#6/7 Radical Cities by engagée

What does it mean to be radical today?

Relocating Radical Democracy Theory

| Daniel Mullis

Radical Democracy and Municipal Movements. A conversation with Jeremy Gilbert

What Do Cities Have to Do with Democracy?

| Clive Barnett

Vom Recht auf Stadt zur radikalen Demokratie

| Jeremy Gilbert

Movement Parties: New Breed of Radical Democratic Politics?

| Marina Prentoulis, Lasse Thomassen

Praxis of Rebellion

Transformation findet Stadt: präfigurativ urban rebellieren

Täglicher Widerstand?

Von Freiräumen

| Paul Sörensen

| Team Sowieso, blackpenimages

| Miriam Nessler

Für ein konfrontatives Miteinander | Gabu Heindl

| Markus Wende, Marc Amann

Taking back the city

Eye to eye with freedom

Wimmelbild “Recht auf Stadt”

| Ne da(vi)mo Beograd - Don‘t let Belgrade d(r)own

| Luiza Margan

Theorizing Municipal Movements

Why is municipalism thriving?

[Un]settling the City

Against Radical Tourism. A conversation with Paolo Mossetti on Naples

Movements post-hegemony: how contemporary collective action transforms hegemonic politics

The circular horizon of municipal movements: Democracy, capital and radical politics

| Norma Tiedemann

| Friederike Landau, Nikolai Roskamm

III

| Paolo Mossetti

| Alexandros Kioupkiolis

| Alessio Kolioulis, Rahel Sophia Süß

Mapping Radical Cities Not fortresses but living rooms: How Cities of Shelter could work in the UK

Jenseits der neoliberalen Smart City: Commons und demokratische Alternativen

La Rèvolution Est en Marche. Challenging France’s Neoliberal Colonialism in Paris.

104

“City Air Makes You Free”. Urban Resistances And Counter Power in Bologna

108

STADT/ANDERS/MACHEN

110

Alternativer Zukünfte erfinden. Die munizipalistische Bewegung in Barcelona

115

Let me include you

121

| Pearl Ahrens

| Evgeny Morozov, Francesca Bria

III

| Cosimo Lisi

| Maurilio Pirone

| Anton Brokow-Loga, Gunnar Grandel

| Andreea Zelinka

| Zuzanna Zajac

engagée | 3

Po l i t i c a l A c t i v i s m A r t

M a g a z i n e B l o g

T h e o r y

é v e n t s

engagée M

it dem Anspruch analyti-

engagée ist theorieaffin und praxisvernarrt

engagée is a self-published journal for politi-

sche Schärfe und politische

und niemals verlegen, unterschiedliche

cal theory, activism and art, which promotes

Involviertheit zu verbinden,

Standpunkte zu verhandeln. Ziel ist es,

emancipatory practices and philosophical

erscheint engagée seit Mai 2015 2-mal

Bedeutungen zu verschieben und kriti-

interventions. The editorial process is open

jährlich als Printmagazin. Auf inhalt-

sche Öffentlichkeiten zu erzeugen, um

and collaborative and aims to connect politi-

licher Ebene werden gesellschaftliche

neue Denkweisen zu ermöglichen.

cal struggles and knowledge production. en-

Zusammenhänge reflektiert und emanzipatorische Perspektiven verhandelt. Auf organisatorischer Ebene wagt engagée mit der offenen Redaktion ein partizipatives Experiment jenseits bloßer Vernetzung.

Der Name des Magazins ist inspiriert von Jean-Paul Sartres Begriff littérature en-

gagée features also a blog and organises events where activists, researchers and artists meet.

gagée (dt. engagierte Literatur). engagée,

The aim of engagée is to foster and promote philo-

im Sinne von „immer schon in einer be-

sophical work that intends to make a constructive

stimmten gesellschaftlichen Situation en-

contribution to current political and social prob-

In Zeiten vermeintlicher Alternativlosig-

gagiert bzw. eingelassen sein“, hebt her-

lems. It does so by going beyond conventional

keit spürt engagée das Undenkbare auf.

vor, dass wir uns nicht einfach aus diesen

academic formats, avoiding a theory/practice

Als Experimentierfeld für gemeinsamen

Verhältnissen herausversetzen können.

divide and collecting different forms of contribu-

Gedankenaustausch ist engagée ein Raum

Der Untertitel „politisch-philosophische

tions such as philosophical essays, literature and

für kollektive und experimentelle Aus-

Einmischungen“ zielt auf das strategische

socially engaged art. engagée focuses on build-

drucksformen, die über das eigene Den-

Moment, das es notwendig braucht, um

ing international networks to share experiences,

ken hinaus versuchen, Veränderungen

Brüche und Diskontinuitäten mit dem

foster knowledge production and cooperation

anzustoßen.

Status quo herbeizuführen.

with local activist groups, researchers and artists.

Notes from é

Rebel Cities Radical Democracy

ities are a place of repression, injustice and exploitation. Within the neoliberal order, cities labelled as smart are often laboratories of policing and control, racial profiling and state violence. And yet, cities are also a prefigurative space for political struggles and emancipatory practices. From the anarchist tradition to the social movements of the 20th century, the urban may be seen as a field for interventions because of its interconnected nature and the possibilities of building autonomous networks. It is therefore not a surprise that today citizens, activists and politicians are reformulating an interest in urban and local governing. Throughout Europe and beyond, we observe new forms of government at the municipal and city level, which are experimenting with democratic practices and institutions. These initiatives tackle corporate power and increase access to common goods like water, energy, housing and healthcare. They also oppose privatisations, cuts in public services, the construction of physical and intangible borders and fight for digital sovereignty.

By combining the ideas of Radical Democracy and Rebel Cities, this first international double issue of engagée aims to introduce and elaborate the concept of “Radical Cities”.1 Thinking about the future of both urbanism and democracy, we ask: What do cities have to do with democracy? Different political initiatives by neo-municipalist movements and civic platforms use the term radical democracy to frame their activities. But what does radical democracy mean today? The programme of the radical theory of democracy can be briefly summarized as follows: democratic alternatives are possible and are necessary. This does not, however, tell us much about the practical effect of this theoretical tradition. Although the call for a new democratic horizon

1 Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture is a book by urbanist Justin McGuirk published by Verso in 2014. While the book explores the history of radical housing across a selection Latin America cities, there are no specific elaborations of the term Radical Cities in relation to radical democracy theory.

is ubiquitous, what is offered by certain existing radical theories of democracy seems rather timid. It remains unclear if these radical theories of democracy are anchored in people’s everyday practices and experiences, which we contend is necessary in order to provide adequate answers to the limits of the capitalist and neoliberal order, austerity politics, the upsurge of nationalist government and right-wing movements. Moreover, as the self-description of being a radical democrat seems to be missing we will ask:

How can a radical theory of democracy acquire political relevance under the present social conditions? If we agree that the radical theory of democracy cannot be left to a philosophical reflection, but must become practical – and spatial – in an experimental sense, how can we examine radical democracy as a critical and urban experimental activity? Do the current municipal movements serve as examples of an innovative and experimental spirit of democratic innovation, of the possibility of new radical democratic beginnings? Looking at the current forms of municipalism, existing literature often focuses on the celebration of successful stories, such as Naples, Barcelona, and Rojava. In this issue, however, we gathered through our network a different set of examples and took a different angle by asking:

To what extent municipal movements challenge the traditional notions of democracy, power and social change? What are the potentials and limits of their approaches and what are the obstacles that prevent the full realization of renewed radical democratic orders?

We rediscover that struggles for Radical Cities, as well as cities themselves, vary consistently. There is no “master plan” for municipalist movements, only local experiences and histories. At the same time, the issues tackled by these initiatives seem to respond to similar problems, with the shrinking space for democratic practices being an alarming common denominator. This is happening in Beograd, where finance-led regeneration projects meet a corrupted alliance of public and non-state actors, as well as in London, Paris or Bologna, where the demand for a municipal socialization of power challenge neoliberal forms of urban governance, at the basis of the social cleansing of popular areas of these cities. A growing democratic deficit is also coupled with the menace of basic needs in Southern European countries. If housing, healthcare, and economy break down, there seems to be a strong determination to build basic DIY social infrastructures. Naples is perhaps paradigmatic, given that social centres offer free breast screenings that would normally be provided by public hospitals, yet questions remain on the ability and the role of autonomous organisations in the provision of complex interventions at the scale and the quality needed. However, with this issue of engagée on Radical Cities we aim to highlight that, despite limits and deficits, municipal movements can be an example of, as protesters often chant, “this is how democracy looks like”. The term “Radical” marks a shift from the expression Rebel Cities. It indicates that municipal movements are engaging with an array of political experiments. Democratic tools and institutions are tested and adjusted to the demands of urban struggles that spread over cities.

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Relocating Radical Democracy Theory

engagĂŠe | 9

Radical Cities

What Do Cities Have to Do with Democracy? //Clive Barnett

ecent political events, such as the uprisings associated with the Arab Spring in 2011, the activism of indignados around the 15-M movement in Spain and the emergence of Occupy activism in cities across the world, have prompted arguments about the importance of space, place and (perhaps above all) the city as an arena of political action (Ghannam, 2011; Swyngedouw, 2011; Critchley, 2012; Harvey, 2012; Thomassen, 2012). These discussions continue to work through a longstanding intuition that cities are important crucibles for radical democratic expression, an intuition only heightened by the observation that increasing numbers of people now live in urban areas (Brenner, 2009). What is notable about each of these cases, however, is the degree to which they take place in cities without limiting their political demands to urban issues, narrowly conceived, nor addressing only urban-scale institutions as the objects of those demands. The question addressed here is whether contemporary urban theory is adequately configured to analyse and understand this relationship between the contemporary politics of democratization and the contemporary politics of urbanization. I argue that in fundamental respects it is not, and suggest that an engagement with normative political theory that has tended to focus on ‘global’ scales might well enhance the capacity of urbanists to better grasp this relationship — not least by helping to de-compose ‘the urban’ into a set of analytically distinct dimensions of political action. The next section outlines the case for thinking about the relationship between urbanization and democracy in new ways, through a critical reading of existing approaches to this question. It identifies a persistent tendency in urban theory to avoid sustained engagement with normative theories of democracy. It is here that my own argument starts. The third section explores the tension between thinking of the normativity of democratic politics as either foundational or strategic, arguing that practices of justification are important aspects of social practices which help to explain why particular senses of injustice matter to people, and draws out the spatial implications of this argument. The fourth section shows how the transformation of the principle of all-affected interests by critical theorists of deliberative democracy opens a space for considering the generative force of urbanization in animating democratic contention. The final section then sets out how the transformation of this principle presages an agenda for developing a geographically sensitive investigation of the variable roles played by urban processes in shaping the geographies of contemporary democratic agency. The main claim of the argument here is that understandings of the relationship between contemporary urbanization and the prospects of radical democracy can be usefully informed by post-Habermasian critical theory and its distinctive treatment of questions of democracy, justice and participation. The spatial ‘pay-off ’ from engaging more fully with this tradition comes from attending closely to the importance of the concept of all-affected interests as a worldly norm of democratic critique. More precisely, I argue that ‘the urban’ can be creatively recon-

ceptualized as playing multiple roles in assembling potential and actual communities of affected interest around which democratic energies are organized. It follows that urban processes might be more important to contemporary radical democratic politics than is often acknowledged, but that ‘the city’ is not necessarily the key stake nor site for such politics.

Democracy in radical urban theory Recent research on urban politics has been marked by a sustained interest in theorizing the normative supports for thinking of urban spaces as sites of democratic possibility. This is most evident in the burgeoning literature on ‘the right to the city’ (Dikeç and Gilbert, 2002; McCann, 2002; Purcell, 2002; Parnell and Pieterse, 2010) and ‘the just city’ (Marcuse et al., 2009). This work often converges with arguments about urban democracy (Amin and Thrift, 2002), the ‘good city’ (Amin, 2006), the emancipatory city (Lees, 2004) and ‘spatial justice’(Soja, 2010). Democracy provides the rallying call of even the most radical of geographical analyses of neoliberalizing accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2003). The absence of democratic politics is increasingly recognized as a key factor in the reproduction of social injustice and inequality, and the exposure of vulnerable or marginalized groups to serious harm (Ettlinger, 2007). At a more abstract theoretical level, styles of spatialized ontology have opened up new understandings of ‘the political’ (Massey, 2005), and drawn spatial theorists into debates informed by a distinctive strand of contemporary political theory that focuses on the dissensual aspects of democracy understood as an ethos of contestation (Dikeç, 2007; Featherstone, 2008). Engagement with democratic theory in spatial disciplines such as human geography, urban studies and urban and regional planning has been framed by a contrast between the consensual orientations of deliberative democrats on the one hand, and the worldlier perspectives provided by post-structuralist theories of radical democracy and agonistic pluralism on the other (Purcell, 2007). Debates around communicative planning best exemplify this framing, in which the communicative paradigm is found to be inadequately attuned to the operations of ‘power’ (see Campbell and Marshall, 2006). On the one hand, agonistic approaches define democracy in a one-sided way, in so far as they reserve democratic energies for the contestation of identities and hegemonies (see Karagiannis and Wagner, 2008). By contrast, the defining issue for critical theorists of deliberative democracy is how to conceptualize the relationship between the identities, issues and opinions generated in agonistic public action, and the institutionalized exercise of legitimate power (see Cohen and Fung, 2004: 28–31). Both sides of the democratic problematic — contestation and legitimate concerted action — are kept in view by the tradition of critical theory that underwrites contemporary theories of deliberative democracy, and its offshoots such as ‘communicative democracy’ and ‘discursive democracy’ (see Scheuerman, 2006).

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The idea of a critical theory of democracy is guided by two related criteria: identifying emancipatory possibilities which approach accepted standards of normative legitimacy; and identifying emancipatory possibilities which approach a minimum threshold of political efficacy (see Fraser, 2008). Settled conceptualizations of the spaces in which both these criteria might be practically realized have been undermined: it has become difficult to maintain a presumption that the demos in which questions of legitimacy are settled is or should be equivalent to a national public; and it has become equally difficult to maintain that the sole agent of legitimate will-formation and decision is or should be the nation state. Amongst critical theorists, these theoretical and empirical issues have been addressed primarily through debates about cosmopolitanism and transnational justice (see Delanty, 2009).

In order to further develop the potential of this tradition for thinking about the relationship of democracy and urbanization, it would be necessary to acknowledge the importance of contestation in critical theories of deliberative, discursive and communicative democracy (Barnett, 2011b). It is also necessary to acknowledge that critical theory has moved on from the Frankfurt School’s epistemic model of the critique of instrumental reason (cf. Brenner, 2009). It has been transformed, via Habermas’ theory of communicative action, into a fully blown critical theory of democracy and the public sphere. In this move, critical theory is reconfigured around a distinctive variant of the democratic norm according to which all those whose interests are potentially affected by a decision should have a say in the shaping of that decision — the so-called all-affected principle (Benhabib, 1992; Habermas, 1996). In short, the potential of critical theory to inform an analysis of the relationship between urbanization and democracy lies in the further consideration of the urbanized geographies of affectedness through which democratic contention is generated, disseminated and institutionalized. The all-affected principle is central, although unthematized, in arguments that processes of globalization require us to rethink the political geographies of democracy both ‘above’ and ‘below’ the level of the nation-state. For example, Amin et al. (2005) argue that there is a need to respatialize the democratic imagination to match the scope and complexity of globalized interactions. The implicit claim is that current practices of representative democracy exclude

some affected persons from decision-making in so far as these practices are still imagined and institutionalized as territorialized at the scale of the nation state. Whilst co-authoring a call to re-spatialize democracy that seems to invoke an extension of the all-affected principle, Amin and Thrift (2002) and Massey (2007) have also made detailed cases for how and why urban spaces remain crucial scenes of democratic potential. These arguments draw on networked and topological understandings of the role of cities in gathering together, coordinating and configuring globalized and transnational flows of people, goods and ideas. Neo-Marxist explanations of neoliberal urbanization provide the clearest account of how the globalization of economic dynamics of accumulation is internally related to an intensification of various sorts of urbanized contention. In these accounts, the ‘hollowing-out’ of state capacities at the national level has been undertaken through the progressive rescaling of various governance, welfare and accumulation capacities to the level of the city region (Swyngedouw, 2000; Brenner, 2004). It is argued that this rescaling is internally related to an increasingly unstable dynamic of accumulation that is expressed through ever accelerating rounds of creative destruction of the urban built environment. The contradictions of neoliberalizing capitalism as a regime of accumulation and mode of governance are therefore increasingly concentrated in the rhythms and spaces of urban life itself (Harvey, 2008). The neo-Marxist analysis of urban neoliberalism provides the theoretical frame for the growing interest in the concept of ‘the right to the city’, an idea originated by Henri Lefebvre (1996). One step in the development of this concept has been the argument that injustice is being increasingly urbanized (Merrifield and Swyngedouw, 1995). The argument is that more and more political contention is generated by the deepening dependence of social reproduction on urban infrastructures, through which state capacity and the logics of accumulation reach into everyday life. The notion of ‘the right to the city’ supposes that there is a cluster of activities that count as ‘urban politics’, not just because they take place in particular places — cities — but because they revolve around urbanized issues of contention (the concentrated material conditions of social reproduction) and distinctively urbanized value-claims: the right to certain minimal standards of habitability or ‘inhabitance’ (Purcell, 2007). The right to the city literature therefore makes two significant contributions to understanding the urbanized dynamics of contemporary democratic politics. First, it provides a clear account of how a great deal of urban politics articulates with processes of national, transnational and global reach. Second, it alights upon and elaborates

the substantive, distinctively spatial, content of the norms shaping contentious urban politics around the world that are increasingly gathered under the heading ‘rights to the city’ movement — spatial elements relating to claims about dispossession, access, habitability, privacy and publicity, and so on.

The ostensible normative focus of the ‘rights to the city’ analysis of the politics of neoliberal rescaling of capital accumulation and governance tends to be on claims about rights, equality and social justice. However, as already noted, theorists of hegemonic neoliberalism increasingly argue that ‘democracy’ is the key principle of contestation to globalized neoliberal urbanization (Purcell, 2007; Swyngedouw, 2009). In trying to relate observed patterns of dispossession, exclusion, exploitation or inequality to the specific value of democracy, an unacknowledged appeal is made in radical analyses of urban politics to the principle of all-affected interests. The all-affected principle is implicit in the attempt to connect these concerns to the specifically democratic problem of who should be included in decision-making processes and how. The principle is present in at least two ways. First, the ‘right to the city’ literature draws on a theoretical paradigm which simultaneously explains how certain key decision-making processes (particularly over welfare provision and labour market regulation) are being relocated to the level of urban and regional governance structures while excluding those subject to these processes. Second, this strand of urban analysis presumes that the impact of globalizing neoliberalism is increasingly affecting people located in cities, through the impact that these processes have on a range of urbanized infrastructures of care, education, housing, land markets, water and welfare. If the all-affected interest principle is implicit in the critical postures of radical urban theory, it is not explicitly thematized as providing a ‘normative support’ for these critical positions (cf. Boltanski, 2011: 31). Whether or not such a support is required is open to debate (see Olson and Sayer, 2009; Barnett, 2011a). It might be claimed that the normative values of justice, equality or emancipation which provide the animating core of the sorts of politics analysed by theorists of ‘the right to the city’ or ‘spatial justice’ are immanent to the arenas of contestation being investigated (see Barnett, 2011a). But by adhering so closely to the terms of critique deployed by actors involved

in struggles for social justice or democratic equality themselves, while abjuring itself from the task of normative justification, radical urban theory risks misrepresenting the normative vocabulary of these sorts of struggles as merely instrumental contrivances. In order to negotiate a path between the demand for robust foundations for the normative stance of critical social science and the merely elective alignment with the concerns of subaltern movements, my argument here seeks to relocate the force of normativity squarely in the world. It does so in order to elaborate a programme for the analysis of the formation of democratic contention through varied ‘moral grammars’ of claims-making. The first step in this argument, to which we now turn, is to recognize the place of normative practices of justification, broadly conceived, in the emergence of political action aimed at addressing injustice.

Relocating normativity in radical social theory The flourishing of normative vocabulary in recent urban research remains bound by a particular understanding of just what ‘normative’ values are able to do for social scientific analysis. It is not that radical urban theory suffers from a lack of criteria for guiding judgements of what is and is not ‘democratic’. As we saw in the previous section, the ‘right to the city’ idea has been made central to an assertive claim about urban politics having a global importance in driving radical democratic possibilities in the contemporary conjuncture. For Harvey (2008), the struggle against the hegemony of finance capital should be centred on the ‘right to the city’ idea, since the inherent dynamic for the overaccumulation of capital finds its unstable resolution in the financialized recycling of capital surpluses into the creative destruction of urban environments. However, Harvey situates ‘the right to the city’ as a merely strategic device — as a ‘slogan’ and an ‘ideal’ — for achieving the singular focus of a unified confrontation with the global dominance of finance capital; more recently, as an ‘empty signifier’ which may or may not be articulated in a revolutionary direction (Harvey, 2012). He worries that contemporary urban politics lacks this unifying focus (see Harvey, 2009). Harvey deduces the need for a singular strategic focus around class struggle by conflating the generality of capitalist social relations with the universality of class as a transcendent principle of equivalence (see Young, 1998). The presumption is that contentious urban politics can and should converge on a single unified focus of global struggle, and that the principle of this universalization (i.e. class) can be decided upon through the abstract theoretical deductions of Marxist theories of capital accu-

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mulation and the production of space. The presumption is indicative of an imbalance between diagnostic critique and normative reconstruction (Wright, 2006), an imbalance that characterizes radical spatial theory more broadly (Sayer, 1995). Of course, not all radical urban theory holds to the centrality accorded to class in Harvey’s account of the right to the city, affirming instead a plurality of identities and issues around which emancipatory politics can and does form. However, the radical contextualism of poststructuralist cultural theory which informs more pluralistic strands of radical urban theory, with its suspicion of universalist rationality as a ruse of power, means that this affirmation stops short of any significant critical engagement with the normative claims enacted by different axes of contentious politics. Radical urban theory’s normative turn remains rather reluctant to venture too far into the territory of philosophical arguments about the validity or justification of this or that value. Until recently, the right to the city literature has deferred any serious treatment of the meaning and value of rights per se (see Attoh, 2011); radical urbanists remain intensely suspicious of the normative dimensions of this idea (Merrifield, 2011). The prevalent conceptualization of neoliberalism reiterates a standard Marxian genealogy in which rights are presumptively regarded as inherently ‘bourgeois’, and complicit with individualization and privatization (see Harvey, 2003). The related literature on the ‘post-political’ and ‘post-democratic city’ (Swyngedouw, 2007) can do no more than invoke ahistorical ontologized ideals about what democratic politics should be like in order to determine that, in reality, it does not accord to these ideals. By restricting itself to a view of normative principles as either ‘slogans’ or ‘ideals’, radical urban theory’s suspicion of normative theorizing (see Katznelson, 1995) leaves it ill-equipped to analyse the constitutive role of the ‘things that matter to people’ (Sayer, 2011) in shaping the terms of democratic contention. But the appropriate response to this normative reticence is not to simply spell out one’s own preferred list of foundational commitments (Olson and Sayer, 2009). As already suggested, one of the strengths of the ‘right to the city’ literature is the sense that normative values are emergent from contentious politics. What radical urban theory lacks is not so much robust normative foundations, but rather an adequate account of the worldliness of normative values. To further conceptualize the relationship between urbanization and democratic politics, it might be helpful to take a lead from styles of social theory that focus on the irreducible role of normative practices in the everyday coordination of human practices (Boltanski and

Thévenot, 2000; Bridge, 2004; Sayer, 2005; Tilly, 2006; Smith, 2009; Stark, 2009). In this range of social theory, practices of justification are understood both as a means through which action is coordinated, but more than this, social conflict is understood to take place between and across different registers of justification (see Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005). On the one hand, such work leads us to approach the normative models developed in political philosophy instrumentally. We might now think of these models not so much as foundations for social theory, but instead as highly formalized models of the ordinary grammars of justification which are dynamic aspects of social practices (see Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006). On the other hand, this work points towards an analysis of the moral grammars of conflict that emerge from situated experiences of harm, disrespect and misrecognition (Honneth, 1995). And in both respects, this strain of social theory converges with a broader movement that affirms the priority of injustice in thinking about radical political potential, that is, which sees movements for justice as arising from situated felt experiences of injustice (Bernstein, 2005; Sen, 2009).

