Governing Sharing Cities: A Comparative Case Study of Nine European Cities

Abstract

As the foci of (digital) sharing start-ups and practices, cities are at the centre of epistemic and political debates about the sharing economy. All over the world city governments are seeking to respond strategically to the emergence and disruptive impact of the sharing economy. The ambiguous nature of the sharing economy leaves city authorities with urgent and complicated governance questions. The lack of empirical research into political activities to govern the sharing economy limits the space for a rational governance debate. This thesis addresses this lack by inquiring the policy discourse and governance actions of nine European cities with strategic plans to address the sharing economy. Currently, cities govern the sharing economy with a patchwork of different policy actions. To uncover how and why city authorities govern the sharing economy differently this thesis performed a comparative case study. Insights from transition theory; urban- and multi-level governance; and evolutionary economy have been combined to develop a guiding conceptual model. The results show that city governments frame different challenges and opportunities of the sharing economy to establish a rationale for governance actions. These discursive frames are shaped by national traditions, prior urban policies and political decisions, past socio-cultural movements, unplanned historical events and the current state of a city’s economy and political context. The distinctive historical pathways together with the current city-specific context induce city authorities to frame the sharing economy differently. Additionally, city governments operate within a multilevel governance system, including vertical (e.g. higher government) and horizontal (e.g. global networks) interactions. The interdependencies of the multi-level governance context create significant differences in governance capacity to address the sharing economy. As such, urban governance of the sharing economy is concluded to be a path and place-dependent process causing cities to take different actions, roles and approaches to govern the sharing economy.