Description: This new study examines the relationship between two key issues in the on-going debate on urban governance - leadership and community involvement.
Review Quotes:
"The PLUS collaborators have set a new benchmark for cross-national research in this crucial arena of governance. Researchers in a wide range of relevant fields, from political economy to social policy to the study of civic life, will benefit from close scrutiny of the empirical findings of this project. Although the pluralistic approach of the authors leaves it largely for the reader to draw synthetic conclusions, the overall picture is one of convergent trends across advanced industrial democracies as well as among newer democracies in southern and eastern Europe. At a more general level, the findings underscore the importance of state-society relations and culture within cities as an important element in trajectories of governance worldwide."
Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 21, No. 2, April 2008 (pp. 297-308).