Countries and cities around the world are searching for ways to plan urban development to accommodate the growing demand for public infrastructure and amenities due to high rates of urbanization. Urban policies deemed to be successful are often adopted by other cities and hence applied across contexts. Urban Policy Mobility (UPM) theories study the ways in which political relationships, power dynamics, and other potential drivers influence the circulation of urban policies. UPM provides a guiding framework to analyze the policymaking associated with mobilized urban policies to understand the socio-spatial processes that motivate the adoption of urban policies from elsewhere. This dissertation engages with the UPM literature by investigating the assemblage and implementation processes of a mobilized urban policy to explore how the fixed socio-spatial processes embedded within a particular planning culture interact with and absorb a flowing urban policy. The term flowing in this study refers to the process of transposing policies from one place to another. Little attention has been paid to how the planning culture in a developing country can shape the adoption (or non-adoption) of certain policy elements, and what challenges arise during the implementation of a flowing urban policy. Given this context, this study answers two research questions: (a) How does urban policy mobility unpack in practice in response to local socio-spatial processes? and (b) What challenges emerge when policies are transposed into new urban policy environments that are dissimilar from those in which they originated? A case study methodology was used to study the changes that occurred when a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) urban policy was introduced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A qualitative content analysis of archival resources, documents, and semi-structured interviews revealed how local urban planning conditions and challenges influenced Riyadh's TOD assemblage and implementation. Public officials and consultants from Riyadh, national officials, and experts were interviewed to develop a clear understanding of the TOD policy assemblage and implementation processes. The two main findings from this research are that: 1) there was an incomplete translation of TOD into the local planning culture, primarily due to Riyadh's stronger emphasis on the density, diversity, and design features of TOD and less concern with the sustainability dimensions; and 2) several governance and prioritization challenges emerged during the policy implementation process, which stem from institutional constraints and institutional and resource gaps. This research expands the UPM field by tracing the trajectory of policy mutation due to local socio-spatial processes. Additionally, this study provides a conceptual framework that synthesizes three heterogeneous elements: planning culture, planning policy, and policy carriers. It offers a methodological contribution that advances UPM analysis to better explain policy mutation. This study can be used as a cautionary tale for officials engaged in adopting urban policies that originate in other jurisdictions. / Doctor of Philosophy / City officials around the world are looking beyond their borders for urban policies that can promote sustainability and improve quality of life. However, those officials rarely consider how differences between urban areas can alter the nature of policies being adopted. To address this challenge, the field of Urban Policy Mobility (UPM) emerged to shed light on how the unique local factors that shape each city environment affect what elements of an urban policy are and are not adopted. This study examines the changes that occurred when a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) urban policy was introduced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In order to learn about the changes and challenges associated with Riyadh's TOD policy, interviews were conducted with employees responsible for the policy. Additionally, TOD policy documents and other publications that contained information about Riyadh's TOD were reviewed to build a deeper understanding of why certain policy elements were implemented and others were not. This study found that: 1) the TOD policy was not completely translated into Riyadh, with greater emphasis placed on increasing building density, diversifying land uses, and enhancing design aesthetics, and less on other important policy elements that enhance economic and social sustainability; and 2) the implementation of the TOD policy led to governance challenges due to the differences in how urban planning is undertaken in Riyadh compared to western countries. This in-depth study of Riyadh's experience can inform other cities that are looking to implement urban policies borrowed from other countries.

In this thesis, I consider the emergence of a new generation of food trucks and question their popularity, narration and representation. I examine the economic and cultural discourses that have valorized these food trucks, and pay attention to the everyday material and embodied practices that constitute them. This research is situated in Chicago, where proposed changes to the existing mobile food vending ordinance spurred contentious debates about food safety, regulations, rights to the city and livelihoods. I follow the myriad actors involved in the food truck movement to understand the strategies employed to change the mobile food vending ordinance on behalf of these food trucks. As part of this, I raise questions about what interests are prioritized, and what interests are marginalized especially in light of Chicago’s long history of policing Latino street vendors. I conclude by considering what food trucks can elucidate about the city, the changing economy, and the molding of laboring and consuming subjects.

