"Structuring Global Urban Studies with Comparison" - by Patrick Le Galès

The comparative method is one of the distinctive features of the identity of our Centre, which is committed to pluralism in research methods in general, and in ways of comparing in particular. Part of this endeavour is The Routledge Handbook of Comparative Urban Studies , co-edited by Patrick Le Galès (CNRS Research Professor at the CEE) and Jennifer Robinson (Professor at UCL). It was published at the end of September 2023.

The book, targeted at an academic readership, brings together contributions from over 50 authors from almost every continent and from different fields of urban studies (anthropology, geography, history, political science, sociology and urban planning). It includes syntheses of the major comparative methodological traditions, both geographical and disciplinary, as well as chapters on innovative current projects.

The handbook is intended as a comprehensive overview, structuring the field of global urban studies through a variety of comparative approaches, both qualitative and quantitative, and encouraging methodological and scientific innovation. It is a plea for new forms of comparison and original methods that take into account both places, territorial social formations, circulations at different levels and connections, at a time when cities can no longer be thought of as independent units.

Contributors include Dominique Boullier , Professor Emeritus at the CEE, Christine Barwick , former postdoctoral researcher at the CEE, as well as Daniel Kübler and Michael Storper , both associate researchers with the CEE. Other academics associated with Sciences Po Urban School also contributed to the handbook, such as Laurent Fourchard from CERI.

Article written by Véronique Étienne for the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics of Sciences Po.