Programme- and Project-Based Metropolitan Governance and Citizen Participation: A Case Study from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This chapter concentrates on metropolitan governance, the use of projects (or ‘projectification’) in public administration and the development of metropolitan forms of citizen participation. The analysis is based on a case study from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area – a multi-actor policy programme called the Urban Programme, which included a specific participatory project named Citizen Channel. According to the analysis, the Urban Programme was a way to create consensus and collaboration between the municipalities of the area, whereas the Citizen Channel project created a ‘toolbox’ for metropolitan citizen participation. However, the relation between programme- and project-based development and municipal administration, especially the implementation of the results of short-term projects in permanent administration proved difficult. From the perspective of metropolitan ruralities, four kinds of conclusions are emphasised: the complexity and conflictuality of the issue of metropolitan governance; the use of relatively similar programmes and projects as policy tools both in urban and rural contexts; the ‘metropolitan dimension of everyday life’ of the inhabitants and its relation to municipal administrative cultures as well as the birth and strengthening of new actors such as local NGOs in projects. The originality of this chapter is to combine the frameworks of metropolitan governance, projectification and the development of citizen participation in an empirical study and to reflect them to the ‘metropolitan ruralities’ research.

Citation

Kuokkanen, K. (2016), "Programme- and Project-Based Metropolitan Governance and Citizen Participation: A Case Study from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area", Metropolitan Ruralities (Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 191-214. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-192220160000023009