Theme issue  

This paper characterizes different types of policy narratives that influence the trans-local motion of urban policies and elaborates on their relations. The paper first introduces conceptual and methodological recommendations from policy narrative literature to debates on policy mobility. In an empirical section, it then analyses narratives that support policies on temporary use of vacant lands and buildings in the German cities of Berlin and Stuttgart.

This paper deals with climate change adaptation policy in South Korea. It shows that the implementation of the idea "adapting to climate change" has been highly influenced by the political structure and perception of how to deal with a problem that is highly uncertain. The implications of the research are that the implementation of a political agenda across different political systems requires not only exchange of information but also guidance for institutional adjustments.

I ask how creativity-based ideas of regional development are applied in the European Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg (EMN). The paper focuses on the different ways of "networking" related to "creatives" in the EMN and on the former brownfield called On AEG, because this allows for understanding the logics of the application. Drawing on a mix of methods including walking and photo interviews and coding, I reconstructed a bias towards a technology and business orientation in networking.

Drawing on a research project on adaptations of climate and energy policies in German cities we ask why, despite the growing number of laws and recommendations formulated on the national level, local adaptations of climate and energy policies vary significantly between different cities. We explain how discourse and governmentality studies can be brought into resonance with the policy mobility debate and suggest that these concepts are particularly well suited to explain these discrepancies.