Place branding as participatory governance? An interdisciplinary case study of Tasmania, Australia

Research in both public administration and place development has identified a need to develop more participatory approachesto governing cities and regions. Scholars have identified place branding as one of several potential policy instruments to enablemore participatory place development. Recently, academics working in diverse disciplines, including political studies, publicadministration, and regional development have suggested that an alternative, bottom-up, more participatory approach toplace branding could be employed. Such an interdisciplinary approach would use iterative communication exchanges withina network of diverse stakeholders including residents to better foster stakeholder participation, contribute to sustainabledevelopment, and deliver substantive social justice and increased citizen satisfaction. Building on this research and using anexploratory, qualitative, case-study methodology, our aim was to observe and analyze such interactions and communicativeexchanges in practice. Drawing on the experience of the Australian state of Tasmania, we studied stakeholder reactions tothe participatory place branding approach. We found that although participants were initially skeptical and identified manybarriers to implementing participatory place branding, they simultaneously became excited by its possibilities and able toidentify how many of the barriers could be transcended