ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the various methodological and conceptual approaches to the history of urban governance developed over the last 100 years. These approaches comprehend, first, early initiatives such as Max Weber’s famous elaboration of the city in 1921; the local government studies of the Webbs, F.W. Maitland, and T.F. Tout in the early twentieth century; and the formation of the Institute of Urban History at Stockholm in 1919. Second, the tradition of elite studies is assessed, including the work of Derek Fraser and R.J. Morris on British cities from the 1970s. Third, the chapter examines the rise of theories of ‘governance’ in the 1990s, which brought the analysis of civil society and voluntary agencies into conversation with the official agencies of the state. Fourth, the ‘cultural turn’ and ideas of symbolic power are examined, bringing anthropological and linguistic approaches to the study of governance through the work of scholars such as Robert Darnton. Fifth, the interest in discourse and the analysis of ‘governmentality’ by Michel Foucault is traced through scholars such as Tony Bennett, Paul Rabinow, and Patrick Joyce. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the emergence of ‘infrastructure studies’ and growing recent concern with the materiality of governance.
