Urban commons is presented as a challenge of collaborative governance. This study delivers a normative perspective to analyse and evaluate processes and outcomes of the governance of urban commons. It demonstrates the development and application of the perspective in action research on Amsterdam’s Zero Waste Lab case, as a way to better understand successful and failing institutions in a concrete practice and to design interventions for improvement. Consequently, the (im)plausibility of collective action in urban communities and the participation of public actors present dilemmas for urban commons. The study specifically synthesises urban commons and collaborative governance scholarship and relates also in general to the transition towards co-creation in governing the city, e.g. in public administration or planning.
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The realization of human rights standards depends in part on the commitment of local actors. It can be argued that local public service professionals such as social workers can also be regarded as key players. The possible role of social workers becomes imperative if these professionals are working in a policy context that is not congruent with human rights. If existing laws or policies cause or maintain disrespect for human rights, social workers are in a position to observe that this is having an adverse impact on clients. When social workers are regarded as human rights actors, the question arises how they can or should respond to law and policy that impedes them in carrying out their work with respect for human rights. This article adds to existing theories on social workers as human rights actors by examining the practices of social professionals working in such a challenging policy context. The research took place among professionals in social district teams in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Following a series of decentralizations and austerity measures the social care landscape in the Netherlands has changed drastically over the last few years. As a result, social workers may find themselves on the one hand trying to realize the best possible care for their clients while on the other hand dealing with new laws and policy expectations focused on self-reliance and diminished access to specialist care. The article explores how social professionals’ responses to barriers in access to care affect human rights requirements. In doing so, this socio-legal study provides insight into the ways in which everyday social work relates to the realization of human rights at the local level.
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The COVID-19 global pandemic has raised once more the spectre of world governance, demonstrating in one fell swoop, the intricate entanglement of nation-states and the challenges they face when confronted with a global threat. The pandemic has produced an array of problems, from the deaths of millions, the desecration of health care systems all over the world, to the disruption of the economic and social lives of most of the worlds citizens and the emergence of vaccine politics. While not addressing the pandemic directly, this dossier examines the pandemic moment as both an opportunity and a crisis for the UN and the idea of global governance. The articles in this dossier, drawn from a selection of established academics and younger scholars, highlight the expanding array of issues and challenges the UN faces as its competencies increase in the face of multiplying threats to the global system. The organisation has gained new areas of expertise, consolidated its competencies in some areas while expanding its agency in others. In addressing global challenges, the UN has increased its relevance, normative power and connection to humanity but at the same time its lacklustre performance on a lot of issues has revealed that leadership is lacking, and the organisation has in many cases been found wanting. This dossier examines some of the new challenges facing the UN with a view towards assessing the ability of the organisation to effectively respond to global crises, and whether or not it has the capacity for institutional learning and adaptation in the face of adversity and anarchy. Originally published: https://nvvn.nl/governing-the-world-united-or-divided-nations/
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Digital technologies in public spaces have become more prescient, capable, and invisible. As a result, the need to explain and mediate these technologies has become more urgent. Current processes for designing digital trust interaction protocols, visual languages, and interfaces for the urban environment have been dominated by governing actors: policing, government, and tech-companies. When communities are involved in the design process, their participation is limited to formats these organisations prescribe. By default, these designs exclude the lived technological experiences of communities that use the built environment. The outcome is a lopsided appraisal of digital trust, and designs that are insufficiently transparent and equitable– and as a result, not understood and embraced by the communities who must use them. This design-research aims to develop prototypes that include how urban interactive technologies are ‘lived’ in the spaces where they are implemented. These experiences will be teased-out through site-specific aesthetic and performative actions, which in turn inform the design process. The envisioned contribution includes ways of ’doing’ to the field of situated design, and concrete prototypes for alternative digital trust protocols, visual languages, and interfaces. By flipping the current approach on its head, this research argues that the practical and ethical departure points for addressing digital ‘trust deficits’ are already within the diverse communities who use the built environment.
