Interpreting digital governance at the municipal level: Evidence from smart city projects in Belgium

Esposito, Giovanni; Terlizzi, Andrea; Guarino, Massimo; Crutzen, Nathalie

doi:10.1177/00208523231167538

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Interpreting digital governance at the municipal level: Evidence from smart city projects in Belgium

Esposito, Giovanni; Terlizzi, Andrea; Guarino, Massimo et al.

2023 • In International Review of Administrative Sciences

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https://hdl.handle.net/2268/303762

DOI
10.1177/00208523231167538

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Keywords :

smart city; digital governance; justification theory

Abstract :

[en] This article adopts an interpretive approach to investigate how local policy-makers portray and justify their own visions of digital governance initiatives at the municipal level. Our investigation focuses on smart city projects submitted by various Belgian municipalities in the framework of the ‘Intelligent Territory’ call for proposals initiated in 2019 by the Walloon Region. We use Boltanski and Thévenot’s theory of orders of worth and combine quantitative and qualitative content analysis to categorize the different justifications elaborated by municipal governments. The empirical results point to the polysemic nature of the smart city concept and highlight the diversity of opportunities offered by smart city policies according to municipal policy-makers. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of the varieties of interpretations underpinning the construction of digital governance initiatives. It therefore supports the argument according to which there is no one-size-fits-all approach to smart city policies as local policy-makers may attribute different meanings to them and may formulate place-based ICTs solutions to what they perceive as the most pressing problems of their territories.

Disciplines :

Sociology & social sciences
Political science, public administration & international relations

Author, co-author :

Esposito, Giovanni ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Liège Research > HEC Liège Research: Strategy & Performance for the Society

Terlizzi, Andrea; UniFI - Università degli Studi di Firenze [IT] > Political Sciences

Guarino, Massimo; Italian Ministry of Culture

Crutzen, Nathalie ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Liège Research > HEC Liège Research: Strategy & Performance for the Society

Language :

English

Title :

Interpreting digital governance at the municipal level: Evidence from smart city projects in Belgium

Publication date :

May 2023

Journal title :

International Review of Administrative Sciences

ISSN :

0020-8523

eISSN :

1461-7226

Publisher :

SAGE, Thousand Oaks, United States - California

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Available on ORBi :

since 09 June 2023

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