Contenu du sommaire : Les échelles de la gestion territoriale

Waste and Territorial Management in Two Metropolises: Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro
Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro are two Latin-American metropolises, each with over 10 million inhabitants. Waste management is a burden on their territorial planning. In the 1960s and 1970s it was managed by central government dictatorships for both health and strategic grounds. However, during the 1990s, the rise of democratic local governments introduced new forms of waste management. City Councils try to promote public private partnerships, including the not-for-profit sector, in the implementation of sustainable initiatives. One might see in this the beginnings of a metropolitan governance of waste.

Cross-Border Policies Between France and Italy and the Renaissance of Territorial Issues
Borders used to be an emblem of division. Within the European Union integration process, we witness the emergence of a new policy transforming internal borders into a valuable place for integration. Cross-border co-operation between France and Italy is a good illustration of this new dynamics. It shows the interplay and the positioning of different territorial actors in this process. It offers a good example of the rise of infra-national development policies. In Italy, the expression sistema paese, “countrysystem”, means an evolving understanding of this institutional setting. Cross-border co-operation is a remarkable pattern of adaptation and transformation of territories in an international context, producing windfall gains and stimulating effects.

Decentralization, Territorial Construction and Re-Construction in Ivory Coast (2002-2009)In the last decade, the Ivory Coast Republic began to implement a rapid decentralization process, creating new regions, districts and municipalities. This process of de-construction and re-construction (territorial, administrative and political) means devolution of responsibilities from central government towards local actors. They gain more freedom in the implementation of their own local development strategies. The results are still difficult to assess. However, looking at the results in six Districts, The paper presents a limited analysis of the decentralization process and points out perspectives and potential blocking factors. The conclusion argues that a full transfer to the local authorities is a necessity.

The Stakes of Spatial Planning in England and France: a Cross-Comparison
In the last two decades, sustainable development became a major norm for public action, both in England and France. This paper compares the main changes in the spatial planning process in these two countries which differ by their degree of (de)centralization. It then analyzes how institutional patterns, changing very slowly, resist the "greening" of policies. Planning is investigated in four large conurbations in each country, in relation to land consumption dedicated to the development of economic zones. In France, decentralization of decisions in planning is high; the search for coherence and sustainability varies widely in neighbouring territories. In England, the national targets are usually transcribed as such in the local plans. The heteronomy of local communities appears as a key factor in the implementation of sustainable development territorial principles.

Local Learning in the Framework of an Employment Policy in the Valencian Country (Spain)The partnership processes between public and social actors at the local and regional level define a productive field to experiment with negotiated public policies. With a focus on Territorial Employment Pacts in the Valencian Region, this paper provides evidence of the capacity of the local actors (both public and social) to develop these partnerships in Spain. This is related to organisational adaptations in two directions: the adoption of a co-operative vertical governance in the core of the organisation and the acceptance by the organisation as a whole (including the higher, state and regional levels) of territorial objectives as their own. This paper analyses a successful experience of local learning developed within co-operative governance, both inter- and intra-organizational.

Promoting by Consensus a Land Policy Facilitating the Housing Policy in Pays Voironnais
Housing production requires a facilitating land policy. In terms of size and financial means, French multi-municipal authorities are the relevant scale for dealing with land issues. However, municipal Councils remain reluctant. This paper presents a case study in a French multi-municipal authority, the Pays Voironnais (Isère, French Alps). Step by step, it entered into land management processes, first through indirect interventions. Today, the Pays Voironnais has the capacity to define a real multimunicipal strategic land policy. The paper also identifies the consequences of this scale change in the decision-making process regarding role sharing and the contents of land policy.

The New Territorial Scale Configuration in Galicia (Spain): Economic Stake or Ideological Alibi?
In the current economic crisis, deep changes in the local and regional modes of government are under scrutiny in several countries. Most of them, like Spain, are grounded on an efficiency rationale. Our case study deals with Galicia, a historical “nationality” with a devolved government. We present first the Spanish local and regional maps and the various tiers of government. It shows territorial ideology plays a role as important as economic issues. Then, we carry out an analysis of political discourse through a sample of newspapers and on-line articles. This analysis refers to the three most discussed territorial scales: municipal, provincial and metropolitan.

Metropolises Under Tension. The Clashing Construction of Metropolitan Political Spaces
The adoption of the French mapam law on metropolises in 2014 established the legal recognition of metropolitan areas. This reform however is a new step in a flow of more diffuse initiatives, identifiable in other settings than Parliament. Combining various scales, the analysis shows how a metropolitan area (Marseilles urban region) gains prominence through being indexed to public action mechanisms and by aggregating elites engaged in prospective reflection and economic promotion of the territory. Yet the convergence between the national commitment and the local elites strategy is not enough to anchor the metropolitan project, which is thwarted by the defensive reactions of mayors opposed to the hegemony of the city core and concerned by the selective effects of power transfers at governance levels in which they are marginalized.

When Oral History Comes into Current Water Issues. The Irrigated Area of Kerma (Tunisia)Current experiments to transfer water management from the state to end-users face difficulties, which technical and agro-economic analyses are not able to fully explain. Through a case study in the Kairouan region (Tunisia), this article proposes to explore history as it is told locally to reinterpret contemporary failures of water management. Describing a series of dispossessions, these accounts of local history explain part of the current demands of farmers for an increased water supply. The illegal usage that disrupts collective water sharing seeks to offset water rights lost during the past and can be seen as an adaptation to a succession of changes imposed from the outside. Given deep ongoing political changes, the Tunisian context seems to favour the construction of a dialogue between water administrations and rural populations. In this context, oral history could play an important role.

Metropolitan Action : a French Perspective
This review article is involved in the metropolis theory debate. It analyzes actions aiming at creating, developing or managing entities identified by stakeholders as a metropolis. The focus is on metropolitan action objects, also on actors and their cooperation, and the devices maintaining the system homeostasis (regulation).Numerous and non-homogeneous actors co-operate in unstable and increasingly numerous games. They produce composite objects. Homeostasis is based on benchmarking, external constraints and the mobilizing ability of "inventors of metropolis".This highlights a paradox of the metropolis: it is strong due to the concentration of opportunities and resources and capacity development; it is weak because its equilibrium must be constantly rebuilt and because it is strongly dependent on the external constraints. The challenge is to bring together a large number of stakeholders around a narrative or a common project.

Technical Inter-Institutionality at the Core of Metropolitan Construction
The authors consider metropolitan areas as an inter-organizational issue. Within the pattern of organized action sociology, they develop a systemic approach of public action, in the field of metropolitan transportation networks. It involves cooperation between the metropolitan transportation authorities, regional government, several district governments (Départments), and many local authorities. They analyse the stakeholders who pilot this project, in order to highlight the mechanisms that make collective action possible among autonomous administrations, linked by strategic interdependencies based on territorial and sectorial distribution of public transport and urban development competencies. They highlight the technical inter-institutionnality which contributes to metropolitan construction through operational actions.