Reframing Urban Development Politics: The Centrality of National Governments in Sovereign, Developmental and Private Circuits

Abstract

Accounts of the politics of urban development have not benefitted from the experiences of African urban settings. Characterised by relatively weakly resourced municipalities, informality of planning and the state, and highly transnationalised forms of governance, African experiences may seem to stand out as profoundly different from those which have informed dominant theorisations of urban development politics. And yet, it is across the African continent that a substantial portion of the world’s new, future urban areas are being made. So, there are strong grounds for theorising urban development politics starting from the diversity of experiences across the African continent. Evidence from current research and long-term observations in three African urban contexts (Lilongwe, Accra and Dar es Salaam) indicate the need for revising inherited conceptualisations which vastly overestimate the resources and agency of municipal government in many urban contexts and omit the enhanced institutional interests of national actors in urban development. These experiences also suggest it is inappropriate to assume that “circulating” processes and actors are external as, especially in relation to developmental and sovereign circuits, these are often embedded and emergent in different contexts. The range of international actors considered in accounts of urban development politics has also been analytically restricted or mischaracterised, as sovereign and developmental actors play a powerful role in many cities and significant private sector interests may not be very international.