Smart cities, epistemic communities, advocacy coalitions and the `last mile' problem

We argue that the ideas, ideals and the rapid proliferation of smart city rhetoric and initiatives globally have been facilitated and promoted by three inter-related communities: (i) `urban technocrats'; (ii) a smart cities `epistemic community'; (iii) a wider `advocacy coalition'. We examine their roles and the multiscale formation, and why despite their influence they encounter a `last mile problem'; that is, smart city initiatives are yet to become fully mainstreamed. We illustrate this last mile problem through a discussion of plans to introduce smart lighting in Dublin

Como as coligações ciclistas modificam a cultura da bicicleta: análise da mudança na política de mobilidade em Lisboa 2009-2021

Cycling is currently recognised as a vital part of most developed sustainable urban mobility systems, contributing to acknowledged gains in climate change mitigation, health, social, economic, environmental, and travel speed issues, explaining in part its recent resurgence in cities worldwide. Despite the benefits, public policy on cycling has not developed smoothly. Many cities continue to stall or ignore effective output implementation to promote cycling as a legitimate mobility mode. Most research and policy focus on infrastructure solutions to implement change. This research, by contrast, focuses on an innovative approach to advance scholarship, namely how cyclists’ advocacy coalitions shape decision-making and place cycling on the political agenda where it was previously ignored or side-lined. The dissertation applies the concept of the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) to analyse the mechanisms which activate and sustain policy change. This thesis analyses the city of Lisbon in Portugal as a case-study of conurbation to analyse how change has been leveraged during the thirteen-year time frame between 2009 and 2021, using both detailed comparative analysis and advancing scholarship on cycling more generally. The qualitative analysis employs the scholarship, documents, notes taken from personal professional experience in policy formulation and implementation, and eleven anonymous interviews with policy actors involved to different extents in the process during the study period. These quantitative outcomes are gauged using available data from several surveys and counts to substantiate the relation between the outputs produced and outcomes achieved in combination with detailed data from cycle traffic moving counts I have carried out since 2009. The research structure is designed to provide insights on how the broad-based cyclists’ coalition has shaped policy formulation and implementation in a city where cycling had a low cultural status and low rates to generate ‘new knowledge’ regarding the subsystem in Portugal and other comparable contexts.A utilização da bicicleta é atualmente reconhecida como parte vital do sistema de mobilidade urbana sustentável das cidades mais desenvolvidas, contribuindo para ganhos na mitigação das alterações climáticas, benefícios de saúde, sociais, económicos, ambientais, e na velocidade das deslocações, explicando em parte o recente ressurgimento deste modo em cidades por todo o mundo. Apesar destes benefícios, as políticas públicas não se têm desenvolvido facilmente nesta matéria. Muitas cidades continuam a atrasar ou a excluir a implementação de medidas efetivas para promover a bicicleta como modo de mobilidade legítimo. A maioria das investigações e políticas remetem para soluções infraestruturais para fomentar a transição. Esta investigação, por outro lado, emprega uma abordagem inovadora para o avanço do conhecimento, designadamente, como as coligações de utilizadores de bicicleta transformam o processo de decisão e colocam a bicicleta na agenda política onde antes este modo de mobilidade era ignorado ou marginalizado. A dissertação adota a base teórica do ‘advocacy coalition framework’ (ACF) para analisar os mecanismos que ativam e sustentam a mudança de políticas. Esta tese analisa a cidade de Lisboa em Portugal como caso de estudo, considerando a conurbação, para analisar como a mudança foi realizada durante o período de treze anos entre 2009 e 2021, empregando análises comparativas detalhadas para avançar no conhecimento sobre a utilização da bicicleta em geral. A análise qualitativa analisou a literatura científica, documentos, notas provenientes da experiência pessoal e profissional na formulação e implementação de políticas, e onze entrevistas anónimas com variados atores políticos, envolvidos no processo durante o período do estudo de diferentes formas. Os resultados quantitativos são analisados através de dados disponíveis provenientes de diferentes pesquisas e contagens para fundamentar a relação entre as medidas implementadas e os resultados alcançados, complementados com dados pormenorizados de contagens de tráfego ciclável realizados desde 2009. A estrutura desta investigação foi projetada para aprofundar o conhecimento sobre a ampla coligação de utilizadores de bicicleta e como esta transformou a formulação e implementação de políticas, numa cidade onde o status cultural e as taxas de utilização da bicicleta eram reduzidos, para gerar 'novo conhecimento' sobre o subsistema em Portugal e outros contextos comparáveis.Programa Doutoral em Políticas Pública

Bureaucratic and Market Sources of Epistemic Authority

In International Relations (IR) scholarship, the epistemic communities’ framework has gained relevance for explaining the roles of experts in the context of transnational global governance. However, IR scholars have criticized the framework for descriptive reasoning. This paper aims to strengthen its explanatory power by following rules of a systematic literature review and by using Desmond’s conception of professionalism to further develop Cross’s model of epistemic community. Desmond introduced his concept of professionalism as a response to bureaucratic and market trends in scientific research and Cross developed her concept of professionalism as a comprehensive reconceptualization of Haas’s original model of an epistemic community. The results confirm compatibility between the two concepts. Following the structure of Cross’s model of professionalism, individual autonomy operationalizes selection and training, collective autonomy covers the face-to-face meetings, and the service provision operationalizes the common culture

