Smart cities and Horizontal cooperation in Europe

Abstract

Papers in this panel discuss issues connected to smart cities and/or horizontal coordination in Europe. Smart cities are a key concept for the realisation of the so–called twin transition, namely the green and digital transitions, as they use technological tools to promote a more sustainable way of life and improve the quality of life. Furthermore, the twin transition provides an opportunity for smart cities to align with human rights. Smart city initiatives may have important efficiency and sustainability gains, providing new ways to deliver public services and optimising the use of idle or surplus resources. However, these opportunities are accompanied by significant implementation challenges. Digital innovation also involves risks (e.g. privacy and consumer protection, fair competition, the potential to exacerbate exclusion in the case of a strong digital divide). Implementing smart city initiatives also requires managing trade-offs among policy objectives. Moreover, ethical dilemmas associated with the development of smart cities remain a focus, particularly in relation to governance, democracy and the right to freedom of opinion and expression. While these cities provide platforms for civic engagement and participation, questions arise about the ethical implications of these systems in upholding democratic principles and ensuring the full exercise of rights. Reconciling technological advancement with ethical considerations requires a sound ethical framework that protects human rights, ensures transparency and upholds accountability. Furthermore, This panel addresses researchers dealing with problems of horizontal coordination from a policy or multilevel governance perspective. Subnational policymaking always involves a specific modes of horizontal coordination between diverse policy sectors, territorial units or interest groups. Furthermore, local horizontal coordination deals with the local coordination mechanisms governmental between different stakeholders, as well as representatives from civil society or local communities. In this sense the input- and output legitimacy plays a crucial role in this horizontal governance process. Political decision-makers understand the importance of horizontal local level coordination, but we still don't know exactly how to make it happen. It is thus the aim of the panel to present and discuss the challenges of horizontal and vertical coordination and to develop insights on the nature of local level coordination problems and their solutions to achieve better coordination results and outcomes. We expect that different country profiles will demonstrate which arenas and processes of horizontal coordination exist, how they work and how they relate to a country's institutional framework. We invite to discuss the country or policy cases, giving examples of specific horizontal coordination cases contributing to better understanding which structural problems are more important in specific policy fields or institutional settings, which institutional or procedural ways were selected to deal with coordination challenges and what are most efficient mechanisms in enabling horizontal governance networks.

Title	Details
Smart cities initiatives in Greece; instruments of Europeanization and multilevel governance?	View Paper Details
Digital Τransformation, Smart Cities, and Citizen Engagement: A comparison between three cities in Greece	View Paper Details
The inner life of local governance networks: are there differences in perceptions between political and civil society actors? – evidences from Portugal	View Paper Details
Mapping of horizontal intergovernmental coordination in Iceland	View Paper Details