the collaborative nature of the relationships within this coalition of partners.