Conceptualising smart cities

The central premise of Soe et al’s paper, ‘Institutionalising Smart City Research and Innovation’, is that the notion of a smart city remains unclear, with several definitions existing within the literature, and that one way to determine the parameters of smart cities is to examine the foci and approach of research groups globally who study and contribute to the smart city agenda. However, in charting the work of 50 or so institutes and centres, the authors conclude that there is ‘a mismatch between conceptualisation of smart city and actual smart city research’ (p. 128). In other words, the framing of smart cities within the literature does not align with how centres and institutes approach and contribute to smart cities. Having reached such a conclusion, the solution to this mismatch is not clear. Presumably, the definition of smart cities needs to change to match that held by research centres and institutes, or they need to alter their focus to align more closely with the predominant delineation of smart cities. Regardless, examining how research centres and institutes frame and approach smart cities does not appear to be a good means of defining them. The key questions then, which are not examined or answered in the paper, is why does this mismatch exist, and what would be a better way of determining what constitutes a smart city? The latter assumes that the conceptualisation requires a non-fuzzy definition, which is also a question worth considering

Citizenship, Justice and the Right to the Smart City

This paper provides an introduction to the smart city and engages with its idea and ideals from a critical social science perspective. After setting out in brief the emergence of smart cities and current key debates, we note a number of practical, political and normative questions relating to citizenship, justice, and the public good that warrant examination. The remainder of the paper provides an initial framing for engaging with these questions. The first section details the dominant neoliberal conception and enactment of smart cities and how this works to promote the interests of capital and state power and reshape governmentality. We then detail some of the ethical issues associated with smart city technologies and initiatives. Having set out some of the more troubling aspects of how social relations are produced within smart cities, we then examine how citizens and citizenship have been conceived and operationalised in the smart city to date. We then follow this with a discussion of social justice and the smart city. In the final section, we explore the notion of the ‘right to the smart city’ and how this might be used to recast the smart city in emancipatory and empowering ways

Citizenship, Justice and the Right to the Smart City

This paper provides an introduction to the smart city and engages with its idea and ideals from a critical social science perspective. After setting out in brief the emergence of smart cities and current key debates, we note a number of practical, political and normative questions relating to citizenship, justice, and the public good that warrant examination. The remainder of the paper provides an initial framing for engaging with these questions. The first section details the dominant neoliberal conception and enactment of smart cities and how this works to promote the interests of capital and state power and reshape governmentality. We then detail some of the ethical issues associated with smart city technologies and initiatives. Having set out some of the more troubling aspects of how social relations are produced within smart cities, we then examine how citizens and citizenship have been conceived and operationalised in the smart city to date. We then follow this with a discussion of social justice and the smart city. In the final section, we explore the notion of the ‘right to the smart city’ and how this might be used to recast the smart city in emancipatory and empowering ways

Smart Cities and Sustainable Development, Adoption of Green IS Projects in Local Authorities

Smart city teams working in local authorities may have an important role to play in pursuing Sustainable Development Goals at local level. However, the successful adoption of their projects has been problematic. This research in progress addresses this problem by focusing on the adoption process of Green IS projects led by smart city teams in local authorities and the factors that enable or constrain that process. It presents key findings from a systematic literature review; research gaps and future research directions; a research methodology including a draft framework to guide data collection; and anticipated theoretical and practical contributions

Commoning the smart city: A case for a public Internet provision

As cities become more involved in data-driven processes of growth and governance, critical scholarship has highlighted the formidable issues around ownership, uses and the ethics of collecting, storing, and circulating such data. However, there has been less focus on the physical infrastructure as the ‘last mile’ problem for Internet access, between a revanchist perspective on the ‘broken Internet’ delivered by digital capitalism and the liberal rhetoric of the Internet as a human right. Through two case studies, the paper plots a pragmatic trajectory in the adoption of the Internet for people and ‘things’, in which city and users take different roles and responsibilities. It highlights benefits and challenges around the long-term sustainability and maintenance of the Internet as an infrastructure of the commons. An attention to ‘commoning’, instead, reveals the exclusionary or enabling practices the smart city might foster. Thus, the paper advocates for the direct involvement of the city and its citizens in maintaining and reproducing connectivity networks in the smart city

Actually-existing Smart Dublin: Exploring smart city development in history and context

How does the ‘smart city’ manifest itself in practice? Our research aims to separate substance from spin in our analysis of the actually-existing smart city in Dublin, Ireland. We detail how the smart city has been brought into common discourse in the Dublin city region through the Smart Dublin initiative, examining how the erstwhile ‘accidental smart city’ until 2014 has been rearticulated into a new vision for Dublin. The chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part we map out the evolution of smart urbanism in Dublin by tracing its origins back to the adoption of neoliberal policies and practices and the rolling out of entrepreneurial urbanism in the late 1980s. In the second part, we detail the work of Smart Dublin and the three principle components of current smart city-branded activity in the city: an open data platform and big data analytics; the rebranding of autonomous technology-led systems and initiatives as smart city initiatives; supporting innovation and inward investment through testbedding and smart districts; and adopting new forms of procurement designed to meet city challenges. In doing so, we account for the relatively weak forms of civic participation in Dublin’s smart city endeavours to date