The growing role of advanced technologies in urban life, often in the context of policy initiatives like ‘smart cities,’ is leading to social change that calls for policy attention and scholarly analysis. The academic literature…
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Policymakers and researchers have endeavored to conceive of new ways of thinking about sustainability, and recent experiences in Asian countries offer new lessons. This chapter examines challenges and constraints regarding sustainability policymaking, with a focus…
A convergence of existential crises – climate change, geopolitical instability, and socio-economic inequality, among others – has tested the policymaking capacities of governments at all scales. While definitions of and solutions to complex or ‘wicked’…
Urban water management practices are standardized through narratives informed primarily by the experiences of global cities. While these cities have resources and influence, their persistent economic and environmental challenges point to epistemic faults in technocratic…
Sluggish progress on circular economy (CE) implementation is raising some concern that this allegedly new paradigm for sustainability is failing. While initial optimism had anticipated faster progress, actors across the private sector, government, consumer markets,…
Global climate change is having increasingly localized impacts, forcing city governments to manage unprecedented threats to livelihoods and survival that can overwhelm state capacity. Continued reliance on fossil fuels for energy production hastens this crisis….
The effectiveness of governments in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic has been analyzed through numerous perspectives, including state authority, capacity, and legitimacy. In Hong Kong, incumbent political tensions and lack of trust in government potentially weakened…
Policy learning is a common driver of reform in public organisations and relies in part on institutional legitimacy. For law enforcement, institutional legitimacy is particularly salient given the police’s monopoly on the legal use of…
The circular economy is a resource-efficient production model that is believed by many policymakers, business leaders, and academics to promote sustainability. Academic literature suggests that circularity is achievable across business scales and types, from multinational…
One decade after China’s announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), theoretical and practical debates linger about the environmental impacts. However, no studies have systematically analyzed how academic research conceptualizes BRI and sustainability within…
