Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal: Political Geography

Volume number: 78

ISSN: 0962-6298

eISSN: 1873-5096

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.102123

Publisher: Elsevier

Abstract: 
This article puts emphasis on the political representation of tramway projects in Casablanca, Morocco, and Jerusalem, Israel/the Palestinian territories. In this paper, we discuss both tramway projects as flagships of national worlding strategies that try to promote the respective city on global markets of attention, competing for international investors and tourists. As such, they are majorly driven by national political interests, fostering the hegemonic position of the central state in cooperation with private actors. The tramways are aimed at portraying modernity as well as political and economic stability, while aspiring to a supposed international urban world-class. At the same time, governments frame tramways as tools to promote socio-urban integration and to improve local transport systems. However, the paper shows that although governments are eager to stress the integrative role of tramways, they continue with violent politics of urban exclusion at the same time. Thus, the integrative wording behind tramway planning has to be understood against political (and economic) pressures to regain political legitimacy in a moment of crisis - both domestically and internationally. Consequently, the paper uses interview data and applies methods of discourse analysis to shed light on the worlding of tramways and its ambivalent practices of symbolic inclusion and exclusion.

Harvard Citation style: Beier, R. and Nolte, A. (2020) Global aspirations and local (dis-)connections: A critical comparative perspective on tramway projects in Casablanca and Jerusalem, Political Geography, 78, Article 102123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.102123

APA Citation style: Beier, R., & Nolte, A. (2020). Global aspirations and local (dis-)connections: A critical comparative perspective on tramway projects in Casablanca and Jerusalem. Political Geography. 78, Article 102123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.102123