New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe since 1500

Urban governance has a long intellectual genealogy, stretching back over a century. Each of the contributions to this volume reflects in some way these various shifts in how scholars have understood urban governance – what it is and how it works. The volume takes Europe as its focus, and covers the last 500 years or so in thirteen chapters. Although the authors and editors have strong views about the significance of urban governance and how it should be studied, we have not sought to impose a ‘one size fits all’ model that can be applied to all cities at all times; instead, we have emphasised the applicability of different methods in specific periods and places and for varying themes. While some of the older traditions of enquiry discussed here continue to have vitality, the ‘cultural turn’ and the various ‘mini-turns’ over recent decades have complicated and expanded previous understandings of urban governance. In doing so, they have created an arsenal of theory and practice through which we can attempt to understand anew the ways that cities have been governed in the past.