New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe Since 1500

Urban power and politics are topics of abiding interest for students of the city. This exciting collection of essays explores how Europe’s cities have been governed across the last 500 years. Taken as a whole, it provides a unique historical overview of urban politics in early modern and modern Europe. At the same time, it guides the reader through the variety of ways in which power and governance are currently understood by historians and new directions in the subject. The essays are wide-ranging, covering Europe from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, Russia to Ireland, between 1500 and thetwentieth century. Each chapter employs a specific case-study to illuminate a way of examining how power worked in regard to topics such as women, popular culture or urban elites. A variety of approaches are deployed, including the study of ritual and performance, morality and conduct, governmentality and the state, infrastructure and the individual.Reflecting the state of the art in European urban history, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the study of urban politics and government. It represents a fresh take on a rich subject and will stimulate a new generation of historical studies of power and the city.

Introduction: Unravelling Urban GovernanceSimon Gunn and Tom HulmePart I: Elites, Institutions, and Civil Society1. Reassessing Power and Governance in Late Medieval Cities: Institutions and the Cursus HonorumJustin Colson2. Urban Governance and Prison Building in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1820–1845Richard J. Butler3. Governing Taste: Fin-de-SieÌcle Cracow, Its Museums and the Urban Elite in the Shaping of the Modern MetropolisMarkian ProkopovychPart II: Behaviour and the Governing of Morality4. Governing Sexuality: Regulating Prostitution in Early Modern EuropeMarion Pluskota5. Negotiating Urban Governance: Norm Entrepreneurs in Dutch Cities, 1850–1900Stefan Couperus and Dirk Jan WolfframPart III: Urban Rituals and the Performance of Power6. The St Francis Housing Project: Rituals, Symbols and Discourses in Housing Policies in Rome After the Second World WarBruno Bonomo7. Post-War Urban Pageants in Finland: Performance, Participation and PowerTanja VahtikariPart IV: Governmentality and the State8. The Foundation of St Petersburg as a Variation upon Foucault’s Governmentality: The Russian Service City, 1703–1740Gayle Lonergan and Kuzma Kukushkin9. Urban Materialities: Citizenship, Public Housing and Governance in Modern BritainTom Hulme10. "A Community Not Our Own": Urban Enclosure and Spatial Governmentality Under FascismÁlvaro Sevilla-BuitragoPart V: Beyond Foucault: New Narratives for Urban Governance11. Urban Individuality and Urban Governance in Twentieth-Century EuropeMoritz Föllmer12. Heterodoxies: New Approaches to Power and Agency in the Modern CitySimon Gunn

Simon Gunn is Professor of Urban History at the University of Leicester. Tom Hulme is Lecturer in the School of Anthropology, History, Philosophy and Politics at Queens University, Belfast.