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AbstractParadoxically, the greater the national security threats, the more important the role of local policy in the United States. In this article we examine homeland security initiatives—particularly the tension between risk and vulnerability—and the governance dilemmas they pose for local communities. In contrast to the usual emphasis on coordination and capacity, we argue for conceptualizing local imperatives attendant to homeland security as collective action problems requiring the construction of local performance regimes. Performance regimes must engage three challenges: (1) to enlist diverse stakeholders around a collective local security goal despite varying perceptions of its immediacy; (2) to persuade participants to sustain their involvement in the face of competing demands, and (3) to create a durable coalition around performance goals necessary for reducing local vulnerability. Using these analytic categories casts local homeland security issues in strategic terms; it also encourages comparisons of local governance arrangements to respond to risk and vulnerability.

Argues that gender should be incorporated into traditionally class-based analyses of urban politics, which are criticized for their epistemological & analytic limitations. The usefulness of the concept of gender is demonstrated in an analysis of the notion of citizenship, understood in relation to the political & economic structures in which it is engendered. It is contended that restructurings of local urban economies have specific gendered effects, which in turn expand or limit the capacity for full citizenship of men & women. Thus, a full understanding of the actual practice of citizenship requires attention to divisions in society based on gender. 42 References. D. M. Smith

In this article we use a recent publication by Mark Gottdiener, The Decline of Urban Politics: Political Theory and the Crisis of the Local State, as the basis for a discussion of the many economic and social changes taking place within advanced capitalist societies. We argue that Gottdiener was too hasty when he identified the demise of the local political realm, and we show that alternative interpretations are possible and necessary. We draw on two sets of literature: one concerning the local state and the other exploring the current phase of economic restructuring. Although we agree that urban analysis necessitates considering state theory and economic analysis, we conclude that Gottdiener's ambitious yet desolate analysis remains unproved.

Are cities obsolete relics of an earlier era? In this pathbreaking book, Susan E. Clarke and Gary L. Gaile contend that contrary to this conventional wisdom, cities are growing in importance. Far from irrelevant, local governments are vital political arenas for the new work of cities-empowering their citizens to adapt and serve as catalysts for the global economy

How have local economic conditions been affected by the emergence of a global economy? What changes, if any, have local political authorities made to counterbalance the new emphasis on world interests? Comprehensive and timely, this book answers these and other vital questions by exploring local political restructuring in the face of massive global economic change

Given the contested meanings of the local global context, it is important to see local political processes as more than a matter of new interests or claims prompted by globalization or even new institutions such as public-private partnerships. We argue that local politics in a global era are best understood in terms of the ideas, institutions, and interests shaping local policy processes. They are shaped by the causal stories that different groups and organizations use to politicize issues linking the local and the global, to seek new institutional venues, and to promote some solutions over others. We draw on our national surveys in 1989 and 1996 of large and mediumsized American cities to examine these causal stories about globalization and localism and the policy choices they privilege. Five local strategies are especially salient: classic locational approaches, the world-class community orientation, the entrepreneurial mercantilism strategy, asset-based human capital strategies, and the sustainable development orientation.

Given the contested meanings of the local global context, it is argued that local politics in a global era are best understood in terms of the ideas, institutions, & interests shaping local policy processes. They are shaped by the causal stories that different groups & organizations use to politicize issues linking the local & global, to seek new institutional venues, & to promote specific solutions. National survey data gathered in 1989 & 1996 from large & medium-sized US cities are used to examine causal stories about globalization & localism & the policy choices they privilege. Five local strategies are especially salient: classic locational approaches, world-class community orientation, the entrepreneurial mercantilism strategy, asset-based human capital strategies, & the sustainable development orientation. Adapted from the source document.