Urban Regimes and Exchanges of Policy Resources in Swiss Metropolises

Urban regime theory has established itself as a dominant approach in the field of urban politics. However, regime theory does not specify which resources allow a governing coalition to keep its influence over a long period of time. This paper tackles this theoretical gap. I show that the mobilization and the exchange of policy resources such as law, land property, expertise, money or political support are necessary for the establishment of an urban regime, independently of the political agenda it pursues. The governing coalition has to integrate the actors controlling these resources in order to keep its dominant position and to carry out its urban projects. The neocorporatist structure and local government autonomy of Switzerland make it a particularly suitable case to test and develop urban regime theory. This paper elaborates an analysis of regime dynamics in six Swiss cities over the last fifteen years.