ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part draws on a diverse body of scholarship on urban conflicts and contestations in the post-2000 period. They provide both analytical frameworks and concrete examples for better understanding the contested urban politics across the global North and South. The part examines urban contestations in the context of weak local states such as in Africa, while others focus on urban struggles in the presence of strong local states, such as in China. A strong local state can define the terms and scope of citizen participation—either by widening it or narrowing it, while a weak local state leads to a power vacuum at the local level, which in turn, can give rise to political entrepreneurs. The dialectic relation between the state and civil society is another central theme in the scholarship on urban contestations.