To further develop the argument that the relationship between urbanization and democracy can be understood in terms of the situated generation and articulation of varied experiences of injustice, the next section focuses on the ‘geographical turn’ in recent post-Habermasian critical theories of democracy. There are two aspects of this literature that are particularly relevant. First, drawing critically on Habermas’ (1996) refashioning of democratic legitimacy in a communicative register, this literature redefines the all-affected principle as an expansive communicative-affective register for the articulation of contentious political claims, rather than as causal criterion of inclusion. In this move, critical theories of democracy bring into view the variable norms through which claims of affectedness are expressed in the course of ongoing political contention. Second, in thinking of normative values as immanent and emergent aspects of contentious politics, post-Habermasian critical theory repositions the task of critique in a more modest relation to the actual dynamics of political contention. It is not assumed that political action requires normative foundations to get off the ground. But it is assumed that critical reflection can reconstruct and elaborate the intuitions animating various conflicts and contestations, and raise the question of their legitimacy (see Cooke, 2006).

The next section elaborates on the relevance of this double relocation of the force of normative values as emergent qualities of contentious politics for the analysis of the urban/democracy nexus; the fifth section after the next then demonstrates how a refashioned understanding of the all-affected interests principle can inform a reconceptualization of the urban dimensions of contemporary democratic energies.

Rethinking the geographies of affectedness Long central to political theory debates about the so-called boundary problem of defining the demos (see Goodin, 2007), the all-affected interests principle seems to be inherently geographical. The most obvious implication of the all-affected idea seems to be that the spatial scope of democratic universalism should be extended beyond the boundaries of nation states within which it has conventionally been contained (Held, 1995). We saw in the previous section that this principle is implicit but unacknowledged in the arguments of geographers and urban theorists that democratic theory needs to be respatialized. In these disciplinary fields, however, as well as in the literature on global justice, the implicit sense of the all-affected idea as a causal principle is tied to the presumption that social science can serve a diagnostic role in tracking chains of consequences, thereby helping to imagine the ‘re-districting’ of the demos of contemporary globalized politics (Shapiro, 1999). This presumption installs social science as the monological authority on determining universal values, an authority which critical theorists of democracy are keen to challenge (Fraser, 2008: 27–9). Taking this concern seriously should lead us to resist the immediate embrace of the all-affected principle as having straightforwardly geographical purchase. In theories of deliberative democracy, the all-affected interest principle of democratic inclusion is, via Habermas’s discourse ethics, translated into a critical principle of inclusive communicative action. According to this principle, normatively acceptable legitimate decisions are those which meet with the agreement of all-affected parties who have the opportunity of subjecting them to critical debate and discussion (Habermas, 1996: 107). The translation of the all-affected principle into a communicative register implies that the spaces through which democratic legitimacy are articulated and contested are contingent on the geographies of participation and representation in communicative practices (see Barnett and Bridge, 2013). This

section outlines two important consequences for how we think about the geography of democratization which follow from the translation of the principle of affected interest into a communicative register in post-Habermasian theories of democracy. The first consequence pertains to how we think about the geographies of the all-affected principle. Applying the all-affected principle might in theory extend the scope of any potential demos beyond territorial limits, by drawing into view the extensive reach of various causal processes. However, calling into question the strongly causal interpretation of the principle brings into view the importance of situated contexts to sustaining democratic politics. The strictly causal application of the all-affected principle which underlies many discussions of global cosmopolitan democracy and global egalitarian justice is undermined by thinking of the consequences of global processes in terms of ‘interdependence via indefinite social activity’. As Bohman (2007: 24, original emphasis) puts it, ‘global activities do not necessarily affect everyone, or even the majority of people, in the same way. Rather, the sort of social activities in question affect indefinite numbers of people’. This means that affected actors cannot be so easily individuated as is sometimes supposed by social science invocations of the all-affected principle. In Bohman’s version of critical theory, informed by American pragmatism, affectedness is understood as a condition that combines situated responses with a movement towards universalism (see Benhabib, 1992). In short, affectedness is no longer thought of as a straightforwardly causal criterion. Rather, it is understood as an attribute that is worked out communicatively in situated contexts of reciprocal perspective-taking. And once located within the orbit of a theory of communicative action, then the principle is also pluralized with reference to the different ‘sources’ of injustice and indignation. The shift amongst post-Habermasian critical theorists from a strongly epistemological understanding of rationality, towards a more expansive sense of the communicative and affective conditions of experiences of disrespect, harm, humiliation, injury and injustice (Young, 2001; O’Neill, 2002; Honneth, 2007), underlies an analytical concern with tracking the phenomenologies of injustice out of which democratic agency emerges (see Moore, 1978). Once the emphasis in contemporary critical theory on communicative action as a medium of democratic political agency is drawn out, then two important dimensions of the situations out of which grievances emerge, are recognized and mobilized around come into view. First, the translation of the all-affected principle into a communicative register implies a methodological focus on the dynamic role of contestation in democratization processes engagée | 15

— that is, a focus on the situated contexts in which the ‘cognitive potential’ for intuitive senses of ‘justice violated’ to be recognized and acted upon is realized in and through the articulation of political claims (see Honneth, 1995). Second, understanding these contestatory processes of claims-making also requires an analysis of the situated contexts in which capacities to develop solidaristic identifications and acknowledge and act upon the claims of others are learned. In short, place-making practices might be more important conditions of possibility for spatially extensive practices of democratic contention than is normally acknowledged by political theorists of global justice or transnational democracy. The first consequence of the communicative transformation of the all-affected principle is, then, to challenge a strongly causal interpretation that only underlies the ‘methodological globalism’ of debates about cosmopolitan democracy. In so far as the conceptual extension of the all-affected principle rests on the sense that the scope of communicative action has expanded beyond territorial enclosures, then this conceptual extension simultaneously requires a heightened concern for the situated contexts of social integration through which communicative capacities are worked up (Bridge, 2000; Calhoun, 2007). The second consequence of the translation of the principle of affected interest in post-Habermasian critical theory pertains more directly to the issue of how we understand normative values to circulate in the world. The all-affected principle should be thought of less as an adjudicating criterion, and more as a worldly normative force generating political claims which draw on values of equal moral worth. On this view, the all-affected idea is understood as providing a register for making prima facie claims of inclusion (see Dahl, 1970). This interpretation alerts us to the importance of investigating the ways in which this principle is practically deployed as a resource in ongoing democratic contention. It is this aspect of the principle which is developed by critical theorists of democracy. So, for example, Nancy Fraser (2008: 25) argues that transnational activists are now applying the all-affected principle directly to the framing of justice claims ‘without going through the detour of state-territoriality’. They do so by engaging in the contestatory politics of representation which seeks to reframe the geographical scales at which the subjects, objects and agents of justice claims are articulated together. The same sense of affectedness as a register of claims-making is evident in the work of Iris Marion Young. Young’s (2000: 5–6) account of ‘communicative democracy’ is framed by a norm of inclusion according to which ‘[t]he normative legitimacy of a democratic decision depends on the degree to which those affected by

it have been included in the decision-making process and have had the opportunity to influence the outcomes’. The emphasis here on being affected by decisions is related to an understanding in which ‘calls for inclusion arise from experiences of exclusion’ (ibid.: 6) — from rights regimes, participatory forums or public debates. It is this emphasis on normative values as registers of claims-making that is the distinctive mark of the critical-theoretic approach to democratic theorizing. This section has argued that the reformulation of the all-affected principle in a communicative action-theoretic register implies that the spaces of democratic politics are contingent on inclusion and participation in effective communicative practices. Two aspects of this translation of the all-affected principle have been emphasized. First, a lesson for critical theory from spatial disciplines is that affectedness should not be interpreted as a straightforward warrant for a type of ‘methodological globalism’ that presumes that the emplaced contexts of social integration — cities, nations, places — have lost their empirical significance or normative legitimacy as ‘containers’ of democratizing energies. Second, and this is a lesson for spatial theory from critical theorists of democracy, the translation of the affected interest principle into a register of claims-making requires a methodological focus on the variable enactment of affectedness through plural normative registers of injustice. These two ‘methodological’ consequences of translating the all-affected interest idea into a deliberative norm — thinking of affectedness as an attribute constructed in situated communicative contexts, and thinking of affectedness as a register of contestatory claims-making — combine to suggest an analysis of the contingent spatialities though which democratic agency is articulated. In relation to the question of what cities might have to do with democracy, these two consequences suggest that the answer is ‘it depends’. More specifically, it depends on the variable roles that urban processes might play in the generation, recognition and resolution of political contention.

Applying these methodological lessons to the field of urban studies suggests that analysis of the democratic potentials of urban politics should be reoriented around the investigation of the multiple forms of agency which urbanized processes might perform in generating, recognizing and acting upon issues of shared concern. Spatial theorists have become highly adept at theorizing the ways in which different spatio-temporal configu-

rations of action enact distinctive forms of power (Allen, 2009). But less attention has been paid to the extent to which different forms of power unfold through the enactment of different types of normative claim — claims for equality, claims for inclusion, claims for fairness, claims for redress, claims for accountability, and so on. The translation of the all-affected principle in contemporary critical theory can provide resources for supplementing the description of the spatial pluralism of contentious political claims-making (Boudreau, 2007; Leitner et al., 2008) with an analytic attention on the enactment of legitimacy claims through which emergent political formations unfold and extend themselves. The next section outlines a conceptual framework for pursuing this type of analysis.

Assembling communities of the affected Following Cochrane’s (2007) genealogy of urban policy, the approach adopted here is to theorize the concerns of urban politics ordinarily, by acknowledging the family resemblances between various types of ‘political’ problematization in which the urban comes into the foreground. Rather than seeking a singular definition of the urban, a virtue should be made of the fact that different intellectual traditions focus upon different understandings of the urban in order to make the case for thinking of ‘the city’ as a potential scene for democratic politics. Sometimes it is the idea of the city as an arena of capital accumulation and social reproduction (Harvey, 2012); sometimes it is the idea of the city as an expanded public space, in which patterns of social interaction provide the opportunities for addressing strangers over matters of pressing shared concern, leading to a view of the city as the privileged figure for a self-governing political community (Magnusson, 2011); sometimes it is the idea of the city as jurisdictional scale, a seat of government or a field of governance (Davies and Imbroscio, 2009). In light of the argument developed in the previous two sections about the centrality of the all-affected interests idea in animating democratic contention, these three emphases in urban studies literature can be mapped onto an analytical distinction between three aspects of affectedness. These three aspects correspond with three aspects of affectedness which Dewey (1927) elaborated in his account of the formation of democratic publics through an expanded sense of affected interest: an aspect of being affected by in a causal sense; an aspect of identification, or of ‘learning to be affected’; and an aspect of agency, of being able to act in concert. We might think of these as three rationalities of urbanized contention.

Being affected by urbanization Under the first aspect of affectedness, urbanization is understood as generative of particular objects of contention or intervention. Examples of urbanized political contention generated by actors recognizing their status as being equally affected abound in the urban studies literature. In the classical Marxist analysis of urban politics, for example, the shared interest through which political solidarities are formed arises from actors being spatially configured as equally affected by certain authoritative processes — decisions around investment of surplus capital, or decisions around the management and distribution of welfare goods and services (Castells, 1983; Harvey, 1985). Under this description, democratic contention is generated by urbanization processes, but is not necessarily contained in cities or urban places, in so far as urbanization processes have an impact upon non-urban politics through land markets, resource conflicts or migration patterns. Of course, there is nothing automatic about the emergence of contentious politics from ‘objective’ conditions of exploitation, dispossession, or domination. As Marres (2005) argues, being affected by some process is not enough, in itself, to account for the emergence of contention as an issue of shared concern into the public realm. These conditions need to be made into issues. So, while the dynamics of urban development can produce the conditions for the emergence of a politics of claims-making in which the intuitive sense of all affected — that people affected by actions should have a say in their formulation — we need to move on from this sort of explanatory account of urbanization as a political-economic process generative of objects of contention, towards a sense of the urban as a communicative milieu in which issues of shared public concern emerge as topics of public debate, deliberation and dispute.

Learning to be affected If urban dynamics, theorized under one description, generate potential issues of contention, then urbanized infrastructures and patterns of interaction also provide a distinctive medium for practices of opinion formation and political subjectification. This aspect of affectedness is particularly important, given the emphasis discussed in the third section of this article on situated ‘lifeworld’ contexts in which capacities to be affected are cultivated. It is these contexts of social integration that make possible the identifications with spatially and temporally extensive indirect consequences. There is of course a longstanding tradition of presenting urban space as the privileged stage for the

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formation of publics. In geography and urban studies, the emphasis tends to be upon the spectacular dramaturgy of street protest and confrontational forms of mobilization. While this tradition succeeds in foregrounding the importance of claims-making as an important dimension of political contention, it tends to underplay the necessarily representative dimension of claims-making (see also Dean and Jones, 2012; Saward, 2012) and thereby misconstrue the spatiality of political claims-making by over-emphasizing the spaces of co-presence of exemplary urban locations of protest. If, by contrast, we recognize the open-ended geographies of address through which claims-making constitutes public communicative spaces (Ivesen, 2007), then two important issues come into view. First, dramatic urban communicative events draw on, are embedded in and work over the ordinary communicative routines of urban life. As Bridge (2005: 104) puts it, ‘there are modes of communication in more fluid spaces of the city in which public building activities go unremarked’. Second, the audience, intended or otherwise, for such events is rarely if ever contained within ‘physical’ urban space itself, in so far as such events are usually aimed at attracting certain sorts of mediated attention. Assembling communities of affected interest can be see to be related to distinctive communicative aspects of contemporary urbanization and urbanism in at least two respects. First, urbanism ‘as a way of life’ provides a background against which ordinary capacities to be affected by indirect consequences are worked up and maintained. The distinctive rhythms and routines of dynamic interaction characteristic of urbanism, the focus of culturalist traditions going back to Simmel, Park and others, are important mediums shaping the capacities to be affected which are crucial to understanding the variable formation of publics around issues of shared concern (Lopes de Souza and Lipietz, 2011). Second, the uneven urbanization of global governance and corporate control functions provokes particular styles of network organization and coordination through which transnational publics of affected interest have developed (Sassen, 2008). In both cases, while aspects of urban processes provide important resources for contentious politics and claims-making, in neither case does mobilization in and through the communicative mediums of urban environments necessarily involve claims being addressed to city governments or urban-regional state agencies. The question of whether the urban is or should be thought of as an effective agent of concerted will-formation, the third aspect of affectedness we are considering, turns out not to follow naturally from the observation that lots of politics is urban under either of the first two aspects of urbanization considered so far.

Affecting change in and through cities A crucial aspect of the formation of democratic publics, from the Deweyian perspective on affectedness that informs deliberative and discursive theories of democratic politics, is the formation of effective agency to act on issues of shared concern (see Barnett and Bridge, 2013). We have seen above that urbanization might be usefully thought to generate objects of political contention, and urbanism and urbanization also provide communicative backgrounds that enable objective conditions to emerge as issues of shared concern. However, there is much more doubt over whether the claims for justice, rights or redress that are articulated through these urbanized mediums are necessarily directed at urban-scaled sites of authoritative decision-making. Conventionally, theories of urban politics have depended on the idea that the city or the local state is an effective territorial power-container through which public action is coordinated through the agency of the state. The fact that so much contentious politics, while often emergent from urbanized processes and coordinated through urbanized communicative fields, continues to be addressed to national and increasingly global and transnational actors is indicative of the degree to which the agents of contentious politics recognize that effective authority is not necessarily located in cities at all, but either in longstanding territorial forms or in networked configurations. In short, if we keep in view the sense that conceptualizing democracy requires an account both of legitimacy and efficacy (see Fraser, 2008), then the question of whether the city should be considered a privileged site for the redress of felt injustice or a site of democratic action remains very much an empirically open question (see Low, 2004; Purcell, 2006).

However, if ‘the city’ is not always or necessarily an agent of collective will-formation in the ways that urban theorists would often want it to be, then nevertheless there are at least two important senses in which the urban is currently being reconfigured as a political agent. First, from discussions of climate change all the way through to discussions of ‘obesogenic environments’, the patterns and rhythms of urban built environments are identified in technocratic-administrative discourses as generating various problems requiring concerted policy interventions. In these fields, people are identified as being detrimentally affected by urban living in ways that

escape their own volition or cognition, generating aggregate outcomes that require the reconfiguration of soft and hard urban infrastructures (Berlant, 2005). At the same time, the aspect of urban politics relating to capacities to be affected is increasingly being reconfigured towards various anticipatory logics, for example in programmes of urban resilience or urban ecological security (Crang and Graham, 2007; Hodson and Marvin, 2009). In this sort of urban politics, the route of public formation which passes from being affected to recognizing and then acting upon this recognition is short-circuited with expert interventions made by ‘choice architects’ in the name of public health, security, wellbeing, public order or happiness, interventions which depend on technologies such as social marketing or urban design. If, on the one hand, the ‘behaviouralist’ problematization of urbanization raises questions about the de-democratization of the dynamics of affectedness, then at the same time various practices of alternative urbanism seek to reconfigure the relations between being affected, affective learning and affecting change in new and creative ways. For example, there is a family of experimental political forms which are configuring the urban as an agent of political transformation beyond narrowly governmental functions in response to paradigmatically ‘global’ problems: to adjust to impending ‘peak oil’ crises and adopt ‘low carbon’ practices in the case of the transition towns movement (Seyfang and Smith, 2007); to contribute to trade justice campaigns in the case of the fair trade cities movement (Malpass et al., 2007); or to develop alternative cultures of consumption in the case of the slow cities movement (Knox, 2005). In all three of these cases, the built form of towns and cities, as material configurations of infrastructures which sustain specific practices, is certainly identified as a key agent of behaviour change, not only by acting behind people’s backs but also by configuring the everyday spaces of urban life and work as communicative spaces of public education and mobilization.

These new problematizations of the urban provoke their own questions about the democratic potential of new modes of urban politics. Amin and Thrift (2005) call this range of issues the silent politics of place, by which they intend to draw attention to the myriad ways in which forms of mundane governance are embedded as background in the infrastructures of urbanized living. They argue that these backgrounds should be brought into the open so that we might better understand the conditions which configure the experiences through which any felt sense of domination is made possible. A fundamental challenge for spatial theorists in addressing this type of politics is to develop non-reductive accounts of re-

lationships between being affected, learning to be affected and affecting change which can throw light upon how and when such ‘backgrounding’ processes generate felt senses of harm and injustice that are expressed in political action (see Barnett, 2008). This section has identified three aspects of affectedness — as generative of objects of contention, as a communicative medium and as an agent of effective action. These three aspects are not open to a neat theoretical synthesis. The purpose in proposing this analytical distinction has not been to offer a new ontology of the urban. Far from it, it has been to re-present three strands of urban theory in terms of the aspects of affectedness that they most clearly disclose. The purpose in distinguishing analytically between these three aspects has been to outline an agenda for investigating the multiple forms of urban agency through which communities of affected interest are assembled and configured in situations of conflict, competition and compromise. This investigation should take seriously the multiple ‘agencement’ of urbanization in democratic politics (Phillips, 2006): where urbanization processes are understood as sources of grievance and felt injustice; where urban ecologies are understood as crucial communicative spaces making possible the affective dispositions upon which a spatially expansive sense of political agency depends, culturally and organizationally; and where urban infrastructures are increasingly understood as possessing agentive qualities in their own right in response to various collective problems.

Assembling affected interests There are three reasons for arguing that theories of urban politics could be usefully enhanced by an engagement with the wilfully ‘normative’ inflections of contemporary critical theory. First, this literature brings into view a specific normative principle — that of all-affected interests — through which contentious politics is sometimes geographically constituted in a democratic register. Second, it is shaped by a modest worldly understanding of the place of normative values in the enactment of social practices which, by repositioning the all-affected principle as an intuitive starting point for claims-making, is attuned to how democratic politics unfolds in a world of inequality and injustice. Third, this literature is characterized by a methodological concern with tracing the combination of the constituent parts of the concept of democracy, a concern which can be usefully applied to the analysis of the urban/politics interface as well. In all three cases, the motive for taking avowedly normative theories of democracy more seriously than they currently are in radical urban theory and related spatial disciplines is not ‘normative’, if that continues to be understood in terms of an insistence that theories should somehow

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be strongly founded in moral principles. It is social-theoretical and empirical, derived from a sense that normativity is a dimension of social practice that is poorly understood when reduced either to the logics of discipline, legitimation and subjection, or elevated to the status of utopian ideals. An interest in developing a critical theory of democracy and its relationship to urbanization and urbanism requires us to do more than describe and explain patterns of grievance and causes of contention, and certainly do more than simply affirm weakly justified utopian ideals. It also requires us to say more about the importance of urbanization than that ‘lots of people now live in cities’. It requires us to attend closely to the normative vocabularies through which communities of affected interest are assembled, and seek to understand how these enable and constrain political strategies and consequential outcomes. And it requires us to attend to the varied roles that urban processes sometimes play in generating, recognizing, mediating, circulating and addressing political claims. If the response to the question ‘what do cities have to do with democracy?’ is ‘it depends’, then a critical theory of democracy finds its place in the analysis of how this contingency is practically enacted. The conceptual translation of the all-affected idea into a register of worldly claims-making, I have suggested, should lead us to decompose the urban/politics nexus in order that we might go about better understanding the contingent articulation of urban processes and political processes. In seeking to understand the emergent normativities of contemporary political action by focusing upon processes through which communities of affected interest are assembled in cities, by urban actors, around urbanized issues and through urbanized mediums, it might be possible to develop an appreciation of urban politics that escapes the intellectual, imaginary and disciplinary confines of ‘the city’.

