Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that the concerns presented by scholars of collaborative governance relating to power and the role of business ought to be integrated into research on urban sustainability. It calls for both literatures to consider non-democratic contexts.

Paper long abstract:

The literature on urban sustainability and sustainable development tends to champion collaborative governance approaches. Business is treated as a core component of such partnerships, representing an opportunity for advancing sustainability rather than a cause for concern. In contrast, work on collaborative governance at large has noted the need to consider the way power asymmetries can distort the collaborative process, resulting in undesirable outcomes. Business, given its disproportionate financial resources, is likely to hold more power than local governments. As such, scholars of collaborative governance have increasingly called for more studies on business power. Both the sustainability and collaborative governance literatures, however, tend to neglect the way non-democratic contexts can affect collaborative governance approaches. This paper provides a conceptual contribution, arguing that the concerns presented by scholars of collaborative governance relating to power asymmetries and the role of business ought to be integrated into research on urban sustainability. It additionally calls for both literatures to consider non-democratic contexts.

An indicative empirical section examines urban sustainability failures in Norilsk, Russia, considered one of the “least sustainable” cities in the world (Laruelle 2020). Despite this unfortunate epithet, Norilsk has invested in a robust collaborative governance approach, working closely with multinational corporation Nornickel on sustainability projects. If such an approach were as universally effective as the literature claims, we would expect the city to have a much better record on sustainability than it does. This case study illustrates some of the potential flaws with an uncritical promotion of collaborative governance for urban sustainability.