ABSTRACT
Transparency and accountability are two major and popular characteristics of ‘good governance’. 1 However, the fact that private actors’ and people’s participation is more important in urban governance does not automatically imply that more transparency and accountability are achieved; on the contrary, the addition of new actors in the ‘big game’ of urban governance under the liberalisation process creates new opportunities for hidden transactions and corrupt practices. Sometimes donors and experts simply look the other way. Thus, while listing the ‘roadblocks undermining reform initiatives’, Savage and Dasgupta (2006) cite weak links with citizens, lack of incentives, fragmentation and overlapping of roles, etc., but miss an important hurdle: corruption and clientelism. It is a major interest of this book that the methodology chosen by most authors is an empirical approach listing all the actors intervening in the studied sector. This highlights behaviours that do not really prevent liberalisation and decentralisation as such, but that can flourish on that new terrain and eventually hinder fair and sustainable urban governance. Corruption and clientelism are key elements of urban space because they are based on territorial aspects: identity links, power and personal relationships are often attached to an area, be it an electoral constituency, an administrative ward or a more informal neighbourhood or community network.