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Radical Cities

t d a t S f u a t h c e R Vom zur ie t a r k o m e D n le radika

//Daniel Mullis

eit den späten 1990er Jahren findet der Ruf nach einem Recht auf Stadt in vielen Städten der Welt erneut Widerhall.1 Formuliert wird ein breites Unbehagen an gegenwärtigen städtischen Lebensrealitäten. Thematisiert werden das Schwinden nicht-kommerzieller Freiräume; rassistische, sexistische und homophobe Ausgrenzung; die Minderung der demokratischen Teilhabe; der ausbleibende ökologische Umbau; sowie steigende Mietpreise und Verdrängung. Die globalen urbanen Revolten des Jahres 2011 von Kairo über Madrid, Athen, Tel Aviv bis nach New York markierten in diesem Sinne einen emanzipatorischen Aufbruch in rebellischen Städten (Harvey 2012), die die Verfasstheit von Gesellschaft insgesamt in Frage stellten und demokratische wie soziale Teilhabe radikal einforderten. Die Parole Recht auf Stadt, die in all diesen Kämpfen immer wieder auftauchte, formulierte Henri Lefebvre 1968. Er verstand darunter einen Schrei danach, nicht aus dem städtischen Leben exkludiert und vertrieben zu werden und verband damit den Anspruch auf einen selbstbestimmten, nicht von kapitalistischen Interessen und staatlicher Kontrolle beherrsch1 Bei dem Text handelt es sich um eine überarbeitete und ergänzte Fassung eines Essays, den ich 2015 für CityLeaks – Urban Art Festival in Köln geschrieben habe.

ten Alltag (Lefebvre 1968: 158). Unweigerlich, quasi als andere Seite der Medaille, ging für ihn damit die Forderung nach radikal demokratischer Selbstverwaltung – der Autogestion – einher (Lefebvre 1966). Recht auf Stadt ist noch heute „mehr als nur ein guter Slogan“ (Holm 2010) und bietet Anknüpfungspunkte zu den aktuell intensiv diskutierten postfundamentalistischen (vgl. Marchart 2010, 2013) Überlegungen zur radikalen Demokratie etwa im Anschluss an Ernesto Laclau und Chantal Mouffe (2006 [1985]). Ziel des Textes ist es, Lefebvres Recht auf Stadt sowie Autogestion genauer zu beleuchten und die Potentiale ihrer Verknüpfung mit der radikalen Demokratie zu benennen.

Das Recht auf Stadt Der französische Marxist, Stadtforscher und Philosoph Henri Lefebvre (*1901- †1991) verfasste seine Texte zur Stadt zwischen 1968 und 1974. Seine Reflexionen sind eingebettet in eine zeitgenössische Analyse der 1968erUnruhen in Frankreich, deren Ursprung er in der sozial gespaltenen urbanen Gesellschaft und der Politisierung dieser Spaltung erkannte. Gleichsam von Bedeutung war engagée | 23

für ihn die Thematisierung der Stadt in den Marx’schen Texten sowie seine eigenen Überlegungen zum Alltag und zur Dialektik. Eine seiner übergeordneten Arbeitshypothesen, die sich auch im Recht auf Stadt niederschlägt, formulierte er bereits 1939: „In jedem Konkreten gilt es die Negation, den inneren Widerspruch, die immanente Bewegung, das Positive und das Negative aufzuspüren.“ (Lefebvre 1969 [1939]: 31) Lefebvres Arbeiten zur Stadt waren in den späten 1960ern nicht zuletzt auch von der Situationistischen Internationale beeinflusst; mit der Betonung der Spontanität und dem Erkennen des Alltäglichen als Ort der Kämpfe vertrat er eine sehr eigenwillige Marx-Interpretation. Gerade sein Verständnis von Produktion ist aufschlussreich: „Die Produktion reduziert sich nicht auf die Herstellung von Produkten. Der Begriff bezeichnet einerseits die Erschaffung von Werken (einschließlich der sozialen Zeiten und Räume), kurzum die ‚geistige‘ Produktion, und andererseits die materielle Produktion, die Herstellung der Dinge. Er bezeichnet auch die Produktion des ‚menschlichen Seins‘, durch es selbst, im Laufe seiner historischen Entwicklung. Das impliziert die Produktion der gesellschaftlichen Beziehungen. Schließlich umfasst der Ausdruck, im weitesten Sinne [auch] die Reproduktion.“ (Lefebvre 1972 [1968]: 48f.)

Die Stadt ist für Lefebvre ein Produkt gesellschaftlicher Praxis und konkreter Auseinandersetzungen (Schmid 2005: 27). Dabei nimmt Stadt, in späteren Arbeiten Raum (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]), die Rolle als Vermittelndes zwischen Prozessen ein, die einerseits auf der Ebene des ‚Globalen‘ zu verorten seien, wo abstrakte Beziehungen wie der Kapitalmarkt oder die Raumpolitik zum Tragen kämen, und andererseits auf der Ebene des ‚Privaten‘, die die alltäglichen Aushandlungen und Lebensrealitäten umfasse (Lefebvre 2014 [1970]: 85-112). Gleichzeitig stelle die Stadt auch das Terrain für den Kampf gegen die Vereinnahmung des Besonderen durch das Allgemeine dar, womit gemeint ist, dass sich auf der Ebene des Städtischen die Alltäglichkeiten der verallgemeinernden Wirkung der ‚globalen‘ Prozesse entziehen und – bisweilen – widersetzen (vgl. Mullis 2017: 90-105). Historisch betrachtet waren Städte, Lefebvre folgend, lange Zeit eher Orte des sozialen und politischen Lebens sowie der kollektiven Produktion und weniger reine Macht- oder Handelszentren. Im Zuge der Industrialisierung und der damit einhergehenden Urbanisierung hätten aber tiefgreifende Verschiebungen stattgefunden. Analytisch fasst Lefebvre diesen Prozess als Implosion-Explosion. Damit versucht er den uneinheitlichen Prozess zu benennen, wonach in Städten einerseits eine massive

Konzentration von Menschen, Tätigkeiten, Reichtümern und Gegenständen zu konstatieren ist – Implosion – und andererseits die städtische Wirklichkeit auseinanderberste bzw. ihren Bezugsrahmen verliert – Explosion. Wie Lefebvre (1968: 70f.) unter Rückgriff auf die Marx’schen Konzepte von Gebrauchsund Tauschwert darlegt, wurden Städte im Zuge der Ausbreitung des kompetitiven und industriellen Kapitalismus immer mehr zu Orten des Tauschwertes. Die sozialen Beziehungen, die mit Stadt als Tauschwert verbunden gewesen seien, würden nicht mehr gelebt, und Stadt als soziales und materielles Gefüge daher nicht mehr verstanden. Was für Lefebvre daraus folgt, ist die weitreichende Pointe, dass Stadt als soziale ‚Realität‘ verschwindet (ebd.: 148). Unter den Bedingungen kapitalistischer Vergesellschaftung behalte die Stadt aber in der Funktion der Zentralität eine unmittelbare Realität: „Der Begriff Stadt entspricht keinem gesellschaftlichen Objekt mehr. […] Dennoch besitzt die Stadt eine historische Existenz, die nicht ignoriert werden kann.“ (Lefebvre 2014 [1970]: 65). Die Stadt nehme jedoch diese ZentrumsFunktion nicht auf Grund einer Eigenlogik ein, sondern weil die kapitalistische Gesellschaft Städte als Zentren hervorbringe. Theoretisch, so Lefebvre, kann jeder Punkt zentral werden und jeder Inhalt die Zentralität füllen. Bestimmend ist die soziale Praxis, was bedeutet: Zentralität (und das, was Stadt ist) ist stets umkämpft und politisch. In „The Production of Space“ (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]), seinem letzten Werk zum Urbanen, in dem er sich analytisch mit Fragen der Raumproduktion auseinandersetzte, hebt Lefebvre hervor, dass Raum nicht nur als konstitutives Element für Gesellschaft zu verstehen ist, sondern dass dieser ein historisch notwendiges Produkt von sozialen Prozessen, Strategien und Projekten darstelle. Raum wird Lefebvres Verständnis nach innerhalb des gesellschaftlichen Erkenntnishorizontes und der bestehenden Normen mit Bedeutung aufgeladen und produziert. Er ist somit einerseits gesellschaftlich strukturiert, prägt andererseits aber durch seine Materialisierung eben auch die Bedingungen der gesellschaftlichen Strukturierungen. Kurzum: Raum ist erstens ein soziales Produkt, in dem zweitens abstrakte soziale Prozesse und Strukturen in einer spezifischen Weise konkret und wirkmächtig werden und drittens ist jede Raumproduktion stets umkämpft (vgl. Mullis 2017: 77-90). In letzter Konsequenz bedeutet dies nach Anne Vogelpohl (2011: 234, Herv. i. O.), dass Gesellschaft nicht im Raum, sondern über den Raum produziert wird und Raum in einer dialektischen Weise Voraussetzung und Produkt einer jeden Gesellschaft ist; dass Emanzipation also nur gelingen kann, wenn auch eine emanzipatorische Raumproduktion initiiert wird. Lefebvre bleibt an diesem analytischen Punkt nicht stehen und begibt sich auf die Suche nach Alternativen. Das Ziel ist, eine gesellschaftliche Utopie zu entwickeln. Dafür bestimmt er den Begriff der urbanen Gesellschaft bzw. kurz des Urbanen. Das Urbane steht für eine neue soziale Realität, die durch die veränderten Beziehungen hergestellt wird und die überkommenen

sozialen Gefüge der Stadt emanzipatorisch aufhebt (Lefebvre 1968: 103). Lefebvre folgend ist dieses Potential im Prozess der Urbanisierung als Möglichkeit bereits angelegt. Damit es sich aber realisiere, bedürfe es einer tiefgreifenden sozialen Revolution – der urbanen Revolution (Lefebvre 2014 [1970]) –, deren Träger_innen die Klasse der Ausgeschlossenen und Verdrängten sein werde. Das revolutionäre Subjekt entsteht für Lefebvre, ähnlich wie in operaistischen Konzeptionen, in der städtischen Alltäglichkeit (und nicht in den Fabriken), zumal in ihnen die kapitalistische Vergesellschaftung in ihrer vollen Wirkmächtigkeit erfahren wird (Lefebvre 1968: 178). Das mit seinen Arbeiten zum Urbanen verfolgte Ziel war nicht, ein kohärentes Modell der Verstädterung, verstanden als einfache Ansammlung von Bauten und Menschen, zu entwickeln oder diese lediglich einer Kritik zu unterziehen. Vielmehr sollten auf der Basis der historischen Untersuchung und der Analyse der Gegenwart Möglichkeiten – ein Begriff, der anschließend eine genauere Spezifikation erfährt – formuliert werden. Das Mögliche bildet den Zugang, um zu verstehen, wie Lefebvre gesellschaftliche Veränderung denkt bzw. wie er diese auch unterfüttern, anregen und herbeiführen will. Möglichkeit hat für Lefebvre daher eine doppelte Bedeutung: Einerseits beinhaltet sie einen Fokus auf das Machbare; dass Veränderung möglich ist, auch wenn das Ziel noch eine Utopie sein mag. Andererseits wird betont, dass Praxis nur auf der Basis der ‚Realität‘ entstehen kann, also auf den materiellen und ideellen Verhältnissen im Hier und Jetzt aufbauen muss (Brenner & Elden 2009: 39). Daraus ist zu lesen, dass Lefebvre zwar fest davon ausging, dass durch (alltägliche) Praxis die gesamte ‚Realität‘ verändert werden kann, jedoch die Möglichkeiten dieser Veränderung nicht beliebig sind. Denn die bereits vorhandenen gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse regulieren das Feld des Umsetzbaren. Um Perspektiven zu öffnen, versuchte Lefebvre mittels seiner Arbeiten stets das Gegebene zu untersuchen, um dann einen potentiellen Schritt nach vorne zu gehen und mögliche Utopien zu entwickeln. Und genau hier kommt das Recht auf Stadt als eine mögliche Strategie ins Spiel. Das Recht auf Stadt verstand Lefebvre als ein übergeordnetes Recht, ähnlich den „Menschen- und Bürgerrechten“ (Lefebvre 1990), als Recht auf Freiheit, als Recht zur Individualisierung in der Sozialisation, das Recht auf Wohnen, das Recht auf Partizipation und Aneignung (Lefebvre 1968: 174). Dazu gehört auch das Recht auf eine andere Zentralität, auf Orte des Zusammenkommens und des Austauschs, das Recht auf eigene Lebensrhythmen und Zeitverwaltung sowie das Recht darauf, die Räume und die Momente in ihrer Gänze zu nutzen (ebd.: 179). Es beinhaltet das Recht, sich die aus dem kreativen und schöpferischen Potential des Urbanen entstehenden Überschüsse gesellschaftlich anzueignen, sie damit den Profitinteressen zu entziehen und der Allgemeinheit zuzuführen (Gebhardt & Holm 2011: 8). In der „positivsten“ Begrifflichkeit bedeute es, so Lefebvre (1973: 194f.), das Recht der Stadtbewohner_innen, auf allen Ebenen von Netzwerken und der Zirkulation von Kommunikation, Informationen und Aus-

tausch mitzuwirken. Um es umzusetzen, so Lefebvre (1968: 179f.), muss der Gebrauchswert den Tauschwert als leitendes Konzept ersetzen, wobei es darauf ankomme, sich die Betriebe, Märkte und Produkte gesellschaftlich anzueignen. Lefebvres Forderungen sind nicht isoliert zu betrachten, sondern aufs Engste verbunden mit einer gesamtgesellschaftlichen Perspektive der Überwindung der kapitalistischen Gesellschaft sowie der staatlichen Unterdrückung. Dafür bedürfe es der Etablierung von egalitäreren und direktdemokratischeren Strukturen – bei ihm unter dem Begriff der Autogestion [ins Deutsche am ehesten als autonome Selbstverwaltung zu übersetzten] behandelt (Ronneberger 2011).

Autogestion und radikale Demokratie Autogestion als Konzept stammt nicht von Lefebvre selbst, wenn auch er im Frankreich der 1960er Jahre ein Protagonist der Debatte um diese war (vgl. Brenner 2008; Ronneberger 2009, 2011). Für Lefebvre (1966: 150) umfasst Autogestion eine ganzheitliche Perspektive der radikal-demokratischen politischen Organisation. Sie erlaubt, sich über kollektive und lokalisierte Organisation ‚von unten‘ der totalisierenden und homogenisierenden Wirkung von Staatlichkeit und kapitalistischer Verwertung entgegenzustellen. Lefebvre verstand Autogestion dabei eher als Methode, denn als Modell: „The concept of autogestion does not provide a model, does not trace a line. It points to a way, and thus to a strategy. This strategy must exclude maneuvers and manipulations that render practice illusory; this strategy must therefore prevent the monopolization of the word and the concept by institutions that transform them into fiction. In addition, the strategy must concretize autogestion and extend it to all levels and sectors. This perpetual struggle for autogestion is the class struggle.“ (Lefebvre 2001 [1979]: 780) Um Autogestion zu erkämpfen, müssten die Möglichkeiten und Momente des Eingreifens spontan und kreativ genutzt werden, wenn sie sich ergeben. Lefebvre dachte das Potential der Autogestion pluralistisch und multipel, als einen fragmentierten Prozess des sukzessiven eruptiven Vordringens. Jedoch dürfe eine solche Praxis nicht darauf hinauslaufen, sich auf die „schwachen“ Punkte bzw. die Nischen der Gesellschaft zu reduzieren. Um die demokratische Praxis zu verallgemeinern, müssten auch die „starken“ und gut geschützten Bereiche von aktueller Gesellschaft – wie Staat und Kapital – angegriffen werden. Lefebvre gibt sich keinen Illusionen hin und verweist darauf, dass auch Autogestion keine idyllische oder gar herrschaftsfreie Gesellschaft etablieren werde. Vielmehr werde eine andere Ordnung eingerichtet, die egalitärer, demokratischer und gerechter, aber nicht herrschaftsfrei, sein werde (Lefebvre 1966: 147). Es geht ihm nicht darum, politische Konflikte in einer Utopie der Harmonie zu glätten, sondern darum, einen Modus zu finden, der Konflikte offen aushandeln lässt (Brenner & Elden 2009: 16). Autogestion ist für Lefebvre ein permanenter Prozess, „eine ständige Bewusstseinsbildung über die Beziehungen zwischen der sich selbst verwaltenden Einheit,

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ihren funktionellen und strukturellen Grenzen und der Gesamtgesellschaft“ (Lefebvre 1969: 80). Lefebvres Überlegungen zur Autogestion liegen Konzepten der radikalen Demokratie, wie sie aus postfundamentalistischer Perspektive (vgl. Marchart 2010, 2013) etwa von Laclau und Mouffe (2006 [1985]) formuliert wurden (vgl. Mullis 2014), sehr nahe. Die Grundlagen ihres Argumentes sind, ähnlich wie bei Lefebvre, erstens ein starkes Plädoyer für die historische Gewordenheit von Gesellschaft in und durch Praxis sowie die strukturierende Relevanz ihrer materiellen Verdichtungen. Letztere werden dabei gleichzeitig als Ausgangspunkt, Bestandteil sowie Gegenstand von sozialen Kämpfen interpretiert. Daraus resultiert zweitens, dass Gesellschaft stets als von Macht- und Herrschaftsstrukturen durchzogen erkannt wird. Politische Kämpfe werden folglich drittens weder als neues Phänomen noch als unliebsame Störung einer bestehenden Ordnung charakterisiert, sondern als integraler Bestandteil von Gesellschaft verstanden. Politische Kämpfe formen Gesellschaft in ihrer jeweiligen historischen Verdichtung (Mullis 2017: 37-44).

Herrschaft wird über die Fähigkeit, politische Kämpfe bzw. die Produktion von Antagonismen auszuschalten, produziert. Zudem kommt sie in der Fähigkeit zum Ausdruck, eine bestimmte politische Formation als objektiv bzw. alternativlos zu erklären und dies auch immer wieder auf Dauer zu stellen. Für Laclau und Mouffe (2006 [1985]) markiert das Politische einerseits das nicht zu bändigende – bzw. ontologische – Potential, die als alternativlos markierten Ordnungen in und durch Politik aufzubrechen, andererseits kann das Politische nur im je konkret formierten Antagonismus, also in konkreter Politik, erfahren werden. Antagonismus ist keine objektive Relation, sondern ein Verhältnis, in dem die unmögliche Letztgründung erfahren, die „Grenzen der Objektivität gezeigt“ und offengelegt werden, „was nicht gesagt, so doch gezeigt werden kann“ (Laclau & Mouffe 2006 [1985]: 165, Herv. i. O.). Politik ist der Begriff für die konkrete Praxis der Formierung des Antagonismus in einem spezifischen Feld. Von Bedeutung ist, dass ein so umrissener Begriff von Politik nicht normativ oder idealistisch ist. Radikale Demokratie formulieren Laclau und Mouffe (2006 [1985]: 218-38) – und insbesondere Mouffe (1989; 2007; 2009) – gewissermaßen als normativen Zusatz zu ihrem Denken der Politik. Radikale Demokratie ist eine gesellschaftliche Formation, die es in besonderer Weise erlaubt, dem Politischen gerecht zu werden, zumal

sie versucht, Schließungsmechanismen zu minimieren und Politik einen offenen Artikulationsraum zu verschaffen (Laclau 2010 [1996]: 145). Robin Celikates (2010: 300) fasst es so zusammen: „Demokratie [ist] keine Staatsform und kein gesellschaftlicher Zustand [..], sondern ein konflikthafter Prozess.“ Insgesamt wird über die radikale Demokratie, wie auch schon über den Politikbegriff klargestellt, so Martin Saar (2013: 99f.), dass es „keinen Sinn mehr [hat], den Ort des Demokratischen exklusiv im Innern des politischen Systems oder bei den eindeutig verfassten politischen Akteuren zu suchen“, was Politik von außerparlamentarischen Bewegungen und alltäglichen Kleinformen erheblich aufwertet.

