Urban Regimes and Citizenship: A Case Study for an Innovative Approach 

The project “Urban Regimes and Citizenship: A Case Study for an Innovative Approach” aimed firstly at understanding the key challenges of metropolitan governance and urban management linked to the mega-events in the Brazilian case, particularly in the context of the metropolitan area of the state of Rio de Janeiro, by using a double approach based on urban regimes and citizenship theories. In addition, a further objective of the project was to set up and test an innovative and targeted approach to citizenship education capable to be then exploited in other urban contexts. The overall achieved objectives of the project, corroborated by many scientific publications as outcomes, were:

1. Understanding the factors that led to the setting of certain urban regimes in the city of Rio de Janeiro and relapses on urban citizenship, in particular considering the dynamics of the mega-events.
2. Defining and experimenting a citizenship education module. 
3. Producing and incorporating theoretical, methodological and empirical elements constituting a model to appropriately read the metropolitan governance influencing the urban transformation process.

The research project is a success story since it elaborates a complex and multi-dimensional analysis of the urban evolution of Rio de Janeiro, elaborates innovative methodologies, research approaches and tools and tests and operationalizes a set of theoretical and conceptual approaches, mainly the urban regimes and the citizenship’s frameworks. The adoption of such a double approach (citizenship and urban regimes theories) has been indeed a groundbreaking result of the project in terms of scientific operationalization of two theories usually separate, and if combined, reveal significant potential.

The Swiss-Brazilian research groups have conducted fruitful cooperation for all the project lifetime moving along a multidisciplinary research-action work that conducted the elaboration of a rich database of qualitative data regarding the urban transformation characteristics and quantitative data on the evolution of social, political, demographic and institutional trends of Rio de Janeiro in the last two decades. 

The role of SNSF was pivotal for mainly two reasons: a) the project, due to the Brazilian economic crisis, had some delay in the beginning, and we received full support and collaboration to cope with this initial situation and to settle a fully productive track once started; b) in a couple of occasions, it so happened that it was somewhat necessary to amend the organisation of activities to get the occasion for more timely purposes and to better reach objectives, and SNSF has always been supportive and collaborative in this sense, showing the necessary flexibility.

This groundbreaking project originated and is originating, outstanding scientific results and networks. One highly visible impact is the book “The legacy of mega events. Urban and Citizenship Transformations in Rio de Janeiro” published by Springer. In the publication, “A favela epistemology” for the journal Sociologia Urbana e Rurale and is spread in many public events. A second profile stays on citizenship and education. The citizenship education module carried out was successfully tested. Moreover, thanks to three publications in high impact journals (“Citizenship Education as Key Driver for Social Development: A Case study in the City of Rio de Janeiro” in Journal of business and social science; “Uma experiência de educação para a cidadania na sociologia no ensino médio” on Perspectiva sociologica; “Social development through global citizenship education: the Brazilian case” on Intercultural Education journal https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2021.1893988), it is possible to elaborate and spread this innovative approach. The work on citizenship education and the research on urban regimes merged in the production of an educational and multipurpose video www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5qiR2bwXl0&t=9s based on interviews with actors and focuses on the legacy of mega events.

Further research facets on metropolization processes, on effects of financialization of the urban space, on comparative approach of urban models at a global scale, on the tension in citizenship dimensions that urban transformations raise, lead to enlarging of the research perspective (a publication condenses this scenario: “A Logistical World” https://www.ledizioni.it/prodotto/un-mondo-logistico/). Therefore, a specific lens on global events and citizenship has been elaborated to deepen the study of such dynamics. 

On a personal level, the project allowed to feed a fruitful and internationally recognised scientific stream merging mega-events and impacts on (urban) citizenship. The project is in effect still originating positive effects in terms of top rank publications.

Besides, it paved the way for further stimulating scientific liaisons, such as the one started with three universities in Buenos Aires and concretized in a project on the urban impact of Youth Olympics 2018; another project seizing the effects of Tokyo Olympics 2020 (staged 2021 due to pandemic) on urban citizenship’s dimensions; a further book “Mega-events, urban transformations and social citizenship: a multi-disciplinary analysis for an epistemological foresight” published by Routledge in beginning 2022.

The bilateral cooperation on this project was then fully satisfactory and intense, and we aim to be able to continue with further projects and joint initiatives on this path.