Measuring Governance in Urban Innovation

The international political science literature is ambiguous on the point if the involvement of a plurality of external actors (citizens, economic and social groups, NGOs and CSOs, Universities and experts, different public authorities at the same or at different territorial level, etc.) in governance processes is an end in itself (because it increases democracy) or it is useful in order to achieve better results in the production of public goods. This article espouses the latter hypothesis and tries to understand if a governance perspective brings about a higher level of innovation in metropolitan areas. In order to test this hypothesis, two metrics are designed:. In measuring innovation, the ideas are that there are four dimensions in urban innovation (agenda innovation, process innovation, product innovation and innovative communication) and that a metropolitan city has to score high in most of them in order to be considered really innovative. As far as governance is concerned, the a...