Theoretical and Practical Frontiers in Urban Governance from a Global Comparative Perspective

Urbanization has reconfigured the scale, complexity, and stakes of governance, placing cities at the center of state–society interaction and policy delivery. This special issue, Responsive Urban Governance and Inclusive Policy Making: A Comparative Perspective, engages this transformation by examining how urban governments confront interrelated challenges of responsiveness, equity, participation, and coordination. Drawing on comparative evidence acrossdiverse institutional contexts, the contributions conceptualize digital intelligence technologies not as autonomous drivers of change, but as conditional enablers whose effects depend on their embedding within specific configurations of authority, incentives, and accountability. The findings highlight a technology–institution nexus in which governance outcomes are jointly shaped by informational capacity and institutional design. By advancing a comparative and mechanism-oriented perspective, this special issue moves beyond technology-centered accounts and contributes to a more generalizable framework for understanding the political and institutional foundations of effective and inclusive urban governance.