Perspektiven der Verknüpfung Werden die beiden skizzierten Überlegungen zum Recht auf Stadt und der radikalen Demokratie gegenübergestellt, wird deutlich, dass Lefebvre insgesamt noch stark von Marx geprägt ist. Mit seiner wohlwollend-kritischen Lektüre des Marx’schen Werkes, seiner Interpretation der Dialektik und den Überlegungen zur Produktion sowie der Zentralstellung der Praxis leistet Lefebvre innovative Arbeit, die als Muster auch in vielen postfundamentalistischen Philosophien auftaucht. Jedoch kommen in seinen Arbeiten, und gerade in jenen zur Stadt, Argumentationsmuster vor, in denen er hinter seinen eigenen Anspruch als auch hinter die postfundamentalistischen Prämissen zurückfällt und teleologische Muster, ökonomische Determinismen sowie eine lineare Geschichtsauffassung durchschimmern. Dies gilt etwa, wenn er eine sehr direkte Linie zwischen Verstädterung und urbaner Revolution zieht, oder wenn er essentialistische Eigenheiten als Ausgangspunkt von Subjektivierung und Differenz bestimmt (Mullis 2014: 127-31). In der Historisierung der Stadt und allgemeiner in Lefebvres stets auf Marx und Engels referenzierenden Einteilung von Geschichte und der daraus resultierenden Fokussierung auf das Proletariat als transformatorisches Subjekt ist ein latenter Ökonomismus auszumachen. Auch wenn er die Konstitution der Klassen im Alltäglichen verortet, fasst er die Hervorbringung der revolutionären Arbeiterklasse (Lefebvre 1968: 154), die den gesellschaftlichen Wandel anführen soll, wesentlich in ökonomischen Begriffen: Die zur Transformation fähigen Klassen werden bei Lefebvre über deren ökonomischen Status bestimmt, wenn er auch die Stadt bzw. später den Raum als vermittelndes Element dazwischen schaltet. Es ist die Segregation, die Projektion der Ungleichheit auf das Terrain, die Ausschluss erfahrbar macht und so die proletarische Subjektivierung leitet (ebd.: 179). Für Laclau und Mouffe (2006 [1985]: 122) hingegen ist zentral, dass das transformatorische Subjekt in den Kämpfen selbst entsteht und keine Faktoren bestimmt werden können, von denen aus Klassen vorformiert würden. Es sind aber die vielfältigen Konvergenzlinien, die ein Zusammendenken sinnvoll machen. Diese finden sich etwa in der normativen Positionierung der Ansätze. Des Weiteren ist

es gerade das gemeinsame Zentralstellen von Praxis bzw. Politik sowie das Betonen der historischen Gewordenheit von Materialität und Machtverhältnissen, die ein Zusammendenken anregen. Gemeinsam ist den Ansätzen das Ziel, starre Gewissheiten, historische Determinierung sowie Essenzialismen aufzulösen und die Theoretisierung von Gesellschaft auf ein offenes und konflikthaftes Werden hin zu öffnen. In gewisser Weise verallgemeinern Laclau und Mouffe mit ihrem Begriff der Politik Lefebvres Produktionsbegriff horizontal. Politik ist eine generelle Perspektive auf Produktion und verweist radikal auf die gesellschaftliche Gemachtheit einer jeden Ordnung sowie auf die Notwendigkeit von Fixierung, um Gesellschaft, Subjekte und Objekte überhaupt als Entitäten fassen zu können. Das Argument spannt sich horizontal über sämtliche gesellschaftliche Relationen. Demgegenüber erlaubt Lefebvre, konkrete gesellschaftliche Kämpfe klarer zu fassen, zumal er den Fokus je spezifisch auf herrschaftliche Verdichtungen sowie deren Anfechtung legt (Mullis 2017: 296-304). Für eine aktualisierte Perspektive auf Lefebvre heißt dies (Mullis 2014: 105-55), dass Recht auf Stadt als Parole dienen kann, um vielfältige politische Auseinandersetzungen, die erst einmal nichts miteinander zu tun haben müssen, unter einem Nenner zu bündeln. Gleichzeitig verweisen gerade Lefebvres Überlegungen klar auf die Notwendigkeit einer antikapitalistischen und staatskritischen Perspektive. Die Zusammenführung der Perspektiven regt eine intensive Diskussion darüber an, wie ein egalitäreres Miteinander heute aussehen sollte und unter welchen Bedingungen städtischer Produktionsweisen dies erstritten werden könnte. Sie regt an, über ökonomische Fragen hinauszugehen und gesellschaftliche Kämpfe um Platzzuweisungen über class, race, gender miteinzubeziehen. In alltäglichen Kämpfen um ein Recht auf Stadt können abstrakte Prozesse und Herrschaftszusammenhänge verdeutlicht werden, die Kämpfe gleichzeitig aber auf einer Ebene artikulieren, auf der Interventionsmacht gegeben ist. Die verknüpfende Perspektive bietet darüber hinaus die Möglichkeit, über die reine Negation bestehender Verhältnisse hinauszugehen, Utopien zu entwickeln und diese auch offensiv einzufordern. Und es ist eine explizite Aufforderung, darüber nachzudenken, welche räumlichen Ausschlüsse in den jeweiligen Auseinandersetzungen durch politische Bewegungen und sozialer Praxis selbst hergestellt werden und diese auf ihren Gehalt bzw. ihre Notwendigkeit hin zu befragen.

konstituierte Macht? In: Bedorf, Thomas & Kurt Röttgers (Hg.): Das Politische und die Politik. Berlin, S. 274–300. Gebhardt, Dirk & Andrej Holm (2011): Initiativen für ein Recht auf Stadt. In: Holm, A. & D. Gebhardt (Hg.): Initiativen für ein Recht auf Stadt: Theorie und Praxis städtischer Aneignungen. Hamburg, S. 7–24. Harvey, David (2012): Rebel cities. From the right to the city to the urban revolution. London. Holm, Andrej (2010): „Recht auf Stadt“ – mehr als nur ein guter Slogan. In: Heft für Literatur, Stadt und Alltag, S. 32–33. Kipfer, Stefan; Parastou Saberi & Thorben Wieditz (2013): Henri Lefebvre: Debates and controversies. In: Progress in Human Geography. 37(1), S. 115–134. Laclau, Ernesto (2010 [1996]): Emanzipation und Differenz. Wien. Laclau, Ernesto & Chantal Mouffe (2006 [1985]): Hegemonie und radikale Demokratie. Zur Dekonstruktion des Marxismus. Wien. Lefebvre, Henri (1966): Theoretical Problems of Autogestion. In: Brenner, Neil & Stuart Elden (Hg.) (2009): State, Space, World. Henri Lefebvre. Selected Essays. Minneapolis, S. 138–152. Lefebvre, Henri (1968): The Right to the City. In: Kofman, E. & E. Lebas (Hg.) (1996): Writings on cities. Cambridge, S. 63–181. Lefebvre, Henri (1969): Aufstand in Frankreich. Zur Theorie der Revolution in den hochindustrialisierten Ländern. Frankfurt a. M./Berlin. Lefebvre, Henri (1969 [1939]): Der dialektische Materialismus. Frankfurt a. M. Lefebvre, Henri (1972 [1968]): Das Alltagsleben in der modernen Welt. Frankfurt a. M. Lefebvre, Henri (1973): Space and Politics. In: Kofman, E. & E. Lebas (Hg.)(1996): Writings on cities, Cambridge. S. 185–202. Lefebvre, Henri (1990): From the Social Pact to the Contract of Citizenship. In: Elden, S.; E. Lebas & E. Kofman (Hg.) (2003): Henri Lefebvre. Key Writings. New York/London, S. 238–254. Lefebvre, Henri (1991 [1974]): The production of space. Oxford. Lefebvre, Henri (2001 [1979]): Comments on a New State Form. In: Antipode, 33 (5), S. 769–782. Lefebvre, Henri (2014 [1970]): Die Revolution der Städte. Hamburg. Marchart, Oliver (2010): Die politische Differenz. Berlin. Marchart, Oliver (2013): Das unmögliche Objekt. Eine postfundamentalistische Theorie der Gesellschaft. Berlin. Mouffe, Chantal (1989): Radical Democracy: Modern or Postmodern? In: Ross, Andrew (Hg.): Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmodernism. Edinburgh, S. 31–45. Mouffe, Chantal (2007): Über das Politische. Wider die kosmopolitische Illusion. Frankfurt a. M. Mouffe, Chantal (2009): Exodus und Stellungskrieg. Die Zukunft radikaler Politik. Wien. Mullis, Daniel (2014): Recht auf die Stadt. Von Selbstverwaltung und radikaler Demokratie. Münster. Mullis, Daniel (2017): Krisenproteste in Athen und Frankfurt. Raumproduktionen der Politik zwischen Hegemonie und Moment. Münster. Ronneberger, Klaus (2009): Henri Lefebvre and the Question of Autogestion. In: Bitter, Sabine & Helmut Weber (Hg.): Autogestion, or Henri Lefebvre in New Belgrade, Vancouver; New York. Fillip Edition, S. 89–116.

Literatur Brenner, Neil (2008): Henri Lefebvre’s Critique of State Productivism. In: Goonewardena, Kanishka; Stefan Kipfer; Richard Milgrom & Christian Schmid (Hg.): Space, Difference, Everyday Life. Reading Henri Lefebvre. New York, S. 231–249. Brenner, Neil & Stuart Elden (2009): Introduction. State, Space, World. Lefebvre and the Survival of Capitalism. In: Brenner, N. & S. Elden (Hg.) (2009): State, Space, World. Henri Lefebvre. Selected Essays. Minneapolis, S. 1–48. Celikates, Robin (2010): Ziviler Ungehorsam und radikale Demokratie. Konstituierende vs.

Ronneberger, Klaus (2011): Henri Lefebvre und die Frage der Autogestion, http://wiki.rechtaufstadt.net/index.php/Henri_Lefebvre_und_die_Frage_der_Autogestion, visited: 14.10.2011. Saar, Martin (2013): „Multitude“ oder Volk! Neubestimmungen des Subjekts demokratischer Politik. In: Buchstein, Hubertus (Hg.): Die Versprechen der Demokratie. Baden-Baden, S. 89–104. Schmid, Christian (2005): Stadt, Raum, Gesellschaft: Henri Lefebvre und die Theorie der Produktion des Raumes. München. Vogelpohl, Anne (2011): Städte und die beginnende Urbanisierung. Henri Lefebvre in der aktuellen Stadtforschung. In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung, 69 (4), S. 233–243.

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Radical Cities

Radical Democracy and Municipal Movements Alessio Kolioulis and Rahel Sophia SĂźĂ&#x; in conversation with Jeremy Gilbert

In the last two decades, Western democracies have been witnessing a steady rise of anti-democratic trends and disappointment with politics. Faced with these challenges, contemporary democracies appear vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. At the same time, a radical change is taking place. Movements in cities around the world – through platforms and transnational networks – are experimenting with new forms of democratic practices and political institutions. This reminds us that the radical history of the last two centuries brought about new theoretical toolboxes which activists have used to overturn and change those concepts that undermine key political notions. To what extent do current political movements challenge traditional notions of democracy, power and social change?

That’s a good question and arguably it depends on what you mean by ‘traditional notion’. If by this we really mean ‘mainstream liberal-democratic notions’ then obviously, these are being challenged. But in many ways the demands of these movements, and the basic desires and assumptions informing them, are nor particularly new. There isn’t much in the ‘new’ radical municipal politics that the Barcelona anarchists of the 1930s, or the Paris Communards, would not have recognised. Internationalism was always a part of their ideology as well. Even in the UK, we have traditions that have been suppressed for decades but which have roots going back to the 19th century, such as the tradition of the Independent Labour Party (the single most important component of the new federal organisation that became the Labour Party in 1900), that was always committed to ideas such as the democratic management of the economy by workers, and was always hostile to all forms of militarism. The details of the demands and the challenges, the range of power relations under discussion, and the necessary theoretical frameworks continue to evolve, but the basic demands and organisational ideals are the same; partly to the extent that the basic problems and obstacles to real democracy (plutocracy, liberalism, capitalism, patriarchy, nationalism) remain the same.

The new transnational and municipalist networks such as the network of fearless cities, sanctuary cities and rebel cities seem to respond to the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, of austerity politics and of European asylum and migration policies. Through alliances, platforms and international

networks, they experiment with new forms of democratic practices and political institutions. In which way do these movements lay the foundation for new visions and practices in developing a real democracy? How do they expand or even enhance a radical democracy through their visions and practices?

Well, this is a huge question so I can only offer a very sketchy and mainly conceptual answer. Broadly speaking, any form of democracy must enable the emergence, on any scale at all, of what I call ‘potent collectivities’: which is to say any kind of group that is actually capable of making collective decisions and enacting them in some way. This sounds banal – and to some extent it is. But it is also the case that neoliberal society (like all hierarchical societies, to some extent) works very hard to deprive most people of any such experience in any area of their lives. So, to the extent that any of these institutions or movements enable potent collectivities to emerge at all, they have positive effects in promoting the development of democracy. At the same time, I think that these municipalist movements contribute in a particularly important way simply by asserting the status of the city as a key site for democratic energy and invention.

It’s no accident that the Left almost always has its bases in the cities. Hardt and Negri say that the metropolis is the home of the multitude, and in this they have a very important point. One of the key cultural operations of bourgeois and anti-democratic ideology since the late 19th century has been to denigrate the city, to present the city as fearful, as somewhere to escape from, as somewhere that most people should not want to be. In simply making the city a beacon of hope rather than on object of fear, these movements are playing an important role in counteracting that ideology.

What challenges do you think these movements face? What are the potentials and limits of their approaches and what are the obstacles that prevent the full realization of a new and more radical democratic order?

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The answer here his pretty simple. We don’t live in city-states. Even in the most urbanised country in Europe, the UK, more people live in small-to-medium-sized towns than in large towns and cities. We live in essentially suburban societies. How to scale up and extend practices of radical democracy beyond specific urban locations is a key question. In the age of instant horizontal communication, it ought to be easier to resolve this question than ever before, at least technically and organisationally. Ideologically, culturally and politically, it may be more difficult. A key issue is the fact that the proudly cosmopolitan culture of the cities is often not shared by suburban and rural communities, and those communities can often feel that the cities are imposing their culture on them – a real challenge is to find ways to make that culture feel welcoming, accessible and attractive to those outside the urban centres, and to bring forms of democratic politics into those places that can make people there feel able to participate in them and in decision-making over the nature of their own localities.

Radical democracy is a heterogeneous field. How do you use this term in your work? And which concrete examples do you refer to?

I use the term to refer to politics or practices that seek to facilitate or enable the emergence of potent collectivities, and that understand the potency of those collectivities always to be at least partly dependent on their capacity to express their constitutive complexity and multiplicity. This is different from how some others use the term partly because I think my use of it implies a positive conception of democracy rather than a merely negative one – i.e., that would only really talk about what democracy is not, or how it institutionalises the absence of sovereignty, rather than what it is and what it positively enables. In terms of concrete examples, this just depends on what is current at the time I am speaking or writing, but right now, the attempts by Barcelona en Comu to institutionalise forms of participatory democracy in their city must stand as a key example in practice, as well as some of the experiments in constituent assemblies that have taken place in places like Bolivia.

In an article that you wrote for The Guardian on which Corbynism we need, you distinguished between two terms: “Radical Democracy” and “Retro Social-Democracy”. Can you elaborate on the core characteristics of the division between radical decentralisation and centralising social democracy?

From the early 1960s onwards, at the latest, there is quite a widespread critique being made of the institutions of the postwar welfare states in Europe and the New Deal institutions in the US, the nationalised industries of those countries, and the Fordist enterprises that dominated the corporate world. That critique focused on their tendencies to paternalism, technocracy and hierarchy, on the fact that they left certain social relations fundamentally unchanged by never challenging the worker-boss-relationship and by having a mode of public service in which experts did things to or for service users, but did not enable most citizens or workers to participate in decision-making about their workplaces or the services that they relied on. The idea of radical democracy partly comes out of that moment of critique and the movements that it resonated with – such as the women’s movement, which was always sympathetic to the argument that the welfare state was organised in a patriarchal way, assuming women’s subordination to men. The objective of any such politics now must be to overcome the centralised and hierarchical nature of such institutions in order to democratise them. I am very happy to say that at the present time, the Labour Party leadership in the UK is moving strongly in the direction of advocating forms of collective ownership of businesses and services that are distributed, democratic and co-operative in nature rather than being centralised, technocratic, bureaucratic or paternalistic. They have recently promoted a ground-breaking document on ‘Alternative Models of Ownership’, as well as calling a national conference to discuss it1, which is quite inspirational in its vision. In the present historical context, I’m always wary of the term ‘decentralisation’. This tends to imply that central governments have accumulated power that they will be able to disperse if they are occu-

1 https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Alternative-Models-of-Ownership.pdf; https://labour.org.uk/issues/campaigns/alternative-models-ownership-conference/; https://www.newstatesman.com/ politics/economy/2018/02/labour-s-renationalisation-plans-look-nothing-1970s

pied by progressive forces. At least in places like the UK and the US, the situation is far more intractable than that. Governments have not taken power away from localities and accrued it to themselves. They have colluded in breaking down local sources of collective power and handing power to private agencies: outsourcing firms, international corporations, huge accountancy firms, etc. In many cases these agencies are too large and too powerful for municipal authorities to challenge fully, however strong a popular base they may have. In such cases, we will need national governments, and even, ideally, sympathetic supra-national institutions, that are committed to weakening those powerful agencies and building up local sites of collective power. To the extent that this must be done in a way which enables multiple and distributed sites of collective power to develop (city councils, democratic schools, co-operatives of many kinds, autonomous media institutions, etc.), then we can speak of ‘decentralised’ power. But it is important to understand that this will not simply be a matter of power being dispersed by central government. Central government does not currently possess that power. Local and democratic power will have to be constituted from the ground-up; although the role of central government in assisting this process will be indispensable.

In their latest book, Assembly, Hardt and Negri argue that leaderless movements are not able to offer the solutions we are looking for. Would you say that we need something more than pure horizontality? And if so, what exactly do we need?

Of course, we need more than pure horizontality to the extent that there can be no such thing as pure horizontality – any set of social relations or form of social organisation will have at least a minimally ‘vertical’ dimension. This is why forms of anarchism that attempt to implement pure horizontalities inevitably descend into libertarian, individualist nihilism. This is why I think that all of those theories of radical democracy that are primarily concerned with the ‘vertical’ dimension, with questions of sovereignty etc., most notably the theory of Chantal Mouffe, remain immensely valuable and important.

It is necessary to recognise the indispensability of this vertical dimension – and to work to institutionalise pluralism and non-finality within it, by ensuring that those representative and governmental structures that all organisations need are as open and accountable as possible to those they purport to represent – even while continuing to attend to the primary and constitutive nature of ‘horizontal’ relations. At the same time, in that book, Hardt & Negri are addressing a crucial set of questions – the questions of strategy and leadership. They make, I think, an excellent suggestion: that we certainly need political strategy in these movements. Thankfully we are now a long way from the period of the ‘alterglobalisation’ movement when many anarchists regarded the mere use of the word ‘strategy’ as some kind of Stalinist heresy. We even need leadership at times, but we should reverse the traditional vanguardist conceptions in order to promote an ideal of collective strategy and tactical leadership. According to this conception, the role of leadership is not to determine overall strategic objectives and the means of achieving them, but to manage short-term situations and problems, to act tactically, in line with strategic objectives and methods determined and agreed-upon by the whole movement. This is an excellent model and I believe that to some extent, in a situation like the contemporary Labour Party, we are seeing some positive moves towards such a conception of leadership and collective politics.

In your experience as a theorist and an activist, how can we bridge the gap between radical democratic theory and practices?

There’s no way of answering that question in a general way – it always depends on the context and the specific situation. I can make some observations but they amount to little more than banal truisms. Firstly – it’s always necessary to allow practice and experience to inform theory. The difference between theory and philosophy is that theory is a set of generalisations based on experience

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and experimentation. Secondly, it’s often difficult to persuade people (organisational comrades, local communities or political constituencies, trade unionists, whoever) that radical democratic objectives are necessary or desirable, or are more than pleasant diversions from the ‘real’ business of protecting their material interests. I think it’s almost always crucial to make the case for radical democratic practices and demands by emphasising how necessary they are to the realisation of many basic material objectives.

We don’t just want radical democracy because it’s ethically or aesthetically desirable. We want it because history has shown time and again that social reforms or economic gains will only ever prove temporary unless they have a radical democratic dimension, enabling their main beneficiaries to have genuine democratic control over their administration. We have also seen many times that the erosion of such democratic control is a precursor to the final reversal of those gains – for example when local democratic control of services is weakened, privatisation is rarely far behind.

The self-description of being a radical democrat seems to be missing, especially when we think about being a socialist or a communist. What are the reasons behind this and why would you, or would not, call yourself a radical democrat?

That’s a good question. I was thinking about just this question the other day. I think one reason for this is that most radical democratic theory is inherently suspicious of all forms of identity politics, and would implicitly recognise even political self-designations of that nature as often operating according to an identitarian logic that is ultimately unhelpful to the realisation of progressive objectives.

The question for many activists in little radical groups becomes ‘are you really a good ‘communist’ or ‘revolutionary’?’… At that point, politics is already over. Such theory also tends to be acutely aware of the wholly relational character of all identities, as well as their composite and mobile tendencies. So, I’ve often said to communists ‘I’m an anarchist’; to

social democrats ‘I’m a communist’; to anarchists ‘I’m a social democrat.’ In my own case, it is true that I have often described myself as a ‘radical democrat’ but in recent years I’ve been more reluctant to do so. This is partly because people simply don’t understand what it means, but partly also because of my perception that a great deal of self-designated radical democratic theory and philosophy in recent years has essentially amounted to nothing more than a kind of post-structuralist liberalism. To a large extent, I remain inspired by the classic founding text of post-Marxist radical democratic theory: Laclau & Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. For me, radical democracy must be a form of socialism, just as socialism must be a form of radical democracy, or else they are not worth much. At the moment, I’m happy enough just to call myself a ‘socialist’. Of course, this is largely because we are presently at a moment when, for the first time since the 1940s, the dominant form of socialism in Britain is one that is explicitly committed to certain kinds of radical democracy.

To what extent does the success of Corbyn in the UK represent a success story for radical democrats?

It certainly does represent such a success story, but radical democratic ideas are still only really embryonic and implicit in the programme and practice of much of the pro-Corbyn movement within the Labour Party. It’s a strange situation. The leadership of the party is clearly committed to such an agenda, while many of their followers would be content to see the restoration of post-war top-down social democratic models. There is very little campaigning on democratic issues as such, and the interest in co-operative models and workers’ self-management is largely coming from the top of the party and networks of intellectuals close to it, rather than from the grassroots. The June 2017 party manifesto has become an almost religious touchstone for Corbynites, but most of its proposals were really informed by a statist, centralising social-democratic set of assumptions. The extraordinary thing here is that it is the leadership itself (Corbyn, the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, and their closest advisors) who have been actively encouraging criticism of the manifesto from a radical democratic and libertarian socialist perspective, apparently seeing the manifesto itself as a limited compromise with traditionalist elements

in the party that they would like to go beyond. But it remains to be seen whether we can convince the broader ‘mass’ of Corbyn-supporters that explicitly radical democratic demands must be a part of their agenda, rather than that being entirely dominated by an opposition to ‘austerity’, an opposition that in itself has not necessarily a democratic dimension. The fantasy of a benign Corbyn-led government simply reversing austerity and restoring the generous, paternalistic, social-democratic state to its former glory remains a strong one with much of the Labour membership, I’m afraid. But it is very encouraging that the leadership itself is keen to overcome it.

Looking at how the Labour Party intervened to stop the action of some of its councils in implementing urban development plans opposed by local communities, do you see a potential municipal turn of the Labour Party in such actions?

Labour has already had a very proud history of what is called ‘municipal socialism.’ The most famous example is the period during which the Bennite Left, under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, ran the Greater London Council in the early 1980s. Radical democratic ideas were already a direct influence on many of their policies, including the democratisation of cultural policy, the empowerment of women and minorities, the promotion of innovative forms of co-operative enterprise, etc. This programme was popular, and the entire GLC was abolished by Thatcher in 1985 because the Tories couldn’t beat the Labour left politically in London. Right now, the Corbynite city council of Preston is being seen as the beacon and exemplar for radical municipalities to follow, pursing a bold regeneration plan through the development of collective resources and high levels of popular participation.2 So, it is not a question of any such radical municipalise being ‘potential’; it is part of our heritage and its revival is well under way.

