The technical-political construction of metropolitan governance

This article aims to discuss a pertinent theory to the analysis of problems concerning metropolitan planning and management. It starts from the idea of “adaptive planning” (Clementino and Almeida, 2011) and from the concept of “mal público metropolitano” (public problems that spread over the metropolitan space) developed by Lacerda (2011) in the formulation of a collective action model for metropolitan areas. It proposes the inclusion of a new element in Matus’ (1996) “overall positive management balance” in order to analyze intergovernmental cooperation for the solution of common problems, particularly in Brazil, and to propose ways to solve the “mal público metropolitano”. The expectation is to contribute to the debate about urban and metropolitan governance in Latin America based on a new conception that is theoretically and methodologically supported by the concept of collective action, developed from systematization and from relevant and up-to-date literature.