New Directions in the Study of Urban Politics in the Developing World

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

This roundtable will bring together a diverse set of scholars to reflect on the theoretical and methodological challenges of political science research in the rapidly urbanizing cities of the developing world. Discussants will be asked to weigh in with their thoughts on one or all of the following questions:

• In what ways, if any, are cities in the developing world distinct political spaces that challenge existing assumptions or findings about political behavior and institutions? Should cities be studied differently from the countryside?

• What are the crucial questions raised by the developing world’s cities that have not been addressed or examined adequately by comparative political science and related disciplines?

• What are the main methodological challenges encountered in urban settings, and what methods and research designs seem most promising in terms of addressing these challenges?

This panel is both important and timely for two reasons. First, though many comparative political scientists conduct research in urban settings, the discipline still has not paid adequate attention to both the scale and unique character of cities in the developing world. Indeed, as of 2014, almost half of the developing world’s population resides in urban areas (United Nations 2015). Latin America has been majority urban since the 1970s, and urban majorities are predicted for Africa and Asia by 2030 (Montgomery 2008). A remarkable 86% of future population growth, moreover, is forecast to occur in cities in the developing world (Montgomery 2008). Alongside these dramatic demographic changes, political decentralization has established municipal governments and local elections in cities across much of the developing world, expanding the scope and significance of urban governance in the process.

Second, cities in the developing world often display new forms of social and institutional complexity, which in turn create problems for the collection and analysis of data. Such complexity arises from a myriad of factors, including dense settlement patterns, fluid population movement, rapid changes to the physical built space, widespread informality in employment and housing, and high levels of social heterogeneity in ethnic, religious, and class terms. There are also a larger variety of associations, state entities, and non-state service providers in urban areas, which can result in more complex and less predictable political dynamics. Governments often struggle—or lack the political will—to monitor these populations and actors, resulting in significant data scarcity issues that make academic research more difficult.

This roundtable panel intends to draw attention to the important substantive, methodological, and theoretical questions that accompany rapid urbanization in the developing world. The roundtable participants include both junior and senior scholars of the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, whose work focuses directly or indirectly on issues of urbanization and political change.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 30: Urban and Local Politics

Cosponsors

• DIVISION 12: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries

• Related Groups / Comparative Urban Politics

Chair

• Alison E. Post University of California, Berkeley

Presenters

• Daniel N. Posner University of California, Los Angeles

• Melani Cammett Harvard University

• Hillel David Soifer Temple University

• Adam Michael Auerbach American University-SIS

• Eduardo Moncada Barnard College, Columbia University

• Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro Brown University

• Noah Nathan University of Michigan