Policy networks in the framework of the Urban Agenda for the EU. The influence of thematic partnerships in the politicization of decision-making at the European level

Abstract

This article explores the role of multilevel thematic partnerships method in building a specific policy, namely, the Urban Agenda for the European Union (EU) adopted in 2016. This method, designed as a pilot experiment, formalizes cooperation among different levels of government as well as public and private actors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation of the multilevel governance approach and to determine the extent to which the thematic partnerships method contributes to the politicization of a decision-making process at the European level. For this purpose, the methodological design is based on network analysis applied to four case studies, namely, the following four thematic partnerships: Inclu-sion of Migrants and Refugees, Urban Poverty, Climate Action and Security in Public Spaces. Firstly, the results show a higher mobilization of stakeholders representing local interests; secondly, it is also shown that the monetization of the problem determines the nature of stake-holders (stakeholders representing social or economic interests) that join the policy networks. In sum, this article makes an empirical contribution to multilevel governance and politiciza-tion studies on the one hand, and to urban and European studies on the other.