Again, this all depends on the context. Where opportunities present themselves for such practices to be radicalised or to become vehicles of radicalisation, then those opportunities should be taken. But I think the issue is as much about trying to ensure that such technologies do not become wholly captured by neoliberal culture in the way that certain kinds of yoga and meditation practice clearly have been, as it is about finding ways to positively use them to our advantage – which might or might not be possible in different cases. As for dance music culture: again, I can only really speak with authority about the British context here. There certainly was a moment around 1993/4 when the burgeoning rave culture was widely perceived as constituting a form of popular resistance to both bourgeois individualism and patriarchal norms. The leaderships of the Labour Party and broader labour movement had no interest whatsoever in collaborating positively with it however, and were more than happy to collude with the Tory government in suppressing it; or rather, suppressing those forms of it that could not be easily disciplined by the logics of commercialisation and capital accumulation – once those radical forms had been neutralised, governments were happy to tolerate the growth of a depoliticised commercial club scene. Now that we have a radical leadership that is genuinely open-minded about a whole range of social, political and cultural issues, there is finally a reason at least to start discussing the question of how far such cultural technologies and practices might be deployed for emancipatory purposes. Whether this applies in other national contexts, I can’t really say. But I would say that to some extent, the capture of the leadership of the institutional Left by the radical Left has been a necessary precondition for making those conversations possible at all.

In a recent article called “Acid Corbynism,” you argue that “technologies of the self” such as yoga or clubbing can raise political consciousness, if collectivised. Should such instances be part of a new strategy for urban movements?

2 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/apr/11/preston-cleveland-model-lessons-recovery-rust-belt

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Movement Parties: New Breed of Radical Democratic Politics? // by Marina Prentoulis and Lasse Thomassen

fter the financial crisis and the square movements of 2011 and beyond, we have seen the emergence of a new breed of political parties: movement parties. These parties include SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Left Unity in Slovenia and Alternativet in Denmark. Even traditional parties such as the British Labour Party has a claim as a ‘movement party’ thanks to Momentum, the group that sprang from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign and is now one of the most powerful formations within Labour. While these parties are often grouped together by laypersons and academics, there are, however, important differences between them. The first thing to note is that movement parties are not an entirely new phenomenon. In a chapter published more than a decade ago, Herbert Kitschelt defined movement parties as a hybrid between movements and parties, having in mind the Northern European Green parties.1 The Green parties rose out of the environmental movement, which, like other new formations, was critical of the ways in which the state, as well as traditional parties and interest groups, did politics. Their concern with a more horizontalist and participatory form of politics was brought into the Green parties. For Kitschelt, movement parties were transitional phenomena: they were basically movements on their way to becoming parties. The German Greens would be a case in point. After the financial crisis and the square movements of 2011, the relationship between movements and formal politics has been reinvigorated, and a new phenomenon is emerging: movement parties. Such parties can be seen as a response to a general crisis of representation,2 the crisis that some associate with the post-democratic condition of the last thirty years,3 but they differ from the movements of the preceding decade by accepting the need to engage with formal political representative institutions. This new phenomenon raises a host of ques-

1 Herbert Kitschelt (2006), ‘Movement Parties’, in Richard S. Katz and William J. Crotty (eds.), Handbook of Party Politics (New York, Sage), pp. 278-90. 2 Simon Tormey (2015), The End of Representative Politics (Cambridge: Polity). 3 Colin Crouch (2004), Post-Democracy (Cambridge: Polity).

tions, including whether it is possible to combine radical politics with formal political institutions. Like Kitschelt, Donatella della Porta and others define movement parties as hybrids of movements and parties where organisational and environmental linkages between the two are close.4 Their main examples are SYRIZA, Podemos and the Italian Five Star Movement. Movement parties thus differ from traditional (non-movement) parties. For instance, historically, socialist and social-democratic parties have emerged from social movements, most of all from trade unions. But, in these cases, parties quickly emerged as hierarchical structures firmly embedded within political institutions, even when retaining close links to trade unions. Movement parties differ with their insistence on keeping the links to social movements and organising in a more horizontal and participatory way. While it is useful to define movement parties in this way, we argue that there are important differences among them. Those differences are important when we assess the strategies developed by, and available to, these parties, and when we assess their future prospects. While there are right-wing variants of movement parties – such as the Tea Party Movement and the Republican Party in the US – here we focus only on left-wing variants. The brief typology we develop here is developed in a bottom-up fashion. Rather than providing a set of clear-cut distinctions, we use the typology to raise a number of questions about the nature and prospects of movement parties, based on how their relationship with social movements was shaped at the point of origin. The first type of movement party arises when a particular movement becomes a party but self-consciously seeks to retain key characteristics of a movement. The Green parties would be an earlier example of this, as are the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT) and the African National Congress (ANC), the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and possibly the United Front (UF) in South Africa. As it is also clear from this list, the risk of reproducing the logic of the

4 Donatella Della Porta, Joseba Fernández, Hara Kouki and Lorenzo Mosca (2017), Movement Parties Against Austerity (Cambridge: Polity), p. 7.

formal political system – verticality, closure, and so on – are huge, and the question is to what extent they differ from socialist and social-democratic parties with their background in the labour movement. In the European context, the Five Star Movement in Italy would be an example as it has emerged out of different protest movements, among them the protests against the privatisation of water. But, at the same time, the movement/party has centred on the personality of Grillo, and it is not exactly a party of the Left. Whatever the case may be, the choices they are facing after the March 2018 elections regarding forming a government reflect the strategic dilemmas of most, if not all, movement parties. These dilemmas are accentuated because this type of movement party undergoes a mutation from movement to movement party, and therefore the identities of activists and potential voters are tied to the grassroots nature of the movement. The second type of movement party consists of parties that emerge on the back of social movements or protests with the aim of tapping the energies of the latter and transpose them into electoral politics. Podemos would be an example, although there is an important time-lapse between the 2011 Spanish Indignados Movement and the emergence of Podemos in 2014. The United Left in Slovenia would be another example. The dilemmas facing a party like Podemos are slightly different. On the one hand, they are not a movement that became a party, and so they are not tied to a movement identity. On the other hand, they presented themselves as a different kind of party from the very beginning: more horizontal, more participatory and more inclusive. Perhaps more importantly, they presented themselves as the party of the Indignados, or at least the party that would carry forward the spirit of the Indignados movement. This is also the reason why today so many people have become disillusioned with Podemos. The Indignados movement opened up space for an alternative form of politics, and Podemos took advantage of it occupying that space. In the case of Podemos, we have a highly mediatised (but unconventional) leadership who connects with the broader population in a direct manner through mainstream and non-mainstream media and through new social media, including platforms for direct voting on policies. This allows for a combination of vertical and horizontal structures, but it does not rely on the active participation (and influence) of large numbers of activists. While Podemos initially relied on local and thematic “circles”, these have gradually lost influence. (Having said that, there is a marked difference between Podemos at the national level and some of the political movements at the municipal level, such as Barcelona en Comú, which has retained more of the horizontalist and participatory structure.) This is perhaps one way in which Podemos differs from movement parties that have emerged more gradually and organically from social movements.

in the latter. The link between party and movements was reaffirmed in the declaration of the Founding Congress of SYRIZA in 2013 when it was stated that SYRIZA’s aim was not only the parliamentary presence of the movements of the squares but also the involvement in the creation and support of a strong united popular movement. Thus, when the 2011 protests erupted, SYRIZA sought to tap the energies of the protests and transpose them into electoral politics, similarly to what Podemos attempted, but with a time-lag. However, SYRIZA has experienced the same disjuncture between leadership and activists faced by Podemos, especially after the formation of the Greek government. The 2013 SYRIZA Congress Declaration states that “the transference of powers to elected representatives leads sooner or later to stagnation and retreat, if not destruction: those who entrust them are transformed into passive accepters of a policy that opposes their interests and desires, while those who assume the responsibility of such an assignment are mutated and corrupted.”6 Despite this attempt to materialise a more horizontal and participatory structure inside and outside the party, the Congress did not represent a break from traditional forms of party organization: the resolutions were voted by delegates elected from SYRIZA’s local groups. The final type of movement party is the case of a party being taken over from within by a movement, using the party as a platform and trying to change the party’s structure, in order to promote its own line and a more participatory form of politics. This is the case of Momentum and the Labour Party in the UK and, to a lesser extent, of Sanders and the Democratic Party in the US. In these cases, the shift is not from the movement to a party; instead, activists enter the arena of formal party politics in order to change the party into a movement, both in their politics and in their structure. As a result, those involved have usually accepted the vertical logic of the political system from the start, as they try to influence these parties in a more horizontalist direction, amplifying their influence within these structures.

The third type, often associated with Podemos but quite different, is the case of SYRIZA. In Greece, we are dealing with a party that pre-existed the protests and movements of the squares. From its inception, SYRIZA sought relations with social movements, and especially the youth wing of the party was very much involved in the European Social Fora, leading to the formation of the Greek Social Forum in 2003, and finally the hosting of the 4th European Social Forum in Athens in 2006.5 In this respect, SYRIZA already had problematized the relationship between party and movements while actively engaged

This typology opens up an interesting field of inquiry regarding the different expressions of movement parties, and the difficulties they face in bridging electoral with grassroots politics. Although the typology refers to the origins of movement parties, we claim that this shapes how the movement party engages with participatory structures and electoral politics. The typology is not the final word on the differences we can observe between different movement parties. We have also not considered a number of new phenomena such as Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise. Both share characteristics with movement parties but may be seen more as electoral machines supporting a particular political leader, even if Melenchon’s movement draws on the anti-labour law protests. There is also the question of the relationship between movement parties and populism. Many of the movement parties mentioned here are also (seen as) populist, which raises the question of what populism shares with a movement party. In particular, one would have to ask how the vertical relationship between leader and masses interacts with the horizontal organisation of movement parties. What is clear is that the appearance of movement parties constitutes a challenge to those who associate radical politics and radical democracy with horizontalism, but also to those who insist that radical politics is only effective insofar as it works through existing institutions.

5 Myrto Tsakatika and Costas Eleftheriou (2013), ‘The Radical Left’s Turn towards Civil Society in Greece: One Strategy, Two Paths’, South European Society and Politics, 18:1, 81-99.

6 https://left.gr/news/h-idrytiki-diakiryxi-toy-syriza Launching statement, accessed 18/03/18.

Praxis of Rebellion

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TRANSFOR M AT I O N FINDET S TA D T: P R Ã&#x201E; F I G U R AT I V U R B A N REBELLIEREN

Die Stadt als Ort des Politischen?

n den letzten Jahren ist eine verstärkte Ausrichtung emanzipatorischer politischer Bewegungen auf die Stadt als Aktionsraum zu beobachten. Mit den diversen Rechtauf-Stadt-Bewegungen, dem Solidarity-City-Netzwerk im deutschsprachigen Raum, den Transition-Town-Initiativen oder auch den munizipalistischen Plattformen in Spanien sind nur einige Beispiele genannt. Diesen Initiativen dient die Stadt nicht nur als Bühne, sondern auch als Ansatzpunkt für progressive Politik. Politische Kämpfe werden nicht nur in, sondern auch um die Stadt geführt, d.h. um die Art und Weise, wie sie konstituiert ist und wer in ihr ein gelingendes Leben führen kann. Das ist an sich nicht neu, urbane politische Bewegungen und städtische Kämpfe haben eine lange und vielfältige Geschichte. Insofern aber derartige Stadtpolitiken dezidiert Perspektiven über den Nahraum Stadt hinaus eröffnen – die Stadt also explizit auch als Ausgangspunkt umfassenderer Transformation begriffen wird –, sollte verstärkt auch ihr präfigurativer und damit auch rebellierender Charakter in den Blick genommen werden.

Vor dem Hintergrund der in den letzten Jahren geführten Strategiedebatten der politischen Linken lassen sich die neueren Stadtpolitiken nur schwer verorten. Die in der mitunter unversöhnlich anmutenden Debatte propagierten Dualismen von Exodus und Stellungskrieg, Horizontalismus und Vertikalismus oder Autonomie und Hegemonie eignen sich nicht recht, um ihnen gerecht zu werden. Vielleicht aber zeigt sich in den in ganz Europa zu beobachtenden Stadtpolitiken eine Art praktisch vollzogene Synthetisierung des transformationstheoretischen Diskurses. Schon das Paris der Commune von 1871, dieses „arbeitende Laboratorium politischer Erfindungen“1, war ein Ort, an dem marxistischer Jakobinismus und föderalistischer Proudhonismus in eigentümlicher Weise produktiv verschmolzen.2 Nicht mehr horizontal oder vertikal, sondern als querend – d.h. in, gegen und jenseits der etablierten Herrschaftsstrukturen agierend –, könnte eine Transformationsstrategie bezeichnet werden, die ihren Ausgang von den Städten nimmt. Um das zu plausibilisieren, ist zu klären, was solcherart stadtbezogene Politiken ausmacht. Man könnte zunächst versucht sein, sie als bloße Rückzugsgefechte zu interpretieren, als einen Rückzug aufs Lokale, um sich den Zumutungen globaler neoliberaler

Paul Soerensen Dynamiken zu entziehen oder repressiven Migrationspolitiken von Seiten der (supra-)staatlichen Ebene zu verwehren. In diesem Sinne deutete Michael Walzer unlängst die US-amerikanischen Sanctuary Cities und deren Kollaborationsverweigerung bei Abschiebungen als rein defensive Politik des Widerstands. In Walzers Augen entbehren derartige Praktiken bei allem Wohlwollen jeglicher offensiv-transformativer Potenzialität, welche sich letztlich auf die Übernahme der Machtzentralen im Staat richten müsse.3 In dieser Einschätzung, die der vertikal-hegemonietheoretischen Strategieperspektive Chantal Mouffes entspricht, kommt den Sanctuary-City-Praktiken keinerlei transformatives Potenzial zu. Nach meinem Dafürhalten übersieht dies jedoch einen Aspekt, den man als präfigurativen Zug bezeichnen könnte.

Präfiguration Das Konzept der Präfiguration entstammt dem anarchistischen und rätekommunistischen Denken und erfuhr zuletzt vor allem infolge der Platzbesetzungsbewegungen wieder ein reges Interesse. Auf die Entität »Stadt« kann es nicht ohne Weiteres übertragen werden, wurden damit bisher doch in erster Linie kleinteilige »Mikropolitiken« gefasst, performativ-verräumlichende Akte der präsentischen Vorwegnahme einer alternativen Welt im Klein(st)en. Van de Sande beschreibt das Konzept wie folgt: „»Prefiguration« or »prefigurative politics« refers to a political action, practice, movement, moment or development in which certain political ideas are experimentally actualized in the »here and now«, rather than hoped to be realized in a distant future. Thus, in prefigurative practices, the means applied are deemed to embody or »mirror« the ends one strives to realize.”4 Dem gegen ein passivierendes Warten auf den großen revolutionären Bruch gerichteten präsentischen Beginnen kommt dabei eine zentrale strategische Bedeutung zu. Gustav Landauer, ein früher Protagonist dieses Diskursstrangs, vermerkte dazu in einem 1908 verfassten Flugblatt, mit dem er für das Präfigurationsprojekt Sozialistischer Bund warb, folgendes: „Wir warten nicht auf die Revolution, damit dann Sozialismus beginne; sondern wir fangen an, den Sozialismus zur Wirklichkeit zu machen, damit dadurch der große Umschwung komme!“5 Ausgehend von einem rela3 Walzer, Michael (2017): The Politics of Resistance. In: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-politics-of-resistance-michael-walzer, Zugriff: 22.09.2017.

1 Ross, Kristin (2016): Die Pariser Kommune – jenseits des »zellenartigen Regimes der Nationalität«. In: Historische Anthropologie, 24, 3/2016, 376-395, hier: 376.

4 Van de Sande, Mathijs (2013): The Prefigurative Politics of Tharir Square – An Alternative Perspective on the 2011 Revolutions. In: Res Publica, 19, 3/2013, 223-239, hier: 230.

2 Vgl. Castells, Manuel (1983): The City and the Grassroots. Berkeley: UC Press, 21.

5 Landauer, Gustav (2010): Antipolitik, Lich: Edition AV, 131.

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tionalen Machtverständnis argumentiert Landauer in überzeugender Weise dafür, den bestehenden Verhältnissen von innen heraus die performativ stabilisierte Bestandskraft zu entziehen, indem andere Beziehungen eingegangen, Gegenorte geschaffen und Gegeninstitutionen errichtet werden. Landauers Ansatz besitzt aber auch Schwachstellen: Obwohl er wiederholt gegen eskapistische und selbstreferenzielle Umsetzungen dieses Appells polemisiert und auf ein aktivistisches Hineinwirken in die Verhältnisse insistiert, so verweist er hinsichtlich einer Universalisierung letztlich nur auf die Vorbildwirkungen derartiger Mikroutopien, die in nicht näher erläuterter Weise zu Ansteckungseffekten führen sollen. Damit ist eine Problematik berührt, die dadurch noch verstärkt wird, dass der von Landauer eingeschlagene Weg aufs Land führt: Priorisiert wird die Errichtung sozialistischer Landkommunen, der Stadt und dem Großstadtleben kann Landauer nur wenig abgewinnen. Problematisch ist diese Tendenz nicht etwa deshalb, weil »das Land« per se weniger emanzipationsbefähigt wäre und die jeweilige (Frei-)Raum-Produktion mag an und für sich durchaus emanzipatorisch sein. Allerdings dürfte eine nicht nur lebensformbezogene, sondern auch örtliche Abständigkeit von der Gesellschaft in ganz pragmatischer Hinsicht ungeeignet sein, um wirkmächtige Ansteckungseffekte zu zeitigen. Das von Landauer immer wieder beschworene, mit der »Land-Flucht« zumindest harmonierende, Ausscheiden aus Staat und Kapital – eine Idee die heute etwa in den Schriften Giorgio Agambens oder John Holloways aufscheint – läuft Gefahr, aufgrund seiner intentionalen Radikalabgrenzung in einer eigentümlichen, von politischen Konflikten befreiten Sphäre der Reinheit oder, mit einem Ausdruck Michel Foucaults, in Kompensationsheterotopien zu verharren.

Landauer urbanisieren Insofern sich den Landauerschen Überlegungen aber wertvolle macht- und transformationstheoretische Einsichten und Anregungen entnehmen lassen,6 könnte sich der Versuch lohnen, sie zu »urbanisieren«. Anders als von Landauer noch angenommen und postuliert, könnten sich in einer zunehmend urbanisierten Welt nicht mehr die fernab liegenden Landkommunen – so sie es denn jemals waren –, sondern die Städte als privilegierte Orte und Ausgangspunkte der Transformation erweisen, verdichten sich doch dort in brisanter Weise viele der aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Problemkonstellationen. Warum sollten also nicht gerade die Städte jene Knotenpunkte des Zellgewebes der Gesellschaft sein, das Martin Buber, Freund und Weggefährte Landauers, zu transformieren trachtete, um die Gesellschaft im Ganzen zu erneuern?7 Die Stadt als Aktionsraum mit der Präfigurationsstrategie in Verbindung zu setzen, würde zunächst einmal bedeuten, letztere von einer Mikro- auf eine Mesoebene zu beziehen. Angefangen von kleinräumigen Projekten wie Nachbarschaftsgärten oder sozialen Zentren bis hin zur dissidenten, rebellischen Stadt im Ganzen würde das bedeuten, den Stadtraum als Ort des Hier-und-JetztExperimentalismus zu begreifen, in dem radikale Innovationen etabliert, erprobt und gelebt werden, die Vorbild und erste Bau-

steine eines aus den Städten über sich hinauswachsenden Transformationsprozesses hin zu einer anderen Welt sind. Gänzlich neu sind Ansinnen und Anspruch freilich nicht, denkt man etwa an das Rote Wien, das sozialistische Vergesellschaftung auf städtischer Ebene zu veralltäglichen suchte, um so den Sozialismus auf gesamtgesellschaftlicher Ebene zu antizipieren.8 In eben jenem Sinne, im dem Marx im Paris der Commune eine „neue Welt“9 aufscheinen sah, könnte ein solches, im Hier und Jetzt begonnenes Experiment unter weniger widrigen Umständen durchaus von städtischer Ebene aus Ansteckungseffekte auslösen und auf andere Städte und Regionen übergreifen. Diese Potenzialität der Städte als Laboratorien und Ausgangspunkte der Transformation hat auch Isabell Lorey jüngst mit Blick auf die neuen spanischen Munizipalismen betont, da in ihnen „Experimente und Inventionen jenseits traditioneller Formen“ möglich sind. „Es geht um eine andere Demokratie, die […] im Lokalen, in der Nähe, der Nachbarschaft, der Kommune beginnt und dort eine Stadt schafft, die für jede und jeden ein Leben in Würde ermöglicht, in der nachhaltig und gerecht agiert wird. Auf kommunaler Ebene wird ausprobiert, was landes- und europaweit ausgebreitet werden soll.“10 Die Hinwendung zur Stadt und der ihr eigenen Heterogenität bringt für die Präfigurationsstrategie – anders als es in »klassischen« Exodusprojekten der Fall sein mag – mit sich, sich auf ein widriges Terrain zu begeben und einzulassen, den Exodus gewissermaßen als Teil von und im Gelände des Stellungskriegs zu begreifen. Anders als es die abständigen Exodusprojekte mit sich bringen, ist und kann dies kein Prozess unter Laborbedingungen im eigentlichen, d.h. geschützten und »reinen« Sinne sein, sondern ereignet sich »im Handgemenge«. Es geht also durchaus darum, Hegemonie aufzubauen, wenn auch zunächst nur auf Ebene der Stadt. Damit ist verknüpft, dass ein Konzept urbaner Präfiguration auch noch in einer anderen Hinsicht aus einem allzu engen Korsett befreit werden sollte. Die mit dem Gedanken des präfigurierenden Entziehens nicht selten verknüpfte Annahme, man solle sich an den Rändern oder gar außerhalb der gesellschaftlichen Machtverhältnisse ansiedeln, wird in aller Regel von einer überbordenden Dämonisierung bzw. Ablehnung gegenüber bereits bestehenden Institutionen und »dem Staat« begleitet. Begreift man den Staat mit etwas anspruchsvolleren Annahmen à la Poulantzas als materielle Verdichtung von Kräfteverhältnissen, d.h. als intern keineswegs homogen, sondern umkämpft, und ergänzt diese horizontale Perspektive um eine vertikale, auch die skalaren Ebenen und Frakturen des Staates miteinbeziehende Perspektive, so können und sollten gerade auch die kommunalen Institutionen als Ansatzpunkte transformatorischer Prozesse und als Orte für deren Verstetigung in den Blick rücken. Die spanischen Munizipalbewegungen haben es in den letzten Jahren mit ihrer »Erstürmung der Institutionen« vorgemacht – und dabei mit inklusiven und horizontalen Beteiligungsformen experimentiert, die zudem einer Revitalisierung der Demokratie von unten Vorschub leisten.11

8 Vgl. Rabinbach, Anson (1989): Vom Roten Wien zum Bürgerkrieg, Wien: Löcker; Maderthaner, Wolfgang (2017): Das kommunale Experiment des Roten Wien – die »Veralltäglichung« der Utopie? In: Amberger, Alexander/Möbius, Thomas [Hg.]: Auf Utopias Spuren. Utopie und Utopieforschung, Wiesbaden: VS, 207-227. 9 Marx, Karl (1973): Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich. In: MEW 17, Berlin: Dietz, 313-365, hier: 349.

