Urban Megaprojects and the Architecture of Competitive Authoritarianism

This book presents how urban megaprojects uniquely expose the complexities of competitive authoritarianism. Through an analysis of Skopje 2014, it argues that accelerated, symbolically charged urban transformation reveals how such regimes govern space, manage constraint, and assemble power through the intertwined dynamics of implementation, ideology, and resistance. The book offers conceptual and empirical tools to analyse urban megaprojects as windows into the inner workings of competitive authoritarian regimes. It employs a qualitative, process-tracing approach grounded in historical analysis and extensive empirical material. It reconstructs the emergence and implementation of Skopje 2014 through interviews, archival and secondary sources, media materials, and close observation of spatial transformation, triangulating evidence across different types of data to capture how authoritarian power operates over time and across arenas. By following Skopje 2014 across political decisions, spatial interventions, and moments of resistance, and by triangulating interviews, historical context, and empirical observation, the analysis makes visible forms of authoritarian coordination, constraint, and adaptation that are rarely captured through institutional or regime-level indicators, the book provides a detailed reconstruction of how an urban megaproject is conceived, implemented, justified, and contested over time. The book is intended for scholars and students in political science, sociology, and urban studies along with historians interested in the politics of urban space and long-term patterns of development. It will also be of interest to researchers and graduate students focusing on Southeastern Europe, comparative authoritarianism, and urban design politics, as well as policy analysts and practitioners concerned with urban governance and authoritarian politics.

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