Catalysing governance in a paradoxical city: the Lisbon Strategic Charter and the uncertainties of political empowerment in the Portuguese capital city

Abstract

This article describes and reflects upon the most recent sociopolitical strategic proposals set to the political and governmental dimensions of the city of Lisbon. In this framework, a specific process is detailed: directly requested by the president of the Municipality, in 2009 an independent commissariat developed a proposal for a strategic charter for the city. This proposal addresses a wide range of areas, including the political and institutional ones (through several governing principles with corresponding rationales and proposed lines of action). A critical analysis (all but closed in the present phase where the proposals are still under public discussion) is made of this specific process and some of its correspondent contents. The analysis is supported by theoretical reflections on urban politics, following the changes – and the growing paradoxes – both at the level of urban systems and in terms of the new governing dilemmas presently emerging in the European cities. The text seeks in this sense to contribute to a better analytical clarity for urban politics and urban administration. As state-of-the-art for the political developments in Lisbon, reflections are made upon the networks of administration, governance and sociocultural capital in the city. The final part of the article reflects on the present stalemate in the charter process, thus deriving some overall reflections with reference to contemporary urban politics.

Keywords:

• Lisbon
• govern
• governance
• urban politics

Notes

1. António Costa has been since 2003 the ‘number two’ of the Portuguese Socialist Party. In July 2007, following an unprecedented political crisis in the Lisbon Municipality that resulted in anticipated elections, Costa applied for the Portuguese capital city presidency as head of the Socialist Party list, leaving his former position as Minister of Internal Administration on the central government. His list won the municipal elections – as well as the following ones in October 2009, now for a mandate until the end of 2013 and including alliances with independent local lists.

2. See, for example, the studies by the London School of Economics and Political Science – LSE Cities at http://www2.lse.ac.uk/LSECities/home.aspx as well as more analytical approaches such as Borja and Castells (1997), Parkinson (2001) and Jouve and Booth (2004).

3. See the most recent Country Note for Portugal (2009) in http://www.oecd.org.

4. Notwithstanding a small but highly important period (from 1935 to 1942) when the president of the municipality was also the minister of public works of the central government (M. Duarte Pacheco).

5. Namely, the ones concerning the political and institutional dimensions, open to the general question ‘How to create an efficient, participative and financially sustainable model of governance?’

6. The research project is currently being prepared for edited collection due for publication in the near future.

7. This can be seen in detail in http://cartaestrategica.cm-lisboa.pt.

8. Like, for instance, the principles and processes underpinning Local Agenda 21.