6 Von Redecker, Eva (2014): Topischer Sozialismus. Zur Exodus-Konzeption bei Gustav Landauer und Martin Buber. In: WestEnd, 11, 1/2014, 93-108.

10 Lorey, Isabell (2016): Präsentische Demokratie. Radikale Inklusion – Jetztzeit – konstituierender Prozess. In: Demirović, Alex [Hg.]: Transformationen der Demokratie, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 265-277, hier: 273f.

7 Buber, Martin (1950): Pfade in Utopia. Heidelberg: Schneider, 7.

11 Siehe jetzt auch Brunner, Christoph et al. (2017) [Hg.]: Die neuen Munizipalismen. Soziale

rebellisch präfigurieren – präfigurativ rebellieren Strategisch betrachtet manifestiert sich präfigurative Politik ganz wesentlich in der Etablierung alternativer Formen des Miteinanders und der damit zugleich vollzogenen Herausforderung der bestehenden »Ordnung der Dinge«. Als praktische Kritik ist sie welterschließend, macht Alternativen sichtbar und untergräbt damit das scheinbar alternativlos Festgefügte. In einer etwas pathetischen Formulierung Landauers: „[L]asset uns vor allem mit dem zerstören, was wir Sanftes, Bleibendes, Verbindendes aufbauen.“12 Was könnte das für Städte bedeuten? Rebellierend können Städte meines Erachtens nicht nur insofern sein, als sie sich etwa nationalstaatlichen Politiken oder Tendenzen widersetzen, sondern auch insofern, als sie durch die Realisation alternativer Praktiken diskursiv und ganz im ursprünglichen Wortsinne re-bellieren, das heißt vermeintliche, oft in institutionelle Form gegossene Gewissheiten in einen Zustand der Umkämpftheit (zurück)versetzen.13 An zwei zentralen Topoi – der Frage des Eigentums und der Frage der Zugehörigkeit – lässt sich dies mit Blick auf aktuelle städtische Aktivismen knapp explizieren. In Zeiten steigenden Wohnraummangels, befeuert durch gewinnorientierte Spekulationspraktiken, stellt sich die Frage nach sozialem oder kommunalem Eigentum mit großer Dringlichkeit. Unter der Devise »Instandbesetzen statt Kaputtbesitzen« sind Hausbesetzungen gewiss die radikalsten, oft aber nur einem kleinen aktivistischen Zirkel vermittelbaren Praktiken einer performativen Infragestellung von Eigentumsverhältnissen und -verständnissen. Weniger radikal in der Methode ist bspw. das Vorgehen des Mietshäusersyndikats e.V. Wenn aber wie im Fall der Stadt Leipzig flankierend eine Umstellung der Liegenschaftsvergabe von einem Höchstpreis- zu einem Projektverfahren forciert und umgesetzt wird, so kann daraus ein Modell der Wohnpolitik erwachsen, das nicht nur konkrete Verbesserung für die dort lebenden Menschen mit sich bringt, sondern auch die mittlerweile zur nahezu unhinterfragten Doktrin gewordenen Ansicht vom urbanen Lebensraum als Ware und Kapital erschüttert und gebrauchswertorientierte Modelle von Gemeineigentum (wieder) in den Raum des Denkbaren einpflanzt.

siv manifestiert. Durch die Ausbildung neuer Subjektivitäten und Sozialitäten – als eine Art Bürgerschaft all derer, die in der Stadt leben – können bei aller begleitenden Ambivalenz nicht nur konkrete Verbesserungen der Lebensumstände erreicht werden, sondern im selben Zuge und gerade durch den Vollzug einer anders gearteten Form des Miteinanders zumindest diskursiv ein Nachund Umdenkprozess bzgl. überkommener Formen der Zugehörigkeit in Gang gesetzt, das nationalstaatliche Imaginäre infrage gestellt und verschüttete Alternativen – wie etwa das ius domicilii – in Erinnerung gerufen werden.14 Wenngleich bspw. die Ausstellung von Stadtausweisen durch die Recht auf Stadt-Bewegung Hamburg im Arrivati-Park während des G20-Gipfels im Sommer 2017 erst einmal nur als symbolische Spielerei erscheinen mag – anders als es mit der New Yorker City Card der Fall ist –, so eignet dem Projekt nichtsdestotrotz ein präfigurativ-intervenierender Zug, der als eine Art Kosmopolitismus von unten (James Ingram) gedeutet werden kann und durch die Erschließung des Anders-sein-Könnens re-bellierend wirkt. Zumindest in diesem Sinne, darauf hat auch Davina Cooper hingewiesen,15 sind solch spielerisch-präfigurative Praktiken des »als ob« eminent politisch. Die Aktivistinnen des Arrivati-Parks dürften sich dessen durchaus bewusst gewesen sein, stellten sie ihr Projekt doch unter den augenzwinkernden Titel »Urban Citizenship – it’s (not) a game!«. Was damit nur in aller Kürze angedeutet werden kann, ist die Impulsfunktion, die konkrete Stadtpolitiken auch über den Nahraum Stadt hinaus geben können. In diesem Sinne könn(t) en Städte als Keimzellen und Motoren einer möglichen anderen Welt fungieren. Als hinreichend bedeutsame und an Bedeutung beständig gewinnende Entitäten einer globalisierten Welt könnten sie im Verbund – der Sozialgeograph David Harvey imaginiert gar eine Föderation sozialistischer Städte nach dem Vorbild der Hanse – vielleicht tatsächlich eine Transformation von unten, dies- und jenseits des Staates, bewirken.

Noch eindrücklicher führen die vor allem in Nordamerika und Großbritannien verbreiteten, zunehmend aber auch (unter anderen Vorzeichen) im deutschsprachigen Raum anzutreffenden, Praktiken unter den Namen Sanctuary City, Solidarische Stadt oder Stadt der Zuflucht den präfigurativ-kontestatorischen Stil vor Augen. Geht es bei diesen von Stadt zu Stadt mitunter sehr verschiedenen, mal mehr, mal weniger formalisierten Politiken zunächst einmal »nur« um die Ermöglichung und Sicherung des Zugangs zu kommunalen Dienstleistungen aller Art auch für Personen mit eingeschränktem oder ohne Aufenthaltsstatus, um mehr oder weniger geschützte Orte der Zuflucht, so wird damit zugleich auch die vorherrschende staatlich-herrschaftsförmige Einteilung von Citizens und Non-Citizens unterlaufen, die sich im Zuge der verstärkten Innenverlagerung des Grenzregimes gerade auch in Städten mas-

12 Landauer, Gustav (2015): Aufruf zum Sozialismus. Lich: Edition AV, 104.

14 Vgl. Dazu z.B. McDonald, Jean (2012): Building a Sanctuary City. Municipal migrant rights in the city of Toronto. In: Neyers, Peter/Rygiel, Kim [Hg.]: Citizenship, Migrant Activism and the Politics of Movement. New York: Routledge, 129-145; Bauder, Harald (2016): Possibilities of Urban Belonging. In: Antipode, 48, 2/2016, 252-271.

13 Diese Einsicht, so meine ich, steckt auch hinter Marx’ Lobpreisung des »arbeitenden Daseins« der Pariser Commune. Vgl. Marx: Bürgerkrieg, 347.

15 Cooper, Davina (2016): Enacting counter-states through play. In: Contemporary Political Theory, 15, 4/2016, 453-461.

Bewegungen und die Regierung der Städte. Wien: transversal.

Radical Cities

Täglicher Widerstand?

Wir wünschen uns eine andere Welt und wir sind davon überzeugt, dass sie möglich ist. Eine Welt der Solidarität und des Miteinanders anstatt vieler Konkurrenzen und Grenzen. Wir sind davon überzeugt, dass wir hierfü r unkonventionelle und radikale Wege gehen müssen. Aber was bedeutet es im Alltag und in Städten an den “Wurzeln“ von gesellschaft lichen Herausforderungen anzusetzen? – Das wissen wir als Schreibende dieses Textes nicht fü r euren Alltag, können es auch nicht fü r andere wissen, haben aber ein paar Ideen davon, was es heißen könnte es zu versuchen und möchten diese mit euch teilen. Wir sind davon überzeugt, dass es nicht DIE eine Lösung gibt, nicht eine überall passende Strategie existiert, und erst recht nicht eine gleichgeschaltete Form sinnvoll ist um eine radikale Veränderung in unserem Alltag umzusetzen. Radikalität im Sinne einer transformativen Praxis im Alltag bedeutet fü r uns nicht nur kollektive Strukturen zu schaff en, die den Status Qu o mit Aktionen, strategischer Organisation und durch den Aufbau von praktischen Alternativen in Frage stellen, sondern auch individuelle und situative Improvisation, Reaktion und gelebte Solidarität. Veränderung bedeutet immer Auseinandersetzung. Vor allem mit unserer Umwelt, mit der Gesellschaft um uns herum, aber – nicht zuletzt – auch mit uns selbst. Normalität zu durchbrechen, um eine andere Welt aufzubauen ist auch deswegen eine Herausforderung, weil wir alle – oft ohne es zu merken – vorherrschende und gewohnte Normen und strukturelle Unterdrückungen reproduzieren und weitergeben. Ein Appell das zu ändern und die Formulierung des Anspruchs, dass sich an den bestehenden Verhältnissen fundamental etwas ändern muss, reicht allein nicht aus. Anders gesagt: Eine – und wenn auch gut gemeinte – „weltverändernde Praxis“ allein reicht nicht aus. Veränderung muss immer auch bei uns selbst stattfi nden. Bei dir, bei mir, bei uns allen. Jeden Tag. Gleichzeitig bleibt bei aller romantischen Illusionsbereitschaft und jedem nett gemeinten Pragmatismus, der uns zur Praxis des Handelns drängt, eine alles entscheidende Frage:

Was kann und will ICH tun? Was kann ICH tun, damit eine konkrete Unterdrückungssituation aufhört? Was kann ICH tun, damit die Welt “besser“ wird oder sich etwas strukturell ändert? Und: Was will ICH tun, damit ich mich nicht handlungsunfähig fühle? Das wissen wir nicht. Das können wir auch nicht wissen, denn das kannst nur du allein entscheiden und umsetzen. Jede*r von uns kann das tun, macht es sowieso die ganze Zeit, auch wenn es uns nicht auffällt, – denn: auch scheinbar NICHTS zu tun ist ein individuelles Handeln. Wir können nicht NICHTs tun, sonst wären wir nicht existent. Daher fragen wir nur:

Was und wie kann ich etwas tun und was hilft uns dabei etwas ganz Bestimmtes (und aus ganz bestimmten Gründen) zu tun? Hier ein paar Ansätze in der Hoffnung voneinander zu lernen und euch durch das Teilen unserer Perspektive dabei zu unterstützen, euren Weg zu finden.

Die Umgebung bewusst sehen und sich in Beziehung setzen

Sich selbst als handlungsf ähiges Subjekt wahrnehmen – Was ich tue macht einen Unterschied.

Von vorne beginnen

Während (und davor und danach) dem Handeln nachdenken! – Reflektieren ist besser als sich dogmatisch verrennen.

Theorie- und Utopie-Entwicklung: Wofür stehe ich?

In Aktion treten – Ich handle und weiß warum,

– auch wenn ich mir nie 100% sicher sein kann.

Einen Versuch ist es wert.

engagée | 43

Inhalte sichtbar machen

Wo und wie werden die Konfl ikte dieser Zeit verhandelt? Die hier gezeigten Tätigkeiten sollen praktische Erfahrungen von Versuchen skizzieren, in kleinen und großen Schritten durch eine individuelle und kollektive Praxis die Welt zu verändern, in der wir leben. Sie können niemals vollständig sein und müssen immer weiterentwickelt und situativ neu angewendet werden.

Stadtbild gestalten Welche Möglichkeiten haben wir, gegen Unterdrückung und Diskriminierung aktiv zu werden? Individuell oder kollektiv, spontan oder im Voraus geplant, subversiv, kreativ oder militant: Vieles ist möglich und beinhaltet doch sehr verschiedene Herausforderungen, Fragen, Potentiale und neue Verhältnisse, aber eines ist allen gemein,- es sind Beispiele fü r den Alltag in dem wir leben (können).

Diskurs voranbringen

Protest auf die Straße tragen

Zentral fü r täglichen Widerstand gegenüber körperlicher und psychischer Gewalt, struktureller und individueller Unterdrückung und systematischer Ungerechtigkeit ist Solidarität und Notwehr.

Situativ agieren Kollektiv arbeiten

Wenn die Nachbar*innen von nebenan zwangsgeräumt werden, wenn ein Mensch an der Straßenecke rassistisch beleidigt oder sexuell belästigt wird, dann schreitet ein! Wenn der nächste Park einem Einkaufszentrum weichen soll oder wieder ein kleiner Laden an der Ecke den Miethaien zum Opfer fällt, dann schreitet ein! Helft einander! Ohne Solidarität sind wir alle allein.

Widerspenstig bleiben

engagée | 45

Radical Cities

Ein Dogma wird nie die Lรถsung sein.

Das Handeln ist immer jetzt und keine Situation wird werden, wie sie gerade war.

Kein Ziel ohne IrrtĂźmer, kein Utopie-Versuch ohne Scheitern.

Konzept: Team Sowieso Zeichnungen: blackpenimages

Radical Cities

Von Freiräumen

Räume

freier von freier für

prai schützen und schonen, gern haben und lieben Freiheit, Freundschaft, Frieden Schutz Freiräume schützen Freiräume schützen Freiwilligkeit Selbst bestimmen Selbstbestimmt Aushandelbarkeit Handeln Nichts tun Freiräume für alle und alles Aneignung ohne Ausschließung Freiräume freiräumen Freiräume freiräumen!

| Miriam Nessler

Für-ein konfrontatives Miteinander Interview mit der Architektin und Stadtplanerin Gabu Heindl über radikaldemokratische Stadtplanung

engagée: Wir haben lange nach einem Raum für das Interview gesucht und jetzt treffen wir uns in der Kunstakademie: Gibt es öffentliche Räume in Wien, wo man sich im Winter treffen kann, ohne etwas konsumieren zu müssen, ungestört, ohne Musik?

im Stadtkino ist so gestaltet, dass man nichts konsumieren und keinen Eintritt zahlen muss, um es zu nutzen. Das ist so gelöst, dass alles, was aus blauem Leder fix installiert ist, zum Stadtkino gehört und alles, was aus Holz ist, gehört zur Gastronomie.

Gabu Heindl: Leider kaum. Deine Frage impliziert ja eine sehr grundsätzliche Machtfrage, nämlich die nach der Durchkapitalisierung von urbanem Raum. Was nun aber die konkretere Frage nach konsumzwangsfreien Orten betrifft: Spontan fällt mir das Stadtkino-Foyer ein, nicht zufällig, da ich das gestaltet habe. Mir war dabei die Pflege des Gastrechts wichtig. Das Foyer

é: Wird der öffentliche Raum dort genutzt? GH: Wie es nun mal so ist, läuft das Nebeneinander nicht ideal. Die Gastronomie ist dort sehr erfolgreich und dehnt sich immer weiter aus. Wenn der öffentliche Partner nicht stark genug ist, dann wächst der privat genutzte Raum auf Kosten des frei zugänglichen

Bereichs. Öffentliche Räume sind umkämpft. Für ihre Offenhaltung braucht es starke öffentliche Institutionen, die aufsperren, heizen und verwalten. Es braucht aber auch das Wissen darum, dass diese Räume öffentlich sind und Besuchende ohne Geld oder auch mit eigenen Getränken hingehen könnten, sich verabreden, eine Pause einlegen, arbeiten oder ein Buch lesen könnten. é: Der öffentliche, städtische Raum steht also unter dem ständigen Druck der möglichen Privatisierung? GH: Das wird besonders deutlich für Menschen, die auf den öffentlichen Raum angewiesen sind. Weitaus gravierender

engagée | 49

als bei der Suche nach einem Ort für ein Interview stellt sich ja die Frage nach der Privatisierung, wenn ich z.B. obdachlos bin. Bahnhöfe, Aufenthaltsräume und Wartezonen waren einmal Räume, die sich in diesem Fall angeboten haben. Wenn ich an die üppigen Möblagen in historischen Bahnhöfen denke: Da hätte man sich gut aufhalten können. Da sitzt du nicht nur auf sozusagen „schnellen Bänken“, die wollen, dass du gleich wieder aufstehst. Heute werden solche Räume rar. é: Vor dem Hamburger Bahnhof sollen unerwünschte Leute mit klassischer Musik vertrieben werden. GH: Auch über solche hochgradig unguten Maßnahmen hinaus, die ja Gewaltmaßnahmen sind, ist das Thema Beschallung wichtig: Einen Raum ohne Musikbespielung zu finden ist schwer. Wir sollten mehr Räume ohne Musik einfordern! é: Du hast in Wien einen Nichtbebauungsplan für den Donaukanal erstellt. Ist der als ein Schutzschild gegen die Privatisierung zu verstehen? GH: Der Nichtbebauungsplan fordert explizit ein Offenhalten von öffentlichen Flächen. Er ist Teil eines von der Stadt Wien in Auftrag gegebenes Leitbild, der sich als anti-neoliberales Planungstool versteht, um dort die wenigen verbliebenen nicht privatisierten und damit nicht konsumorientierten Orte zu schützen. Wichtig war uns Planer*innen (Susan Kraupp und mir) dabei, diese Orte auch minimal zu besetzen. Wir mussten sie beschreiben, sie einfordern, ihnen einen Begriff geben. Denn wenn ihre Nutzung nicht artikuliert wird, dann heißt es leicht: Da ist ja nichts! – Das ist im Prinzip ein klassisch kolonialer Anspruch: Dass da „nichts“ war, bevor die Kolonisierer und „Entwickler“ gekommen sind... Wo vermeintlich nichts ist, wollen die Investoren ihr Privatinvestment hinsetzen. é: Ich erlebe Städte zunehmend als glatt. Reibungsfrei gleiten die Massen durch die Straßen, werden aufgeteilt

und zu ihren Konsum- und Arbeits- und Wohnplätzen gelenkt. Obdachlose werden aus den Innenstädten vertrieben und die Gentrifizierung drängt immer mehr Menschen an die Ränder. Könnten diese slicken Oberflächen nicht häufiger unterbrochen werden? Wäre es möglich, Konflikt einzuplanen in eine Stadt? GH: Die Grundbedingung für dissensfreundliche und konfliktfreudige Städte ist der öffentliche Raum. Hier treffen Menschen auf Menschen, die nicht Teil ihrer Interessensgemeinschaften oder ihrer sozialen Gruppe sind, was Schichten und Klassen betrifft, Einkommensunterschiede, kulturelle Unterschiede, etc. Wie schon gesagt, müssen wir zunächst dafür kämpfen, dass es mehr öffentlichen Raum in den Städten gibt und diese Forderung gegen den jetzigen Trend der Monopolisierung, Kommerzialisierung und Privatisierung stellen. Als Aktivistin und Planerin kann ich aber auch versuchen, Dissens-Möglichkeiten mitzugestalten. Damit meine ich ja nun bitte nicht, dass die Architektur „härter“ und „kantiger“ werden soll und dass ich nun eher harten Asphalt anstatt weicherer Wiesen einplane. Es müsste stattdessen darum gehen, dass es ausreichend Räume gibt, die gar nicht designt sind, die eigendynamisch gewachsen sind, also solche Räume, die in touristisch optimierten Zonen nicht gern gesehen wären. Hoch gegriffen: Mehr „Kontingenz-Offenheit“, also Offenheit für Unvorhergesehenes, wäre wichtig als Kontrast für diese marketingfreundlichen und reibungslosen Städte. Wobei das für mich keine primär ästhetische Frage ist, bzw. eine ästhetische im Rahmen einer politischen Frage. Und da meine ich eben: Das Gestalten – oder das gezielte NichtGestalten – von dissensfreundlichen Räumen scheint mir möglich. Es geht darum, heterogenen Ansprüchen Raum zu geben anstatt zu homogenisieren. é: Wie können diese vielfältigen und dissensfreundlichen Räume geplant werden? GH: Durch ein Nicht-fertig-Planen. Klar ist jeder Plan einmal fertig,

aber der verbreitete Anspruch von Planer*innen, dass die Sache durchdesignt ist und dass sich daran nichts ändern dürfte, wäre das Gegenteil von meinem Selbstverständnis. Es kann Sinn machen, absichtlich aufzuhören und eine Offenheit in den Raum einzuschreiben. Das richtet sich gegen die Idee, dass alles wohlgeordnet und fertig sein muss. Gleichzeitig glaube ich, dass eine solche Tätigkeit große Präzision braucht, genauso viel Klarheit und Entschlossenheit wie ein geschlossenes Design. Das bedeutet, dass ich entschieden Position beziehe in der Gestaltung. Schließlich ist das meine Expertise. Die Zeichnungen des Donaukanals sind beispielsweise sehr detailreich. Wir haben die gesamte Strecke sehr präzise gezeichnet und uns auf die Qualitäten des Raums eingelassen. Wir haben mit derselben Intensität, mit der ein*e Privatinvestor*in scoutet, wo investiert werden soll, überlegt, welche Räume für die Öffentlichkeit geschützt werden müssen. Gleichzeitig haben wir festgelegt, an welchen Orten es neue öffentliche Infrastruktur und höhere räumliche Qualität im öffentlichen (nicht-kommerziellen) Raum braucht. é: Arbeitest Du in der Planung mit Gruppen zusammen, die den öffentlichen Raum nutzen? GH: Selbstverständlich. Ich habe mich viel mit Partizipation auseinandergesetzt. Dabei bin ich zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass Partizipation eine Maßstabsfrage und eine Kontextfrage ist. Im Wohnbau, Schulbau, Spielplatzbau oder im Planen für eine Community wissen die zukünftigen Nutzenden sehr genau, was gut für sie ist. Dann ist es eine Selbstverständlichkeit, dass die Leute, die den Raum nutzen, ihre Interessen einbringen oder sogar selbst weiterbauen. Ein solcher kleiner Maßstab liegt beispielsweise vor, wenn ich selbstorganisierte Communities architektonisch unterstütze. Es gibt in Wien viele Gruppen, die solidarisch und selbstorganisiert wohnen und leben wol-

len. Das lässt sich bei den heutigen hohen Miet- und Grundstückspreisen aber kaum leisten. So formiert sich beispielsweise eine Gruppe, die sich „habiTAT“ nennt und etwas Ähnliches entwickelt wie in Deutschland das Mietshäusersyndikat. Zunächst mutet das in Wien seltsam an. Es gibt ja schließlich das breite und gut funktionierende Genossenschafts- und Gemeindebausystem, in dem immerhin 60% der Wiener*innen in leistbaren und mietpreisgeschützten Wohnungen leben. Aber was im Gemeindebau nicht möglich ist, sind neue Formen und Experimente des Zusammenlebens. Darum gibt es diese Initiativen, die sich als Syndikat organisieren, eine andere Form der Entkapitalisierung suchen und Gebäude aus dem Markt herauskaufen – mit dem Ziel eines gemeinsamen, selbstbestimmten Lebens.

dafür vorfinden. Diese Möglichkeit zur temporären Nutzung des öffentlichen Raums ist die Teilhabe und somit das Planungsziel. Bei einem großen Maßstab muss es Mut geben zu klar positionierten Plänen. Wir müssen Teilhabe für alle Offenhalten und zugleich Verantwortung übernehmen, also müssen wir Offen-Haltungen präzis planen und setzen. Das klingt vielleicht nach einem Widerspruch, aber der ist ausagierbar. Ich schlage also eine doppelte Strategie vor: Im Alltag radikale und vermessene Forderungen artikulieren, ohne aber den Horizont konkreter Einrichtungen aus den Augen zu verlieren. Es gibt radikal demokratische Formen der Stadt, denen wir näher kommen können.

