![Sample our Urban Studies journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110826/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Urban-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Drawing on the conceptual-methodological framework of assembling urbanism, the paper sheds light on the strategies, actors and labors of mobilization of the integrated approach to urban development in Ukraine in the late 2000s, its further consolidation after the Euromaidan Revolution of 2013–2014 and transformation into a dominant policy assemblage with discursive and normative power for strategic socio-spatial changes at the national and municipal levels. The research findings deepen the understanding of the complexity of mobilization––assembling––translation processes, revealing the dynamic and affective dimension of relations between heterogeneous actors and underscoring the role of political and politics in assembling urbanism studies.
Acknowledgements
I would like to sincerely thank the organizers and contributors of the AESOP Online Conference 2020 ‘Regional Design: A Transformative Approach to Planning’ for the opportunity to present and discuss the draft paper. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Kevin Ward for his valuable inputs and feedback in the framework of the Oslo Summer School in Social Sciences 2021. Finally, I would like to thank the two reviewers whose constructive and generous comments have significantly helped to improve the paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. For a critical discussion of the conjunctions, disjunctions and cross-fertilization of assemblage thinking and ANT approaches, see Müller (Citation2015b) and Müller and Schurr (Citation2016).
2. As argued by Nikitin and Nikitina (Citation2000, p. 33), the collapse of the USSR has made post-soviet Ukrainian cities ‘deficient’ due to the lack, if not absence, of politically active and consolidated territorial communities that could play a key role in creating the foundations of local self-government. In addition, during the soviet times, cities and citizens were largely excluded from globalization processes and decentralization efforts taking place in other parts of the world, and therefore, had limited capacities to act as equal counterparts in asymmetrical power relations with transnational actors and ‘dominant geo-political aid, trade and political alliances’ (Healey, Citation2013, pp. 1521–1522), which started playing a decisive role in socio-economic transformations in post-soviet Ukraine (Nikitin & Nikitina, Citation2000; Golovakha et al., Citation2020). Finally, the prevailing reluctant type of social transformations, with a strong dependence of reforms on the political conjuncture and private interests of national, regional and local elites (Golovakha et al., Citation2020), frequently led to rather formalistic results of implementing strategic planning approaches in the framework of international cooperation programs in the mid-1990s–early 2000s with a low transforaminal effect for Ukrainian cities and communities (Tyminskyi, Citation2013; see also Stone, Citation2004).
3. The Leipzig Charter of 2007 was considered as a ‘strategic step towards realizing the European sustainable development strategy with the main objectives of “economic prosperity”, “social equity and cohesion” and “environmental protection” (DIfU/BBSR, Citation2012, p. 20)’, promoting the principles of integrated urban development policy within and outside the EU. In November 2020, the revised ‘New Leipzig Charter: The transformative power of cities for the common good’ was adopted at the Informal Ministerial Meeting in Leipzig (National Urban Development Policy, Citation2021).
4. Starting in November 2013 on the Independence Square in Kyiv as public protests in reaction to the government’s decision to withhold from association with the European Union, the Revolution of Dignity or ‘Euromaidan’ has turned into a nationwide civic movement against ‘widespread government corruption, abuse of power, and violation of human rights in Ukraine’ (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Citation2014). As a result, ‘[t]he emerging civil society manifested its pro-European and a pro-democratic self-designation on the main squares and streets all over the country’ (Minakov, Citation2018, par. 7).
5. Although, the inter-city exchange between the representatives of Lviv involved in the IUD activities and those from Vinnytsia and Chernivtsi interested in the experience of colleagues was acknowledged during the interviews with both Ukrainian and German consultants and Ukrainian city officials.
6. In 2019, with the start of the project ‘Integrated Urban Development in Ukraine II (a second phase of the long-term program), the network of national partner cities was expended by Melitopol and Kharkiv (GIZ, Citation2019b).