Urban governance in general and partnerships in particular are commonly legitimized as being more efficient than traditional forms of government, whereas their relationship to democracy is only mentioned in passing or even neglected. In most of the literature a number of efficiency-related arguments in favour of the partnership approach are presented, although its alleged capacity to create synergetic effects for the partners normally ranks number one. Of course it is an empirical question, whether a partnership is efficient or not, but the point is that the efficiency rhetoric is strong enough to legitimize the creation of partnerships anyhow. Partnerships are more or less ascribed the function to solve any governance problem. Taking its point of departure in a theoretical discussion of partnerships and their role in urban governance, and using illustrations taken from recent empirical studies, the main aim of the paper is to develop a research strategy for cross-national/cross-country research on partnerships and urban governance. The paper concludes by discussing some policy implications of the growing role of partnerships in urban governance, high-lighting their so-far neglected relationship to democracy.