Ein weiterer Verein, für den ich als Architektin tätig war, ist der „Verein für die Barrierefreiheit in der Kunst, im Alltag, im Denken“. Das ist eine intersektionale Gruppe aus unterschiedlich solidarisch motivierten Bewegungen, queer, refugees, Leute im Rollstuhl wie auch Gehende etc., die sich zusammen getan haben, um ein ganzes Gründerzeithaus zu einem Einküchenhaus umzubauen. Das wäre im Genossenschaftswohnbau so nicht möglich. Mit meiner Expertise planten wir das Haus gemeinsam, sodass am Ende die Vereinsmitglieder sogar die Baufirma ablösten und das Haus zu Ende bauten. Auch mit wenig Geld lässt sich Gutes bauen.

GH: Das ist ein mir sehr wichtiges Konzept, dem ich in meinem Buchprojekt zur radikaldemokratischen Planung ein eigenes Kapitel widme. Vermessene Forderungen sind ein mutiges Fordern von Dingen, von denen uns der Neoliberalismus glauben lässt, sie seien unmöglich. Vom (vielleicht etwas pathetischen) „Luxus für alle“, über die Dachterrasse auf der Schule oder den Swimmingpools für den geförderten Wohnbau, bis hin zu einer Kollektivierung des Wohnbaus. Vermessen spielt auch mit dem Vermessen, also damit, ein anderes Messen zu lernen. Wir müssen nicht mit den Maßstäben und Zahlen der Mainstream-Ökonomie messen, sondern können andere Maßstäbe ansetzen. Das Fordern schließlich lehne ich an Ernesto Laclaus politiktheoretischen Begriff von Forderung, demand, an. Es gibt eine Eigendynamik der Forderung: Sie bringt sozusagen die Gruppe erst hervor, die sich um sie herum organisiert. Das heißt konkret: Manchmal braucht es die vermessene Forderung, damit Bewegung passiert, Leute sich zu Bewegungen organisieren. Ich glaube daran – und habe aber zugleich die Sorge, dass wir (aus Gründen etwa ideologischer Hegemonie) oft gar nicht die Denkkapazität haben, um wirklich vermessen zu fordern.

é: Wird es im großen Maßstab schwierig mit der Partizipation? GH: Ja, das ist so. Wenn es beispielsweise um ein Leitbild des Donaukanals geht, dann geht es nicht nur um 200 oder 300 Menschen. Das ist ja ein Raum für alle 2 Millionen Wiener*innen und andere mehr, und es kann da keinen Prozess geben, an dem alle teilhaben und mitbestimmen. Ich denke, dann geht es darum, möglichst viele Räume zu sichern, so dass die Leute, die sich in Wien aufhalten, dort später machen können, was sie wollen und den Raum

é: Was sind vermessene Forderungen?

é: Vielleicht wissen wir auch gar nicht, wie wir unsere Forderungen artikulieren und an wen wir sie richten sollen. Glaubst Du an bestehende Parteienpolitik und städtische Verwaltungsstrukturen? Oder braucht es munizipalistische Bewegungen, um vermessene Forderungen zu stellen? GH: Ich hab mich lange mit dem Roten Wien beschäftigt, weil ich davon beeindruckt bin, wie in diesen Strukturen der Sozialdemokratie Umverteilung von oben nach unten möglich war. Aber etwas hat das Rote Wien aufgrund seiner zentralistischen Top-down Konzeption von Macht nicht geschafft: nämlich Selbstverantwortung und Eigeninitiative zu unterstützen. Und ich glaube, das ist das große Manko, das im Grunde viele Stadtverwaltungen bis heute haben. Und so verstehe ich den neuen Munizipalismus als gegenwärtige Alternative dazu: Es geht dabei darum, nicht nur gegen die Institutionen, sondern zugleich auch in den Institutionen zu arbeiten. So verstehe ich auch meine Praxis: Wir müssen auf jeden Fall radikaldemokratisch rein in die Institutionen und aus ihnen etwas anderes machen. Dabei müssen wir im Blick behalten, wie wichtig außerinstitutionelle Bürger*innenbewegungen, Widerstand und Eigeninitiative sind. Ich glaube da an ein konfrontatives Miteinander. é: Das ist ein gutes Schlusswort. Gibt es noch etwas, was Du sagen möchtest? GH: Ich denke, auf Verteilungsfragen und Stadtpolitik hätten wir noch genauer eingehen können. Das machen wir dann beim nächsten Mal. é: Dann treffen wir uns im StadtkinoFoyer oder auf einer Parkbank am Donaukanal. Dankeschön für das Gespräch. GH: Dankeschön. Das Interview führte Johannes Siegmund für engagée.

engagée | 51

Radical Cities

Wimmelbild „Recht auf Stadt“

engagée | 53

engagĂŠe | 55

Radical Cities

// Ausschnitte aus dem Wimmelbild â&#x20AC;&#x17E;Recht auf Stadtâ&#x20AC;&#x153; von Marc Amann und Markus Wende

Taking back the city

Ne da(vi)mo Beograd - Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let Belgrade d(r)own Initiative

he Belgrade Waterfront project, the latest incarnation of Bilbao-inspired “urban renewals”, is among the most grandiose examples of “investor urbanism”. Its costs for the taxpayers and the potential risks linked to the construction are immense, as are the various regulations violated by the planners. Yet, the Serbian government instigates a frightening social consensus for the project.

The Belgrade Waterfront was presented in 2012 during the Serbian parliamentary and re-emerged in the elections of the 2014 campaign. The media presented the project as a vision to turn the devastated and neglected part of central Belgrade, the Waterfront, into a 2-million square meter commercial complex: the project included hotels, office buildings and luxury apartments for 17,000 people, the largest shopping mall in the Balkans, and a Dubai-style 200-meter tower. The Belgrade Waterfront project wants to impose a new face on a city whose identity has been evolving continuously through the centuries. This program was promoted as a ticket out of the crisis, to a country in which thousands of

people are without a permanent housing solution, where the number of people below the poverty line is increasing, and on a city with numerous empty shops, including the city centre, where entire buildings are vacant and decaying.

Project concerns Behind the 2-million square meter area called Master Plan is the Abu Dhabi-based investor Eagle Hills Company, a real estate firm established recently. Eagle Hills Company’s main projects are in low and middle-income countries. The financial plan is based on equity and debt financing and therefore without assets that could serve as a collateral. When Eagle Hills Company announced that it will invest $3.5b in the Master Plan, the obligation of the corporate partner was to build commercial and housing objects, but no guarantees were provided in return. The Serbian government promised to provide infrastructural support to begin the constructions, as well as to lease more than 100 hectares of the most valuable buildable land in Belgrade to the private investor. As the proposed

solution was impossible under Belgrade’s urban planning policies, the Serbian government declared the project to be of “National Significance”. Although the nature of this significance was never explained to the public, the project was legalized to go on the fast line. Instead of changing the investor’s proposal to comply with the city’s recognized needs and the long-term development planning, urban policies were rapidly changed. The city of Belgrade has amended its urban plan to suit the needs of the corporate partner from United Arabic Emerates (UAE), breaching dozens of its own laws and regulations. Belgrade’s Master Plan and its accompanying clauses were amended to deregulate the urban plans of the designated project area, suspending regulations on maximum height limits and incorporating the private firm’s Master Plan into the city documents. The Serbian government amended the “Law on Urban Planning and Construction” to legalize the breaches of the Master Plan, and declaring investments from UAE to be exempt from regulations on public procurement or public-private partnerships. The supposed urgency to sign the

engagée | 59

deal with the investor was given as an excuse to implement the Lex Specialis – the exceptional law, thus evicting hundreds of families living on the site, leaving many of them without a permanent housing solution. The government managed the Waterfront issue without any obtained permissions and paperwork (or obtained a posteriori) and without a single signed agreement between the legal parties. The contract between the Serbin state and the Abu Dhabi-based company was eventually signed more than a year after the project began. Although the details of the contract were unknown at that moment, it became obvious that the extensive promotional campaign was a bluff. The information available from the contract revealed that the previously announced four years to finish the Project was stretched to 30, enabling Eagle Hills to speculate with land value. In addition, the $3.5b were announce to be only €150m, while the public investment of clearing and preparing the land equalled $1b, and for which the Serbian government took a €280 million loan from the investor.

The full content of the contract was revealed to the public only a week before the first foundation stone had to be laid. The authorities signed the contract behind closed doors arguing that the land had to be prepared first, in order for the investor to start the operation. The contract also states that profit will be divided into two parts, 68% to the private investor and 32% to the public. The result is that one of the most valuable pieces of land in Serbia was given under the lease of 99 years for only €150m, with the lessee becoming the landholder. Meanwhile, the implementation of the project was followed from the beginning by a strong PR campaign, which included billboards and flags occupying public spaces illegally, promotional TV shows, unregulated refurbishment of the most prominent heritage building for promotional purposes, as well as a temporary exhibition space turned to be an exclusive, privately owned restaurant and bar. These elements of the show represent on a smaller scale the big image of the project: a rise of private businesses and profit through the appropriation of public space and funds.

Few months after the contract was signed, the field works have started. More than 200 hundred families were removed or evicted from their houses, parts of the area were demolished, and the massive riverside development began. On the night of the parliamentary elections, the 25th of April 2016, about 30 masked men and bulldozers tore down part of the Savamala district, including half of the Hercegovačka street, and destroyed structures on the proposed site of the Belgrade’s Waterfront. Night guards and random passers-by were tied down and harassed by the masked group of people. Although the citizens called the police and reported the entire case, the police did not react ultimately and redirected all calls to the municipal police, who also refused to intervene. State officials and media have been silent about the incident for days. Some days later, the public advocate ombudsman published a report about the destruction in Savamala. According to the report, an organized, well equipped and motorized group of people took control of a street in the neighbourhood of Savamala. People

were deprived of liberty and personal belongings, including mobile phones. In two hours, the entire street was torn down. Examined audio recordings have indicated that the citizens have undoubtedly reported the case to the police. On the same night, after the departure of masked people, it was reported that witnesses and victims spoke to the police. After a conversation with superiors, a police telephone operator told one citizen that an order “from the top ranks of the police” informed to redirect all calls to the municipal police. However, the municipal police sent requests for help back to the state police and officials were not seen at the scene. The Ombudsman concluded that this was not an individual mistake, but, on the contrary, the result of a plan. The report assesses that “it was an organized violation of citizens’ rights, coordinated on multiple levels and between more state and non-state actors.” The government initially denied any involvement by city or state institutions, but none the less the Serbian Prime Minister told that the mystery was solved: top city offi-

cials gave the orders, but they did so out of “personal motives”. The case is still ongoing.

The resistance - Initiative “Ne da(vi)mo Beograd” The citizens’ initiative Ne da(vi)mo Beograd1 (Don’t let Belgrade d(r)own) was formed in reaction to the imposition of the project Belgrade Waterfront. Today, this informal group comprises of people of different profiles, professions, and beliefs, who share the responsibility for taking care of the city, its processes and problems, its present and future. Their activities have one common objective: stopping the degradation and the depletion of the city space in the name of ostentatious urban and architectural mega-projects in Belgrade and in other Serbian cities. They aim is to promote policies for the sustainable development of cities and argue for a more just dis1 The name is an untranslatable play on certain Serbian words, the closest translation would be Don’t let Belgrade d(r)own. The brackets suggest two sentences, one meaning “We’re not giving Belgrade away” and the other “Do not sink Belgrade”.

tribution of common resources while enabling the inclusion of citizens in the development of their environment. The first public action of the Initiative was to submit objections regarding the changes in the Master Plan of Belgrade. To this purpose, members of the collective “Ministarstvo Prostora” [Ministry of Space] invited the citizens of Belgrade to a workshop analysing the details of the project. Based on the ensuing discussion, the participants wrote a text and, as a result, the citizens of Belgrade filed over 2000 complaints to the proposed changes. During the public hearing, over 200 people discussed these complaints with the representatives of the city authorities and professional institutions. The session lasted for more than six hours and all the complaints were rejected or only superficially taken into consideration, thus giving the citizens a valuable lesson on existing democratic participatory tools that proved to be only a simulation without any effective power. Several months later, the activists of the Ne da(vi)mo Beograd Initiative

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opted for different tactics to oppose the new Plan for the Sava Amphitheatre area. Proposed by the Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade, the new Spatial Plan stood in opposition to the current policies. The Plan was based on the renderings previously presented to the public across newspapers, television screens, billboards and trams, which also aimed to legalize the design shown on the model of “Belgrade on Water”, uncovered at a ceremony held several months earlier to portray the direction of the new identity of Belgrade. This new identity was envisioned by an anonymous author, without prior consultation with professional organizations or the citizens of Belgrade. The activists of Ne da(vi)mo Beograd have chosen not to give legitimacy to a process that was itself illegal. In one of their acts called “Operation Lifebelt”, activists were equipped with inflatable armbands and lifebelts, threw beach balls to each other, and sang songs about Belgrade, all in order to interrupt the illegal Public Hearing session. Con-

trary to their expectations, and despite the noise, the interruption didn’t occur. Instead, the members continued their work, complaints were again rejected, and the session was deemed successful. Once again, this has proven the non-permeability of the stakeholders to open forms of public debate. Parallel to the institutional struggle, the Initiative organized events on the streets of Belgrade. Protests, constantly growing in size, have been organized to mark each stage of the pompous project. The visual emblem of the protests became a yellow duck (now the logo of the Initiative), representing what can float when everything else is sinking. Moreover, in Serbian slang, the word “duck” also denotes a trick or a deceit, as well as a male reproductive organ. A large yellow duck (2x3m) was positioned in front of the Serbian Parliament during the session in which the Lex Specialis was passed. This special law, which is not supported by the Constitution, gave for the first time the right to the state to expropriate private property in favour

of a commercial project such as the Belgrade Waterfront. The duck was also the theme of the protest “Let’s show them the duck”, held in front of the building where the contract for the Belgrade Waterfront was signed. During this protest, the city authorities ordered the operators of the public transport network to halt two trams, thus hiding from the view of the media and the officials the thousands of protesters gathered in front of the building. Initiative Ne da(vi)mo Beograd once again organized a protest the first day of the construction works. Cordons of riot-geared police blocked the city centre preventing citizens from approaching the construction site where the prime minister and investors laid the foundation stone of two new residential towers. The protest was accompanied by chants and several architects and urban experts who participated gave speeches about the problems linked to the regeneration project. Soon, the very appearance of the yellow duck and the words “Ne da(vi)mo Beograd” became subject to repression.

Finally, the trigger for the series of massive protests in 2016 was the violent demolition of Hercegovačka street, two days after the Ombudsman published the report. Citizens came in great numbers and demanded the resignation of the people behind the demolition. With the Initiative announcing a series of actions if the Government kept ignoring the protesters, Ne da(vi)mo Beograd was able to gather more than 20,000 people on the streets of Belgrade, the biggest show up in a public political protest since the 1990s.

Taking back the city Over the past decades, professional politicians turned politics into a sludge that no one wants to enter. Attempts to challenge such politics have been dismissed and those who raised their voices against the regime have been accused of “practising politics”. In these circumstances, the Initiative decided to channel and intensify the voices and demands of the citizens and to put an end to the dominance of private and individual interests constantly overriding the public good. Ne da(vi)mo Beograd wants to end the system in which public resources are used for shady deals between investors and politicians, and in which the citizens always end up as a collateral damage.

the Assembly of the City of Belgrade. The Initiative wants to change the way in which we, as a society, pursue politics. The Initiative will serve as a platform that would enable democratic dialogue on the form and content of various city policies. Furthermore, it wishes to open a dialogue at the level of local communities, blocks and quarters, in order to define common priorities for policies that must result in a better life for all, and not only for some. Thus, Ne da(vi)mo Beograd is determined to fight against the appropriation of parts of the city for the private interests of non-transparent actors, for whose accounts, once again, the citizens of this state would have to pay vast amounts of money. Finally, Belgrade is our home. But a home also for the ones to come: our children and their children too. The Initiative Ne da(vi)mo Beograd bears the responsibility for the present but also for the future. And for everything that we leave behind. Every decision made today will impact what happens tomorrow, and the decisions we denounce today are not in the interests of the citizens. The Initiative is the call to take back the city and an invitation for those who are interested in creating a better and just city to join.

Hence, inspired by different emerging municipalist platforms in Europe, such as Barcelona en Comù, and Zagreb je nas, the Initiative decided to take back the city and to make its first appearance at the municipal elections of March 2018 for

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Eye to Eye with Freedom

“Eye to Eye with Freedom” enabled the citizens of Rijeka ...

to be lifted 22m high with a crane up to the bronze partisan figures ...

of the Monument of Liberation in Rijeka ...

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in order to stand eye to eye...

| Luiza Margan Action in Public Space, Rijeka, Croatia 17 and 18th of May 2014 Monument of Liberation by Vinko Matkovic, 1955 Produced by: Spajalica Copula / MMSU Rijeka Special thanks to Fire Brigade Rijeka / Vatrogasci Rijeka Photo documentation: Markus Krottendorfer

with the central, female partisan that represents the allegory of freedom.

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Theorizing Municipal Movements

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Radical Cities

Why is municipalism thriving? Norma Tiedemann

ince a few years, the radical left, party members and the manifold in-between around the world witness and take part in a considerable fuss around the concept of rebel cities and new municipalism. Thrilling promises keep being made: reinventing democracy, re-modelling institutions into structures for self-organization, overcoming national exclusions, building bridges into post-capitalism and so on. What is rarely dealt with is where this tide of municipalist fervor comes from and how it can be understood in the current phase of multiple crises. Asking such questions could help not to fall into the often-observable oscillation between progressive euphoria and ‘left melancholy’ (Brown 1999, Bailey et al. 2018). They support a perspective that understands the emergence of municipalist projects to be entangled in the neoliberal rescaling of nation states. A bit more modesty when it comes to rebel cities should however not keep us from recognizing that something interesting is happening and that the density of exclusions and struggles in urban, local spaces might create room for subverting national representationism and institute new democratic practices.

Human activity deserves attention There is no value in illusions about the radicalness of structural transformation that can be reached in municipalist projects. Compromises are inevitable whenever engaging on the field of struggle that is constituted by the complex of state apparatuses. Pushing such aspects aside

because actually one is longing for the immediate implementation of societal emancipation, will only lead to another tale of how the left devoured its children and amplify a view of the state and legal institutions as nothing but anti-democratic, oppressive instruments. Thus, one should also not partake in the choir which claims that institutionalization per se implies that progressive elements are doomed, because history has proven this many times.1 History is not governed by iron laws. Human activity that is dissenting, resisting, contesting plays its part and deserves attention. We should be sincerely interested in what happens concretely whenever movements seek stabilization or greater political impact and that means to acknowledge that with municipalist projects, solidarity cities, progressive city councils or local workers’ cooperatives from Spain, to Italy, Germany, the UK, Argentina, the US, Croatia or Poland something interesting is happening that requires explication: Why is it that in so many dispersed localities the municipalist promise grasps imaginations? And is there something to be won in terms of social advancement? Studying the municipalist instances tells us something about the nature of the politico-economic and social crisis of neoliberal capitalism and the corresponding changes in forms of states and political domination. Municipalism thrives because of the neoliberal rescaling of nation states and its multiple crises, where

1 Though of course the disappointments of social movements and marginalized groups regarding their city governments must be taken seriously, e.g. in the case of Barcelona En Comú’s approach to migrants living in the city (cf. Delclós 2017).

the dysfunctionality of routine patterns grows to an untenable extent and something must replace worn-out institutions (cf. Jaeggi 2015: 20).

Waging war against cities In the crisis of neoliberalism, cracks within the ensembles of state apparatuses widen. On national and supranational levels a hardening and de-democratization of institutions can be sensed. Though there has never been perfect harmony among EU members, within the last years new dividing lines kept emerging and manifesting rapidly. When decisions are taken, it is by pushing them through in sometimes hasty, sometimes openly authoritarian ways against parliamentary (sub)national entities. In the USA, cities, states and the federal government have never been on the same track. There have always been deviations and contradictions, but nowadays, e.g. when it comes to sanctuary cities, mayors sense a war being waged against them.2 With material concessions having ceased to be the prime stabilizer for hegemonic rule subaltern interests are rarely considered. And those corridors decrease more and more while mounting repression is well underway. Police and legal tactics before and during G20 in Hamburg or the long-term application of emergency rule in France or Turkey illustrate this. 2 “It really feels like they’re waging war, that there’s a war on cities happening in this country and right here in this state”, Austin Mayor Steve Adler, quoted in Edelman (2017).

