Corporations and cities under distress: Organised business and ‘emergency’ governance in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa
通过南非纳尔逊·曼德拉湾在新冠疫情和干旱双重危机下的案例，研究私营部门如何参与城市紧急治理，并探讨法律框架对治理安排的影响。
This article considers private sector embroilment in urban governance under disaster/crisis conditions in cities of the developing world, paying particular attention to the role of law in structuring urban governance regimes. Through a case study detailing the changing relationship dynamics between organised business and the South African metropolitan municipality of Nelson Mandela Bay during a confluence of the Covid-19 pandemic and a debilitating drought, the article shows that crisis conditions can induce moments of civic solidarity between urban local governments and their non-state stakeholders, which might be leveraged to produce progressive ‘everyday’ urban governance arrangements. However, the incomplete consolidation of such an arrangement in Nelson Mandela Bay leads the article to consider the adequacy of the South African legal framework for urban governance, thereby highlighting how urban law may enable, stabilise and ensure accountability for ‘emergency’ urban governance.