The change in regional governance in Sweden is regularly understood in terms of a shift from ’government’ to ’governance’, from a redistributive policy to a policy that aims to encourage regional innovation, competitiveness and growth. This shift also includes the adoption of global policy models, such as ’clusters’.  In the literature on the global spread of policies it has been argued that a market for global policies has developed. This is not least evident through the expansion of global consultancy firms, international policy organisations as well as a cosmopolitan elite of travelling policy technocrats. Theoretically and methodologically this study contributes to scholarly discussions of how new forms of governance can be analysed, and especially how governmentality studies can be utilised and combined with analyses of the messy political practices of specific policies and programs. The study analyses the discursive shift in regional policy in Sweden: contested elements erased, conflicts concealed and the political order produced. By empirically departing from a ’cluster policy network’ lodged within a Swedish region, cluster policy is analysed as an assemblage of global circuits of knowledge, expertise and local relations of power. A broad range of materials for analysis have been generated through interviews, participant observations and documents. The production of policy knowledge is an overarching political rationality of contemporary forms of regional governance, translated into technologies such as benchmarking, regional comparisons, competitions, evaluations and best-practice. Based on the empirical analyses it is argued that the lack of power critique and a hyper-rational representation of knowledge produce an international market for legitimacy. It is further argued that five characteristics of the policy regime (’the regional cluster orchestra’) contributes to the reproduction of the policy regime, and relations of domination. / Baksidestext Avhandlingen tar sin utgångspunkt i vad som har beskrivits som en marknad för globala policymodeller. I Sverige har klusterbegreppet, med ursprung i ekonomisk och geografisk teoribildning, fått stort genomslag i regionalpolitiken. I den samtida regionalpolitiken har också produktionen av olika former av policykunskap utvecklats till centrala styrningsteknologier: benchmarking, best practice, utvärderingar, uppföljningar, mätningar och konkurrensutsatta tävlingar om regionala utvecklingsmedel. Genom kunskap och ständigt lärande ska Sveriges regioner frälsas. I avhandlingen studeras den scen där ett regionalt förankrat policynätverk agerar och den kunskap som produceras. Regionalpolitikens rationalitet innebär att det blir centralt för regionerna att agera som enhetliga aktörer och visa upp en lyckad och framgångsrik fasad. Det argumenteras för att bristen på maktanalys, och en hyperrationell syn på kunskap i regionalpolitiken innebär att regionalpolitikens styrningsteknologier producerar en internationell marknad för legitimitet som i sin tur reproducerar ordningen och döljer dominansrelationer.

Rapid urbanization and limited resources is creating enormous challenges to cities in the global South, which has been increasingly acknowledged as a motivation for international cooperation in recent years. Both theory and practice have however paid little attention to how differences in geographical contexts and views on what sustainability is play out in such cooperation. This study therefore explores how Swedish actors have sought to contribute to urban sustainability in low-income countries in the Global South. These efforts are traced through a case study of the Swedish SymbioCity concept by using an actor-network theory approach. Policy mobility theory is used to discuss how the transfer and translation of policies between cities takes focus away from their contested nature. Concepts are then drawn from socio-technical transitions theory to discuss what this specifically means in transitioning towards sustainability. Data is gathered through review of written materials and semi-structured interviews with actors in the case study. In following the evolution of the Sustainable City concept, I argue that it has managed to mutate so well “from trade to aid” due to its “fluid” and lovable qualities and a notion of Swedish urban sustainability which can be flexibly interpreted. In tracing the networking of Swedish sustainability, I argue that SymbioCity has followed a previously observed pattern in which the approach has been adapted to travel and the recipients have been prepared to receive the approach. In considering how the approach has impacted its recipients, I argue that although its applications seem to have been appreciated, the translation of urban sustainability throughout the network has turned focus away from the issue of what urban sustainability is by coordinating activities and by educating the recipients’ attention towards techno-managerial problem framings. I conclude that Swedish actors have managed to carefully adopt a commercial model of urban sustainability to the purposes of development cooperation and its geographical contexts of application. While this mutation has given rise to a network of somewhat disconnected practices, the efforts of both branches have nevertheless contributed to establishing sustainability as being fundamentally uncontested in its nature. This view of sustainability can be said to be permitted by certain interpretations of the Swedish experience of becoming more sustainable. From this I conclude that to ensure that international cooperation for urban sustainability takes place on equal and fundamentally democratic terms, Swedish actors (and sustainability transition theorists alike) would do well to also encourage and facilitate inclusive and critical discussions of how urban sustainability can be understood, in the North as well as the South. The main limitation of this work lies in the actual engagement with the targeted cities, which prevents a thorough understanding of both the perceived and the actual impact of the export of Swedish urban sustainability. Further research should therefore pay attention to how it has affected the targeted cities.

