Associative governance?, the political economy of institutional change in two Ontario city regions

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis analyses the distinctive process of institutional development, as it is related to the problem of economic governance in city-regions. In particular, the thesis traces the unique experience of the Waterloo and Ottawa city-regions in the development of institutional support for associative economic governance. Such institutional support systems are now said to be important in enabling cities and regions to respond to, and indeed anticipate, economic challenges via collective action and collaborative relations. The conceptual foundations of this thesis are built around the argument that institutionalist approaches in economic geography and urban and regional studies need to be complemented by closer attention to the role of politics and conflict in the process of institutions-building. The research then deploys a qualitative research methodology, complemented by descriptive statistics, archival research and analysis of documents. In the Waterloo city-region the struggle to develop associative institutions has taken the form of 'elevating' the scale of engagement from the local level to the regional level. It has also involved the restructuring of inter-institutional relations at various levels, including inter-jurisdictional, state-capital, and inter-associational relations. In Ottawa-Carleton, an institutionally-rich environment, owing primarily to the presence of the federal government, has given the region an important associational infrastructure. Regionally-originated institutions have also been an important part of associational experiments. The evidence from both case studies point to several limited forms of associationalism and to the constrained role of key institutions in linking a range of actors into collaborative frameworks. At the same time, the evidence point to considerable difficulties in developing more stable and inclusive forms of economic governance. The thesis concludes by drawing attention to issues of geographical scale, embeddedness, representation and local politics as important features of institutional change, and assesses the prospects for associative governance in city-regions that are situated in liberal political economies.Ph.D