The autonomy granted to local communities (such as towns, municipalities, and city-states) by larger, central powers (such as empires, kings, lords, and central states) is a recurrent feature of European history over time, from Antiquity to the contemporary period. This volume explores the political, social, and cultural aspects of this feature in a diachronic and comparative perspective, from the Roman Empire to today's city partnerships. To this end, it uses the concept of polycentric governance. Originally developed by political economist Vincent Ostrom in the 1960s and then expanded by the 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, political scientist Elinor Ostrom, this concept characterises the interdependent system of relations between different actors involved in a process and, for that reason, it is frequently used in policy studies. This volume applies the concept of polycentric governance to historical studies as a heuristic device to analyse the multilayer systems into which cities were integrated at various points in European history, as well as the implications of the coexistence of different political structures. Fourteen chapters examine the structures, the dynamics, and the discourse of polycentric governance through various case studies from the Roman Empire, from medieval towns, from early modern Europe, and from contemporary cities. The volume suggests that for extended periods of time throughout European history, polycentric governance has played a pivotal role in the organisation and distribution of political power.

The aim of this book is to look at the dominant representations that at present underpin the issues of territorial organisation and planning in Europe. Cities and networks are often envisaged as inevitably driving territorial development. However, the conceptualisation of European territorial integration has often been reduced to two conventional models: the centre-periphery model and the hierarchical model of urban networks. Limiting territorial integration to these two schema means that integration is limited. Today, reference to polycentric territorial development has to some extent changed the picture. Rather than being viewed in a polarised, pyramidal manner, spatial dynamics are being read in terms of interconnection and reticulation. In addition, reflection on the subject of polycentric territorial strategies has encouraged politicians and spatial planners to include the principle of “territorial cohesion” in the priorities of European public policies. From considerations which associate conceptual approaches and analytical studies, this book makes it possible to understand in what manner polycentrism, viewed as an alternative to metropolisation, could sow the seeds for new readings, at various scales, of the organisation of European territory.

Although state transformation – continuous struggle and bargaining between rulers and their subjects, producing an unpredictable variety of political structures – is often overlooked, the process is crucial in assessing the organizational development of early modern composite monarchies and deserves further investigation. In Austria, the monarchy’s emergence as a great power required it to overcome several successive crises that culminated in the decades around 1700. The Habsburgs succeeded more by adjusting relations between Crown and lordships than through institution building. This unusual interaction of state and non-state actors resulted in an Austria that markedly deviated from the centralizing nation-state exemplified by Britain or France. The nascent Habsburg fiscal-financial-military regime transformed regional and local authority, leading to armed conflict and causing disintegration of the administrative and social fabric. From the mid-seventeenth century onward, power – whether local or central, or social or political – would undergo enormous changes. Grounded in extensive research into Czech archives and spanning an era from the Thirty Years’ War to the coronation of Charles VI, Lordship and State Transformation delves into the complex transitions that characterized the first instance of a balance of power in Europe, with a focus on its underresearched great power, the Habsburg monarchy.

There has been a rapid expansion of academic interest and publications on polycentricity. In the contemporary world, nearly all governance situations are polycentric, but people are not necessarily used to thinking this way. Governing Complexity provides an updated explanation of the concept of polycentric governance. The editors provide examples of it in contemporary settings involving complex natural resource systems, as well as a critical evaluation of the utility of the concept. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, this book makes the case that polycentric governance arrangements exist and it is possible for polycentric arrangements to perform well, persist for long periods, and adapt. Whether they actually function well, persist, or adapt depends on multiple factors that are reviewed and discussed, both theoretically and with examples from actual cases.

Roman political leaders used distance from Rome as a key political tool to assert pre-eminence. Through the case studies of Caesar's hegemony, Augustus's autocracy, and Tiberius's reign, this book examines how these figures' experiences and manipulations of absence established a multipolar focus of political life centred less on the city of Rome, and more on the idea of a single leader. The Roman expansion over Italy and the Mediterranean put the political system under considerable stress, and eventually resulted in a dispersal of leadership and a decentralization of power. Absent generals rivalled their peers in Rome for influence and threatened to surpass them from the provinces. Roman leaders, from Sulla to Tiberius, used absence as a mechanism to act autonomously, but it came at the cost of losing influence and control at the centre. In order to hold influence while being split off from the decision-making powers of the geographical nucleus that was Rome, communication channels to mitigate necessary absences were developed during this period, such as travel, intermediate meetings, letters (propaganda writings) and a complex network of mediators, ultimately forming the circle from which the imperial court emerged. Absent leadership, as it developed throughout the Late Republic, a hitherto neglected issue, eventually became a valuable asset in the institutionalising process of the autocracy of Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius.

Climate change governance is in a state of enormous flux. New and more dynamic forms of governing are appearing around the international climate regime centred on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They appear to be emerging spontaneously from the bottom up, producing a more dispersed pattern of governing, which Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom famously described as 'polycentric'. This book brings together contributions from some of the world's foremost experts to provide the first systematic test of the ability of polycentric thinking to explain and enhance societal attempts to govern climate change. It is ideal for researchers in public policy, international relations, environmental science, environmental management, politics, law and public administration. It will also be useful on advanced courses in climate policy and governance, and for practitioners seeking incisive summaries of developments in particular sub-areas and sectors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Supranational governance is being challenged by politicians and citizens around the EU as over-centralized and undemocratic. This book is premised on the idea that polycentric governance, developed by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, is a fruitful place to start for addressing this challenge. Assessing the presence of, and potential for, polycentric governance within the EU means approaching established principles and practices from a new perspective. While the debate on these issues is rich, longstanding and interdisciplinary, it has proven difficult to sidestep the 'renationalisation/federalisation' dichotomy. The aim of this volume is not to reject the EU's institutional structure but provide a different benchmark for the assessment of its functioning. Polycentric theory highlights the importance of multilevel horizontal relationships within the EU - between states, but also between many sub-state actors, all the way down to individuals. This helps us answer the question: how do we achieve self-governance in an interdependent world?

Over the last twenty years, the landscape in which cities and city regions operate has undergone fundamental changes. Cities and city regions have become key drivers of national and European economic development and, at the same time, have become nodes of new forms of societal interaction, calling for a major role in territorial and social development and addressing issues of sustainability and social cohesion. With these changes, the effects of spatial and urban planning on economic development and on territorial and social cohesion have become relevant.

Originally published in 1981, Patterns of European Urbanisation Since 1500 examines urbanisation in Europe since 1500, paying particular attention to the underlying factors which govern the differentiated process of urbanisation. The book goes on to formulate some of the ways in which these factors can be generalised in an attempt to delineate the process of urbanisation in theoretic terms.