Local authorities increased interest in climate mitigation policy has in recent years attracted interest from researchers. Compared to local authorities in most other countries, Swedish municipalities enjoy a larger portion of autonomy. This makes them particularly interesting to study from a policy mobility perspective. The aim of this study is to explore how local authorities develop climate policy, the case chosen for this inquiry is Örebro municipality and its climate strategy approved in 2016. By applying the theoretical framework of policy transfer, to some extent, but especially policy mobility the thesis discovers how local authorities develop their climate policy. It also uncovers from where they gather knowledge and inspiration, faced with the global scope of climate issues. The result show that policy mobility provides great explanatory value in understanding the assemblage that is Örebro municipality’s climate strategy. The result, however, also challenges the notion forwarded within the field of policy mobility that the national scale is not very important for local policy development. The study also show that some policy areas are more easily influenced by the global scale, while other areas are more depended on similarities in context between the ‘sending’ and the ‘receiving’ actor, that is Örebro municipality. / Lokala myndigheter har tagit allt större plats i klimatpolitken och även tilldragit sig allt mer uppmärksamhet från forskare. Tidigare har bekämpning av klimatförändringar endast funnits på den globala och nationella nivåns agendor. När fler aktörer kliver in öppnas nya områden upp för studier av olika slag. Inom policymobilitetsfältet har forskare intresserat sig för hur lokala myndigheter formar sin politik, hur policyer färdas från en kontext till en annan och vad den processen gör med policyerna. Jämfört med motsvarande myndighetsnivå i de flesta andra länder har svenska kommuner ett betydligt större mått av självbestämmande. Denna långtgående rådighet gör dem särskilt intress- anta att studera ur ett policymobilitetsperspektiv. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur lokala myndigheter utformar sin klimatpolitik, som fall används Örebro kommuns klimatarbete och då särskilt den klimatstrategi som kommunfullmäktige antog 2016. Genom användningen av teoribildningen kring dels policytransferering men främst policymobilitet studerar uppsatsen hur dessa lokala myndigheter agerar och var de hämtar kunskap och inspiration ifrån när de ställs inför den globalt omfattande frågan om klimat- förändringar. Policymobilitetslitteraturen visar sig bidra med viktiga förklaringsvärden för att förstå den assemblage som Örebro kommuns klimatstrategi utgör. I resultatet fram- går dock att den nationella skalnivån inte förlorat sin betydelse för lokala myndigheters policyutveckling till den grad som tidigare studier inom policymobilitetslitteraturen pekat ut. Den visar också på att policyer inom vissa områden lättare hämtas hem från en global kontext medan det i andra sammanhang ligger närmare till hands att inspireras av andra lokala myndigheter i samma situation och med en liknande kontext som den egna.

Parental leave policies have been shown to play a significant role in enhancing gender equality. The European Union has recognised this and has issued a Directive to its Member States, in order to instigate parental leave policy reform. However, not all Member States have sought to implement this. This thesis addresses this problem and seeks to answer the following research question: Why have progressive parental leave policies failed to transfer across the European Union? In doing so, this study also aims to explore the limits of Europeanisation. The research question has been addressed through a qualitative comparative case study of four European Union Member States: Sweden, Denmark, Hungary and Greece. These states have been chosen on the basis of Most Different System Design. The thesis deploys a theoretical framework based upon concepts of Europeanisation and policy mobility and draws particularly on the work of Stone’s four core concepts of policy mobility: Diffusion, Transfer, Convergence, Translation (Stone, 2012). The key factors that have been identified in this study as restricting the potential of a policy to transfer are: institutional surroundings, shared beliefs and norms, internal political dynamics and a lack of force/action from the European Union. These differences have acted to constrain the transferability of progressive parental leave policy across the European Union and therefore the process of Europeanisation in this area.

Over the past decades, the fast-changing global climate poses a significant challenge to many cities around the world to embrace resilience concepts, whereby a safe-to-fail planning approach replaces traditional fail-safe practices. The change in perspectives has seen an increase in climate-adapted infrastructural projects being integrated with the new urban planning agendas across the world. The investigation conducted was designed to understand the process of how resilience concepts travel between different cities, by investigating the actors who move policy knowledge, their roles in it, as well as the knowledge transfer process mechanism that is responsible for the movement of such policies. The investigation took advantage of a scoping study technique to answer the research questions, using mostly secondary data and an interview to verify the secondary sources. The findings and the discussion provided insights on who is involved in resilience policies and how these policies are transferred from one place to another. The investigation uncovered the influence policy mobilizers has on the movement of policy knowledge, as well as how the mobilization of policy knowledge can both be beneficial or detrimental, depending on the way it was moved or implemented. / Under de senaste decennierna utgör det snabba föränderliga globala klimatet en betydande utmaning för många städer runt om i världen med att anamma motståndskraftskoncept, där en planeringsstrategi med säkerhet att misslyckas ersätter traditionella felsäkra metoder. Förändringen i perspektiv har ökat klimatanpassade infrastrukturprojekten som integrerats med nya stadsplaneringsagendorna över hela världen. Studien genomfördes för att få en förståelse av hur motståndskraftskonceptet färdas mellan olika städer och detta genomfördes genom att undersöka de aktörer som förflyttar politisk kunskap och deras roller i den samt den kunskapsöverföringsmekanism som är ansvarig för rörelsen av sådan politik. Studien utnyttjade en scoping-studieteknik för att få svar på forskningsfrågorna, med mestadels sekundär data och en intervju för att verifiera sekundärkällorna. Resultaten och diskussionen gav insikter om vem som är inblandad i motståndskraft och hur policy överförs från en plats till en annan. Studien avslöjade även inflytande av politiskt mobilisering och kunskap som både kan vara fördelaktig eller skadlig beroende på hur den flyttades eller genomfördes.