Towards an encompassing theoretical perspective on urban-regional governance? A meta-theoretical assessment.

Across the globe, urban regions have become the major locus of new arrangements of strategic governance, driven primarily by the dual objective to strengthen the external position (autonomy, competitiveness) as well as the internal spatial coherence of an area. Yet our theoretical understanding of this phenomenon remains inadequate. There are many theoretical approaches addressing urban and regional governance, but they are considered to suffer from a variety of limitations. In simple terms, theories have been criticised for being too hard and economistic (structuralist approaches), too soft and culturalist (institutionalist approaches), too vulgar (tendencies towards boosterism and managerialism) and to rely too much on chaotic conceptions? and eclectic thinking. Present theoretical agendas appear to aim for a more sophisticated approach by building bridges between what are seen as the most insightful aspects of existing approaches, and by refining and extending conceptual frameworks. An essential ingredient for such an agenda is an in-depth meta-theoretical insight into how present concepts and theories (including their shortcomings) have emerged, and how they link to past and present debates on urban-regional governance, what their (in)commensurabilities are, and what lessons we can draw for future theoretical work. It is to this ingredient that the present project seeks to make a contribution. In practice, the project involves a final meta-theoretical study of a voluminous and systematically documented bibliography on urban-regional governance, resulting in an assessment of the scope for further development of encompassing theoretical perspectives on urban-regional governance. In terms of the NWO Research Programme, this project is expected to serve the call for more conceptual clarification as expressed under the theme of ?multilevel governance, and the interest in the meaning and mechanisms of governance discussed under the theme of urban governance.