Reframing urban development politics: Transcalarity in sovereign, developmental and private circuits

Jennifer Robinson, Philip Harrison, Sylvia Croese, Rosina Sheburah Essien, Wilbard Kombe, Matthew Lane, Evance Mwathunga, George Owusu and Yan Yang
Additional contact information
Jennifer Robinson: University College London, UK
Philip Harrison: University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Sylvia Croese: University of California Irvine, USA
Rosina Sheburah Essien: University of Ghana, Ghana
Wilbard Kombe: Ardhi University, Tanzania
Matthew Lane: University of Edinburgh, UK
Evance Mwathunga: University of Malawi, Zomba, Malawi
George Owusu: University of Ghana, Ghana
Yan Yang: University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Urban Studies, 2025, vol. 62, issue 1, 3-30

Abstract: This paper develops the idea of transcalarity to reframe analyses of urban development politics. Our analysis starts from African contexts but is relevant to, and in conversation with, experiences on other continents. Accounts of the politics of urban development have rarely benefitted from the experiences of African urban settings. Characterised by relatively weakly resourced municipalities, informality of the urban setting and of the state, and highly transnationalised forms of governance, African experiences may seem to stand out as profoundly different from those which have informed dominant theorisations of urban development politics. And yet, it is across the African continent that a substantial portion of the world’s new, future urban areas are being made, providing strong grounds for theorising urban development politics starting from the diversity of experiences across the continent. Evidence from current research and long-term observations in three African urban contexts (Lilongwe, Accra and Dar es Salaam) indicate that inherited conceptualisations vastly overestimate the resources and agency of municipal government in many urban contexts and omit the enhanced institutional interests of national actors in urban development. Also, the range of international actors considered has been analytically restricted or mischaracterised, as global sovereign and developmental actors play a powerful role while significant private sector interests may not be very international. More generally, ‘circulating’ processes and actors might not be ‘external’ as, especially in relation to developmental and sovereign circuits, these are often embedded in and contribute to shaping emergent transcalar territorial networks co-ordinating investment in different contexts.

Keywords: African urban politics; circuits; developmental investment; financing urban development; national governments in urban development; sovereign investments; urban development politics; é žæ´²åŸŽå¸‚æ”¿æ²»; 巡回; å ‘å±•æŠ•èµ„; åŸŽå¸‚å ‘å±•èž èµ„; å›½å®¶æ”¿åºœåœ¨åŸŽå¸‚å ‘å±•ä¸­çš„ä½œç”¨; ä¸»æ ƒæŠ•èµ„; åŸŽå¸‚å ‘å±•æ”¿æ²» (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980241284763 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:62:y:2025:i:1:p:3-30

DOI: 10.1177/00420980241284763

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().