Governance for sustainabiilty in East Asian Global Cities: an exploratory study

Abstract

This paper explores the state of governance for sustainability in East Asian global cities. Most conceptualizations on the governance of sustainable development are based on Western democratic contexts with a market-based economy and an active citizenry. Capacity in fostering partnerships and consensus building among different stakeholders is often identified as an essential quality in implementing sustainable development. The four East Asian cities discussed in this paper are fundamentally different: they all have a “strong” government exerting major direct or indirect influences on market sectors that are at varying stages of development and their civil societies are relatively immature, if not inactive. Given the central role played by the state in these political economies, this paper argues that capturing the government's perceptions of and commitments towards sustainable development is instrumental in understanding their sustainability practice. A small-scale benchmarking exercise is carried out to verify this proposition.