Call for Abstracts at the RC21 conference in Vienna 2026

Standard models of decentralization assume uniform local preferences, strong institutions, fiscal autonomy, transparent information flows, and enforceable accountability. These conditions are frequently absent in SWANA and beyond. In such settings, decentralization can intensify exclusion and enable elite capture, producing sharp urban inequalities. Yet, the literature overlooks how decentralization, representation, and participation operate under authoritarian or undemocratic rule. Varied political histories, factional and sectarian conflicts, and hardened legacies of centralization warrant closer scrutiny towards decentralization trajectories.


How are SWANA municipalities (not) governing the intersecting urban challenges and risks facing their residents, and how do their actions mitigate or entrench inequality? The municipal landscape is uneven: in some countries, elections are absent (e.g., Egypt, Syria); in others, political and legal frameworks tightly constrain local authority, recentralize power within ruling elites, and limit room for autonomous governance (e.g., Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Turkey, Iran). Unlike elsewhere, SWANA municipalities often lack institutional and fiscal space, as well as political capital, to maneuver. Where municipal bureaucracies exist, capacity to champion planning and development is frequently thin, and constrained by recurrent cycles of crisis and conflict. Patterns of selective provision are common. Some municipalities still marshal resources for middle- and high-income districts that function as growth machines for local capital, while alliances with real-estate bourgeoisie often anchor these arrangements. By contrast, in low-income areas, municipal authority is largely absent beyond routine policing, and service provision is captured by local actors whose extractive practices are often tolerated, if not enabled.


We invite single-case and comparative papers that examine how municipalities in the SWANA region represent local dwellers, manage territorial affairs across social groups and neighborhoods, and interact with national authorities. We are particularly interested in analyses of urban policies, infrastructural projects, and development interventions that shape patterns of inequality. Contributions can examine these dynamics from the three angles below:


(i) National–local interactions in urban welfare regimes: Centralized political power has typically been coupled with state-led scale-making that positions municipalities at the bottom of bureaucratic hierarchies. How do political, legal, fiscal, and institutional arrangements (re) structure power and authority across national, regional, and urban scales, and across histories?


(ii) Reforms in local governance and power and representation of local dwellers: How have central–local struggles and legal change reshaped municipal capacity? Where decentralization has been adopted, what are the consequences for urban service provision? How do bureaucrats, planners, and activists navigate fiscal and institutional constraints to plan and deliver services? How does decentralization, and the exercise of voice under limited political pluralism, reconfigure local power dynamics, and with what risks of elite capture, inequality, and conflict along social cleavages?


(iii) Selective service provision, inequality, and informality: Where decentralization has produced public–private partnerships and/or municipal devolution, how do selective patterns of service reinforce socio-spatial inequalities and hinge on political or financial support? How do informal groups and local actors step in to govern? How are their practices negotiated with municipal authorities, and with what consequences for residents?


We look forward to discussing together SWANA cities' unequal decentralization and local governance.