ABSTRACT
Sustainability and governance become allied imperatives, associating hierarchical and non-hierarchical arrangements, in two main ways: (1) they are modes of societal regulation involving a wide range of actors at different levels; and (2) often at the same time, they set a political agenda, advocating for instance a soft ecological move associated to economic growth, i.e. for the benefit of certain social groups rather than others. This perspective reintroduces both a political (legitimacy) and a dynamic (socio-ecological processes) dimension – the two being often disconnected in traditional analyses of “global governance” – in order to understand the practical arrangements produced and experienced by the various urban actors and social groups. Change is thus the product of both hierarchical and non-hierarchical dynamics that are always transitional (ever-ongoing processes) and transactional (always partial practical compromises, negotiated step by step). The demonstration rests on the example of seven large French urban areas – Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes, Strasbourg and Toulouse - and presents a synthesis of the empirical sociological investigations which the author has carried out.
