Practices, programs and projects of urban carbon governance: Perspectives from the Australian city

McGuirk, Pauline; Bulkeley, Harriet; Dowling, Robyn

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.01.007

Practices, programs and projects of urban carbon governance: Perspectives from the Australian city

McGuirk, Pauline; Bulkeley, Harriet; Dowling, Robyn

Authors

Pauline McGuirk

Professor Harriet Bulkeley h.a.bulkeley@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Robyn Dowling

Abstract

This paper addresses the governance of transitions to lower carbon cities. Drawing on both governmentality and neo-Gramscian perspectives, we chart and explore the diverse objects, subjects, means and ends evoked as governmental programs, or hegemonic projects in-the-making, are shaped to orchestrate urban carbon governance. We ask about the diversity of what is being sought through the governance of carbon in the city, how this is rendered and how carbon is being made to matter in the city. We do so through analysis of an audit of carbon governance initiatives in Australian cities, and a characterisation of these initiatives as four distinctive governmental programs. To make sense of the diverse ecology of initiatives revealed, we adopt a typological approach to suggest four distinctive governmental programs—Behaviour change; Demonstration; Transition; and Advocacy. We suggest that Australia’s emergent landscape of urban carbon governance both reproduces existing governance orderings and contains openings—via fragile emergent hegemonic projects—that might produce more transformative orderings: not least because of the demands and politics the low carbon subjects being invoked might be empowered to pursue but also because of the potential reconfiguration of the ‘integral state’ as new governmental programs are imagined and enacted.

Citation

McGuirk, P., Bulkeley, H., & Dowling, R. (2014). Practices, programs and projects of urban carbon governance: Perspectives from the Australian city. Geoforum, 52, 137-147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.01.007

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Mar 1, 2014
Deposit Date	Jun 10, 2014
Publicly Available Date	Jul 16, 2014
Journal	Geoforum
Print ISSN	0016-7185
Electronic ISSN	1872-9398
Publisher	Elsevier
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	52
Pages	137-147
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.01.007
Keywords	Urban carbon governance, Gramsci, Governmentality, Hegemonies in-the-making, Australia.
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1458977

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Copyright Statement
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Geoforum. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Geoforum, 52, 2014, 10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.01.007.