Policy mobilities as informal processes: evidence from ‘creative city’ policy-making in Gdańsk and Stockholm

Boren, Thomas and Young, Craig (2021) Policy mobilities as informal processes: evidence from ‘creative city’ policy-making in Gdańsk and Stockholm. Urban Geography, 42 (4). pp. 551-569. ISSN 0272-3638

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Abstract

This paper develops an emphasis on the role of more informal and ad hoc processes in policy-mobility by analysing the development of ‘creative city’ policy in two different and relatively marginalised and neglected urban contexts – Gdańsk (Poland) and Stockholm (Sweden). The paper thus draws on and extends studies of ‘creative city’ policy in the Global South in order to add diversity to understandings of policy mobilities and policy-making as a ‘social condition’ in which territorial and relational aspects are combined as cities take action to ‘arrive at’ mobile policy, to contribute to initiatives in provincializing urban theory and comparative urban analyses to develop a more global urban studies. Extending beyond recent literature emphasizing the role of formal ‘informational infrastructures’ in understanding policy mobilities this paper develops new insights into: the ways in which informal and ad hoc processes co-exist with and are important for the operation of formal processes; what the learning process in cities actually looks like in different contexts and how this is changing; and the role of individuals in policy-making as a social condition. The Conclusion then draws out the wider implications of these points for understanding policy mobilities.