Program - Themes 

Track 1. Thirty years of Local Governance: revisiting institutional changes, processes and outcomes since the 1980s

• Local Government in Europe post 1980: national trends and the Europeanization

   of urban governance and local policies

• Local government reforms in Central and Eastern Europe since 1990

• Post-colonial Local Government reforms in Africa

• Local governance in America, Asia, and Oceania after 1980

Track 2. Current trends and future challenges in Local Governance

• Local governance in the new global urban development agendas

• Local governance, spatial justice and the Right to the City

• Good governance and autonomy

• Decolonizing local governance

• Local government reforms: decentralization and re-centralization

• Regions and Political Devolution

• The nexus of micro, local, regional and transnational governance

• Meso-level governance

• The challenges of multi-level governance

• Rescaling of urban governance and the role of neighbourhoods

• Inter-municipal cooperation

• Cross-border municipal cooperation

• Metropolitan government

• Municipal amalgamation reforms

• Informal institutions and hybrid local governance models

• Local government finance system: financing the new urban challenges

• Post-2008 austerity localism

• Alternative models for local government social policies

• Progressive localism and the transformation of urban governance

• Re-municipalization of local public service provision

• Municipal owned corporations and local public services

• Managerialism, entrepreneurialism, public-private partnerships and privatization

• Local economic development

• Strategic and collaborative municipal planning

• The governance of urban cultural heritage

• Climate change and Green governance

• The governance of protected areas and urban green spaces

• Local governance and the new security challenges in urban areas

• Participatory local governance and community engagement

• Citizen participation in local policy making

• Social movements and the New Municipalism

• Local government in the digital era: democracy, participation, accountability

• Smart urban governance: Internet and new ICT tools

• Social media in local governance

• Local governance in the age of Big Data

• Crowdsourcing in urban governance