Urban commons is presented as a challenge of collaborative governance. This study delivers a normative perspective to analyse and evaluate processes and outcomes of the governance of urban commons. It demonstrates the development and application of the perspective in action research on Amsterdam’s Zero Waste Lab case, as a way to better understand successful and failing institutions in a concrete practice and to design interventions for improvement. Consequently, the (im)plausibility of collective action in urban communities and the participation of public actors present dilemmas for urban commons. The study specifically synthesises urban commons and collaborative governance scholarship and relates also in general to the transition towards co-creation in governing the city, e.g. in public administration or planning.
The COVID-19 global pandemic has raised once more the spectre of world governance, demonstrating in one fell swoop, the intricate entanglement of nation-states and the challenges they face when confronted with a global threat. The pandemic has produced an array of problems, from the deaths of millions, the desecration of health care systems all over the world, to the disruption of the economic and social lives of most of the worlds citizens and the emergence of vaccine politics. While not addressing the pandemic directly, this dossier examines the pandemic moment as both an opportunity and a crisis for the UN and the idea of global governance. The articles in this dossier, drawn from a selection of established academics and younger scholars, highlight the expanding array of issues and challenges the UN faces as its competencies increase in the face of multiplying threats to the global system. The organisation has gained new areas of expertise, consolidated its competencies in some areas while expanding its agency in others. In addressing global challenges, the UN has increased its relevance, normative power and connection to humanity but at the same time its lacklustre performance on a lot of issues has revealed that leadership is lacking, and the organisation has in many cases been found wanting. This dossier examines some of the new challenges facing the UN with a view towards assessing the ability of the organisation to effectively respond to global crises, and whether or not it has the capacity for institutional learning and adaptation in the face of adversity and anarchy. Originally published: https://nvvn.nl/governing-the-world-united-or-divided-nations/
MULTIFILE
Based on an intensive literature review, this paper investigates and presents generalized answers to the two basic questions of port governance, namely who governs and what is governed. There are totally 77 studies selected as the core literature sample according to a five-step approach. The results from literature review show evidences in favor of the important roles played by governmental organizations and port organizations as the main governing bodies of port governance. Furthermore, our analysis shows first, that multilevel governance has become a notable feature of port governance. Second, there are increasing involvements by national or regional levels of government in some countries such as the USA, Brazil, China. Third, port authorities at local level are generally holding the centre-stage position with further autonomy in managing port operations. Fourth, not-for-profit organizations related to port activities play the role of coordinators in port governance. Finally, different governance regimes with different specific governing actors for different port classifications can be identified for many nations. This study shows that fundamentally institutional arrangements and specific port activities are the two basic categories of what is governed. The institutional arrangements determine the port governance configuration and allocation of responsibilities of port activities. There are 12 groups of specific port activities within five categories identified in port governance.
Digital technologies in public spaces have become more prescient, capable, and invisible. As a result, the need to explain and mediate these technologies has become more urgent. Current processes for designing digital trust interaction protocols, visual languages, and interfaces for the urban environment have been dominated by governing actors: policing, government, and tech-companies. When communities are involved in the design process, their participation is limited to formats these organisations prescribe. By default, these designs exclude the lived technological experiences of communities that use the built environment. The outcome is a lopsided appraisal of digital trust, and designs that are insufficiently transparent and equitable– and as a result, not understood and embraced by the communities who must use them. This design-research aims to develop prototypes that include how urban interactive technologies are ‘lived’ in the spaces where they are implemented. These experiences will be teased-out through site-specific aesthetic and performative actions, which in turn inform the design process. The envisioned contribution includes ways of ’doing’ to the field of situated design, and concrete prototypes for alternative digital trust protocols, visual languages, and interfaces. By flipping the current approach on its head, this research argues that the practical and ethical departure points for addressing digital ‘trust deficits’ are already within the diverse communities who use the built environment.
