Sustaining collaboration in urban food strategies: a governance network analysis

Urban food strategies are considered instrumental for mobilising public, private, and civil society actors in collectively building more just and sustainable urban food systems. However, the governance dynamics that shape their capacity to sustain multi-actor collaboration remain underexplored. Adopting a governance network perspective, this paper examines the structural features, actor configurations, and quality of multi-actor interactions that influence the collaborative performance of urban food strategies. The analysis draws on an exploratory multiple case study of two mid-sized Spanish cities, Córdoba and Valladolid, with pioneering trajectories in participatory urban food policymaking. By combining social network analysis (SNA) with participant observation, the findings highlight that hybrid governance models supporting decentralised network structures, where steering is not solely dependent on public actors, may be better suited to sustain collaboration over time. Nevertheless, the development of such networks depends on the social embeddedness of urban food strategies, for which reciprocal, trust-based relations across actors are crucial. This condition is shaped by the strength of the local social infrastructure prior to their development, and the ability of strategically positioned actors to build trust and prevent fragmentation. As under-resourced domains, such as civil society, are particularly disadvantaged in the latter, measures for capacity- and network-building beyond formal urban food strategy frameworks may help distribute governance functions more evenly. Strengthening the ability for self-organisation in this way can potentially enhance the resilience and adaptability of urban food strategies in the face of changing political priorities around sustainability challenges.