From infrastructure providers to wannabe empire-builders : The role of airport companies in restructuring forms of political regulation in three large European metropolitan areas

Site du colloque. http://governingthemetropolis.com/The paper focuses on the role played by major European airport companies in three large European metropolitan areas (e.g. Paris, London and Frankfurt) in shaping evolving relationships between these infrastructures and their respective territories. More precisely, the article shows that conflicts around airport planning have opened new opportunities for these infrastructures' managers to pursue their development strategies by challenging existing forms of decision-making in these large metropolitan areas. Drawing on a comparative analysis of three major European airport companies over a long-term perspective , the article demonstrates the extent to which the (recent) privatization and financialization of airport infrastructures has profoundly transformed the relationship between the infrastructures and their territories