However, materialist state theory alerts us to not simplistically equate the state with the will of the dominant class or the unmediated political institutionalization of class domination. Instead, state apparatuses are fields of class struggle themselves. According to Poulantzas, the state cannot be straightforwardly deduced from the capitalist mode of production. This “idealist and voluntarist conception of the state, which identifies it with a ‘machine’ […] created solely for the purposes of domination by a class ‘will’ is utterly contrary to Marxist scientific analysis of the state” (2008: 75). Instead, its set-up, the ensemble of state apparatuses, the distribution of competences are the contingent outcomes of struggles and therefore specific to concrete space and time.

The (neoliberal) rearrangement of state apparatuses In this line of research, a major focus has been the internationalization or Europeanisation of states while an engagement with subnational, specifically subregional levels is lacking. This however is required to fully understand the rivalries between differently scaled apparatuses. Only then it comes to the fore that dissent is growing on the municipal level against the decisions of nation-state executives, fuelled by the neoliberal rescaling of the state. The dirty work of neoliberalization has been shifted to the urban level where the infrastructure of social reproduction (housing, education, mobility, job creation etc.) is engagée | 71

supposed to be maintained without appropriate means to carry out such tasks. Whereas federal states or the central state can cut expenditures without immediate effects, this does not work at the local level, where the reduction of collective social infrastructures is felt by broad sections of society. The growing contradiction between entrepreneurial city management on the one hand and austerity urbanism on the other emphasizes the spatially uneven development of capitalism. In local spaces, growing inequality is apparent. The gap between rich and poor does not have to be illustrated via the detour of statistics and numbers, but manifests in the built and daily experienced environment – feelings of dispossession and exclusion emerge more directly. But grievance alone cannot mobilize bodies and minds on a long-term basis. Every political and social movement has to spur people’s imagination of a better future. Therefore, it is a question of what kind of (plausible) imaginary can be put forward – whether it grasps the fears and desires of people.

in the de-construction of centralized, authoritarian nation states, opening up room for maneuver. The city and local space overflow and subvert the undercomplex and overdetermined concept of nation states in everyday informal practices. This might find institutional expression in municipalist projects. The feminization of politics, urban citizenship, neighborhood-based organizing, squats and social centers stretch and redefine the boundaries of the political. However, the local state is still a constitutive element of the capitalist state and with more resistant self-organizing in and around institutions, opposing forces at other scales with considerable legal and financial resources grow as well. Instead of euphorical outbursts, we should thus analyze what is happening in, among and in-between the municipalist projects of today, supporting the emancipatory potentials, but not fool ourselves about the current relationship of forces to be confronted on national, European and global scales.

A narration that works In the multiple crisis of neoliberalism and its political forms, making the city a nodal point of mobilization and hope is exercised as a strategy of many different actors all over the globe. The new municipalisms function as a narration that binds together different disruptive bits. And the fact that this works is not arbitrary. Forms and contents of struggles are linked to rifts in political, economic and social constellations. The kinds of outcome the crisis of neoliberalism and its ‘management’ were producing are reflected in the practices of resistance. An aggravating crisis of social reproduction, of representative democracy and a crisis of border regimes figured as central issues around which movements of the past years rallied – housing, borders, systematic and enlarging exclusion, social rights etc. The immediacy of the everyday, the concrete local space and local state apparatuses became central points of reference, and a locus of contestation. This local “instituting on the threshold” (Salvini 2016) or its strategic targeting are frequently overlooked or too quickly subsumed under the path of institutionalization as taken by e.g. Syriza and Podemos – its specificity and translocal character is then however not accounted for. The potential, which might prevent the melancholic perception that nothing can be changed anyways, lies

References: Baily, David/Clua-Losada, Mònica/Huke, Nikolai and Ribera-Almandoz, Olatz, eds. (2018): Beyond Defeat and Austerity. Disrupting (the Critical Political Economy of ) Neoliberal Europe. Abingdon: Routledge. Brown, Wendy (1999): Resisting Left Melancholy. In: boundary 2, 26(3), 19-27. Delclós, Carlos (2017): We want to welcome! Barcelona demands open borders for refugees, 22.02.2017. In: ROAR Magazine. https://roarmag. org/essays/barcelona-refugee-solidarity-protest/, hit: 20.11.2017. Edelman, Adam (2017): Spurred by Trump, States Battle Sanctuary Cities. 07.08.2017. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/ immigration/spurred-trump-states-battle-sanctuary-cities-n787651, hit: 17.11.2017. Jaeggi, Rahel (2015): ‘Objektive Kritik’ und Krise. Überlegungen zu einer materialistischen Grundlegung von Sozialkritik. In: Dirk Martin et al. (eds.), Perspektiven und Konstellationen kritischer Theorie, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 14-28. Poulantzas, Nicos (2008): The Poulantzas Reader. London: Verso. Salvini, Francesco (2016). Instituting on the threshold. In: Monster Municipalisms. Transversal journal 09/2016, http://transversal.at/ transversal/0916/salvini/en, hit: 20.11.2017.

[Un]settling the City Friederike Landau and Nikolai Roskamm

rbanization is always a process of both creation and destruction, emergence and disappearance, order and disorder, presence and absence, conflict and dialogue, movement and stagnation, colonization and emancipation. The [un]settled is a possible link to capture and contest these urban dichotomies. By bringing together political theory and urbanism, we assume the [un]settled not only as a basic urban configuration, but as its very (pre)-condition. We propose a reflection that works toward a critical engagement and reconstruction of urban theory.1 Being unsettled takes place on multiple layers of meaning and feeling. We all know conditions of the unsettled – objects, places, weather. Unsettled may be the name for

1 This text came into being after many fruitful discussions at the 2017 TU Vienna conference Unsettled. Urban routines, temporalities and contestations (we would like to thank Ed Wall for putting the notion of the unset-tled on our agenda).

abandoned and deserted areas, potentially resulting from environmental pollution or economic decline that affect our sense of place. Beyond these spatial imaginaries and connotations, the unsettled is a state of mind, retrieving memories, animating past stories and emotions, (re)activating positive and negative affects that become particularly prevalent in times of uncertainty and perplexity. Historically, the condition of unsettledness has engaged the minds of philosophers, lawyers, educators and natural scientists for a long time. As early as the 17th century, preacher Jeremiah Whittaker (1642) fervently promoted Christ as the ‘settlement of the unsettled’ believers of the time. John Stuart Mill (1844) titled his reflections on political economy as Essays on some unsettled questions. Contemporary accounts of the unsettled discuss the term in debates about law, precarious citizenship and unstable statehood, as well as in literary studies, critical sexuality studies and postcolonial theory. These versatile

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disciplinary engagements underscore the multi-faceted applicability and societal relevance of the [un]settled. It stands, now and then, for ‘being out of joint’ and represents complex sentiments, actions and reactions in processes of political and social transformation. The settled designates a materialized and discursive ‘normality’ as opposed to the pathologized or stigmatized unsettled. States of settledness with expectations to ensure and create stability, regularity and regulation seem to prevail despite growing social pluralism and injustice. We take the unsettled to include the status of those literally unsettled (i.e., without fixed abode, be it in consequence of homelessness or flight) in addition to the piercing political dilemma of [un]settledness, which characterizes contemporary urban life and politics.

Unsettling urban practices challenge and subvert, rather than consolidate, the dimension of conflict in everyday urban life. Altogether, we propose to think the city as a [un]settled, [un]settling and [un]settlable phenomenon.

In our approach, the unsettled is, first, a prerequisite for urbanity. Paradoxically positioning the city as unsettled (Roskamm 2017), we infiltrate the assumption that the city ‘is’ a spatial settlement in the literal sense. While the city undeniably consists of dwellings, buildings, housing estates – settlements – they cannot conclusively establish fixed, durable, or safe states of urban totality. This is because the city is, this is our second point, always in flux – a process, a contestation, an event. Our hypothesis of the unsettled is based on the diagnosis that the concept of the city is a floating, uncertain, finally in(de)terminable entity, fluctuating between settlement efforts and the impossibility to finalize these aspirations. The city is thus endless and excessive beyond its own borders. This excess is not an additive feature, but the city’s constitutive condition. Settling activities and its unsettling counterparts as sedimentations and dislocations (Laclau 1990) constitute the city as a system of meaning and power. While the transitions and transformations between the settled and the unsettled are practically impossible to detach in life and politics, we analytically distinguish between settled and unsettled urban conditions and institutions with the aim of theorizing the city. The settled as urban state of mind and practice operates under premises of institutionalized, routinized or normalized rules, policies and plans that latently or explicitly structure and govern urban life. As unsettled, we understand contestatory or tendentially less systematic practices of urban dwelling and politics.

The city is a floating, uncertain, finally in(de)terminable entity, fluctuating between settlement efforts and the impossibility to finalize these aspirations. The city is thus endless and excessive beyond its own borders.

By disambiguating the irrevocably interrelated topos of the [un]settled, we propose four analytical approximations to which we refer as vectors: Vector #1 The Post-Foundational City Vector #2 The Spectral City Vector #3 The Post-Political City Vector #4 The Affective City.

Following Henri Lefebvre’s (1996) quest for a new urban ‘science of the city’, we propose these four categories to span open theoretical avenues to understand the urban as a space of multi-layered contestation. Notably, the proposed vectors overlap and interpenetrate both conceptually and empirically. Vector #1 The Post-Foundational City situates our approach to a radical concept of urbanity in post-foundational political theory (Marchart 2013; Laclau 1990). This way of thinking is based on the premise of non-determined history. According to Ernesto Laclau, history is the result of alterable power relations between forces that cannot be reduced to any kind of unitary principle or essence. Every power relation is contingent and depends on conditions that are equally contingent. Because no power relation is conclu-

sively determinable – and this is the optimistic element in Laclau’s theory – there is the possibility of changing these relations: “If social relations are contingent, it means they can be radically transformed through struggle, instead of that transformation being conceived as a self-transformation of an objective nature” (1990: 35). Laclau refers to Claude Lefort and his thesis of the ‘locus of power’ as ‘an empty place’, which “cannot be occupied” because “no individual and no group can be consubstantial with it – and it cannot be represented” (1988: 17). In this place, we should find the ‘final reason’, the deterministic foundation for all history. The post-foundational argument is that such final reason, rationale orbasic foundation does not and cannot exist because there is no final objectivity. Struggles and contestations over the occupation of ‘the place of power’ cannot be sustainable or complete, yet, it is equally impossible to avoid the constant struggle involved in articulations of hegemony. Assuming antagonism and contingency as constitutive of urban theory, the ‘place of power’ remains necessarily empty in the city. The necessary emptiness triggers efforts to settle central urban areas (e.g., with power, meaning and money), yet the ineradicable contingency of the urban prevents itself from ‘being’. Only temporary institutions of hegemony and meaning are possible, conditioned, yet enabled by their respective counter-hegemonic formations of power. Understanding the city in post-foundational terms pushes for a transition from necessity toward contingency, from identity to difference, from substance to relationality and attends to the “sur-prising return” of objects (Marchart 2013, 335). Operating from an ontology of ineradicable antagonism and negativity (Roskamm 2015), the post-foundational city is temporarily instituted from a radical lack of necessity or Truth. In contrast to urban typologizations such as mega cities, global cities, world cities or European cities, the post-foundational city defines its object not via geographic categories, but via contingent acts of institution and destitution, of inclusion and exclusion. Post-foundational urban theory seeks to build out the ontology of the city towards one of absence and conflict. Vector #2 The Spectral City draws attention to the haunted nature of the city. While ghosts already linger at the beginning of Marx’ Communist Manifesto, Lefebvre establishes a

concrete quest for a ‘spectral analysis’ of the city and calls on the ghostly presences and absences and their implications on urban practice. Later, Derrida’s (1994) approach of hauntology activates the specter as a ‘figure of deconstruction’. The spectral city brings together Lefebvre’s analysis with Derrida’s hauntology, both as sciences of ghosts. Spectres haunt actual and future urban ruins as well as urban notions, narratives, routines, and regulations. A spectral analysis tries to find and uncover urban ghosts of the pasts, which live within the material discursive residues of urban environments. We argue that attending to the haunted and haunting dimensions that inhabit history helps to re-shift linear conceptions of temporality and spatiality. The figure of the ghost opens an avenue of analysis for genealogical investigations into the sunken niches of urban life, development, and production. It unfolds narratives of urbanism and architecture, which are at work to shape current urban realities everyday. Spectral analysis intervenes, too, in the empirical fields of urban studies, geography and sociology. The intangible, uncountable category of ghosts confronts and provokes any system and quantification of urban life, for example in the form of surveys and statistical analyses.

The political relevance of a spectral approach to the city points precisely to the always-already returning (i.e., unsettling), and never finally arriving (i.e., settling) nature of politics. Finally, it lays a possible path to an alliance with post-colonial perspectives in and of urban theory, addressing the haunted interactions of colonial legacies as [un]settled states of the urban in different places and times. Vector #3 The Post-Political City takes up ongoing debates about the condition of the supposed omnipresence of post-politics in times of ever-expansive neoliberalization, transnational capitalism and a crisis of democratic representation and legitimacy (Dikec 2016; Swyngedouw 2016). The post-political or post-democratic condition circumscribes the growing disenchantment and mistrust with political institutions, representative democracy and the expanding technocratic problemsolving approaches

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to politics. The assessment of post-politicization might be adequate to describe current political narratives proclaiming that ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA) to politics in the way they are currently conducted. However, the discourse about post-politics offers instruments for grasping the ideological core in current urban concepts such as ‘smart cities’ or the seemingly intractable norm of ‘sustainability’. Urbanism has grown out of modernism as an ide-ology that rests on the belief that it is not ideological. This alleged non-ideology is exactly what the concept of post-politics can reveal and contest. Radical urban theory ultimately is a place for critics of orthodox practices and routines of the production of city in everyday urban planning and urban politics such as new public management and urban resilience. The post-political city offers a possible gateway for orientation and counter-narration within current debates about ‘futures of the city’. Vector #4 The Affective City underscores the role of emotions and passions in urban politics. Following Mouffe’s (2005) claim that the mobilization of passions animates the enactment of radical democratic futures, we consider the affective nature of politics in the post-foundational ontology of negativity to sketch out urban politics as ‘affective dissent’ (Bargetz 2015). To theorize the spectral city as a site of affective, embodied, [un]settling conflict, we encourage the coalition of affect theories and urban studies. Reading the city through a lens of affect – a state of affecting and being affected – complements the debate about post-politics as entrenched by feelings such as fear, anger, hope and anxiety. It activates the notion of ‘affective dissent’ or negative affect to theorize the city as a site of affective contestation. The synthesis of the affective and the haunted makes the [un]settled operative as a potentiality to affectively settle or unsettle urban spaces, politics and architecture. It conceptualizes the affective as haunted, and respectively, considers the haunted as affective. This theoretical triangulation radicalizes both affective and hauntological studies and provides new ways to unpack, and thus understand and explain the persistence or disappearance, ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of political claims, narratives or concrete political measures. Finally, the connection of the affective and the haunted in the supposed post-political condition renders legible how haunted moments of politics and of ‘the political’ affect the kernel of the city. Due to its negative ontology of post-foundationalism, the spectral nature of

affect leaks into the haunted nature of urban subjects and objects. Activating the productive possibilities of conflict and fear, it sets out towards a post-foundational theory of affect. With the four discussed vectors, we unsettle urban foundations in a blaze of glory of negativity and absences. Our aim is to detect a theory exploring the unplanned, the unordered, and the uncertain, entrenched in failure, disagreement and disruption. We suggest considering the constitution of the city not by asking what it ‘is’, but by asking “what prevents it from being” (Laclau 1990, 44). Departing from the notion of a fundamental lack, our proposal goes to the conceptual foundations of urban theory and inverts its deepest assumptions. It ungrounds the notion of the city to reveal the latter as a product of constant [un]settling.

References Bargetz, Brigitte (2015): The Distribution of Emotions. Affective Politics of Emancipation. In: Hypatia 30 (3), pp. 580–596. Derrida, Jacques (1994): Specters of Marx. The state of the debt, the work of mourning, and the new international. New York, NY: Routledge. Dikeç, Mustafa (2016): Disruptive politics. In: Urban Studies 54 (1), pp. 49–54. Laclau, Ernesto (1990): New reflections on the revolution of our time. London, New York: Verso (Phronesis). Lefebvre, Henri [1968] (1996): The right to the City. In: Elenore Kofman und Elizabeth Lebas (ed.): Writings on Cities. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 61–181. Lefort, Claude (1988): Democracy and political theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Marchart, Oliver (2013): Das unmögliche Objekt. Eine postfundamentalistische Theorie der Ge-sellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft). Mill, John Stuart (1844): Essays on some unsettled questions of political economy. London: John W. Parker. Mouffe, Chantal (2005): On the political. London, New York: Routledge. Roskamm, Nikolai (2015): On the other side of “agonism”. “The enemy,” the “outside,” and the role of antagonism. In: Planning Theory 14 (4), pp. 384–403. Roskamm, Nikolai (2017): Die unbesetzte Stadt. Postfundamentalistisches Denken und das Urba-nistische Feld. Basel: Birkhäuser. Swyngedouw, Erik (2016): Unlocking the mind-trap. Politicising urban theory and practice. In: Urban Studies 54 (1), p. 55–61. Whittaker, Jeremiah (1642) Eirenopoios, Christ the settlement of unsettled times, in a sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons, at their publicke fast in Margarets Church at Westminster.

Against Radical Tourism Alessio Kolioulis in conversation with Paolo Mossetti on Naples

engagée: Naples, a city where you grew up and returned after years spent in the UK and the US, is often celebrated as one of the global rebel cities. In many of your recent articles, however, you somehow portray a different picture. Can you explain your take on and your involvement with the municipalist movement in Naples? Paolo Mossetti: Firstly, I’d like to say that by ‘municipalism’ we include a wide array of responses to the narrative of the so-called ‘neoliberal city’: the way this notion is shaping the Left in New York and pro-immigration ‘sanctuary cities’ is very different from, say, the way a city like Barcelona sees itself. As for Naples, this very sparse movement started as a populist alternative to the rhetoric of the neoliberal centre-left, on one hand, and the mafia-ridden centre-right coalition on the other. When the current Mayor, Luigi de Magistris, first run for elections in 2011, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement was still in its embryo phase, with limited support nationwide and a strong component of green, New Wave and post-workerist ecologism. When I returned to Naples in 2015, de Magistris was at the apex of popularity: the city was bustling with nightlife, the centre was literally flooded by tourists in a once disregarded garbage-covered gangster town; Erasmus students were finally coming to study here and low-income families were discovering Airbnb. There was something really unique in the relationship between the Mayor and the radical left, too. De Magistris allowed Marxist collectives to occupy huge complexes once run by the government or the Catholic Church, now in decay. These places were occupied and transformed into beautiful labs for mutualism and cultural centres (working much better than the average enterprise run by the local department of Culture, by the way). De Magistris did try and is

still trying to give municipalism a party base, calling it DeMa, echoing the word demos and obviously the initials of the Mayor himself. A sort of hard-left version of Emmanuel Macron’s En March. This party, other than disappointing in local elections, did not do much to offer a solid vision of its future, or about its economic/political theories, and I don’t feel persuaded by its membership, although it includes many trustworthy activists.

Although I consider myself more anarchist and liberal than many of the people there, I was excited to collaborate and establish friendships with some of these social centres supported by the Mayor: especially the Ex-OPG, a former psychiatric hospital in ruins now transformed by a Marxist collective into a place for arts, social services and discussion. I liked the way they were open to the neighbourhood, to non-militant people, way more inclusive than the typical 1990s-social centre. I liked the sense of easy-going comradeship feeling around. I helped them organize meetings and talks and raised some crowdfunded money for them – another first, for a Communist collective! The lows were a certain rigidity over protocol structures – the neverending assemblies, the refusal to go beyond voluntarism – and a certain reluctance to criticize the Mayor even when the limits of his populist propaganda were evident – as the degrading quality of life and culture in the city is before everyone’s eyes. I had several arguengagée | 77

ments with the comrades, some of them see me with suspicion. But I think there is still mutual respect, after all.

é: In one of your articles, you refer to Barcelona and Naples as two cities that were able to market themselves to “rebel tourists”. While I can agree that tourism is potentially destructive, with a scarcity of good examples of how an autonomous left can win, don’t you think that such view can damage the efforts put by the municipalist movement into a new momentum? PM: We, as materialist, or wannabe ones, should have the guts to ask ourselves one fundamental question: ‘Where are we getting the money from? Do we have the means to fight for a more generous tax regime state-wide? Do we want to re-open state-run steel-making factories, or believe in autarchy?’ The cities we are talking about, just like Naples, are facing a steep economic decline within a globalized world, with a shrinking middle class, pretty much no white-collar jobs, no financial services, there are not many options other than tourism as an easy way to survive. Yes, tourism is really a cheap kind of business: poorly paid jobs, shitty hours, mostly low-skilled roles and what is worst, new dynamics of exploitation within the city: I really don’t remember seeing waiters literally dragging people inside restaurants back in the 1990s, or people kicking students out for making space to hostels or B&Bs (which is something I did, too – but only because those students were insufferable douchebags). But let’s try not to exaggerate the effects of gentrification. While many people treat tourists as mere talking wallets, and foreign students bring booze drinking into an otherwise pretty sober cultural nightlife, and the quality of street food is definitely less authentic than before, I can’t say the City is kicking communities out or is getting as nearly as expensive as Milan or Rome. So, I think we can use this opportunity of globalization as a path for some potential, for connecting activist groups and academics around Europe and the World to offer better solutions before it is too late.

I am just not sure if what will come out of this will be actually a radical process or just the middle class getting richer and researcher finding their love in the city. So far tourism has turned the city centre in a much more controlled, clean and boring place. But the opportunities offered by the municipalist momentum have nothing to fear from it: movements should rather worry about the nature of this momentum, its class composition, and the lack of a coherent economic doctrine.

é: You have argued that some of the activities carried out by social centres in Naples are similar to the ones you can see in humanitarian crises. But aren’t social centres better than the state anyway? PM: It really takes a huge leap to call these centres ‘better anyway’. Or maybe depends on what do we mean by ‘better’. If you ask me if sheltering homeless people in an occupied church instead of letting them die in the dark as the state services do is inherently bad, sure I can’t say that. However, if you think about health services, the hardships posed by the lack of state-sponsored equipment are huge. You can’t take a proper ultrasound of a pregnant Roma woman just because she feels more comfortable visiting a squatted space rather than a government clinic: you need to have a safe way to process medical waste, you need to print tests in a very precise way. If you follow incorrect procedures or encourage people to do so, just because ‘bad is better than nothing’, you risk creating more problems for the social services than there were. You will mess things up. You need to have really skilled workers who know what they’re doing and be sure that people are informed of all the options offered by State services. Sometimes the problem is communication. Radicals think austerity cut all free health care in Italy, but there are many services you can still get for free, and many prenatal testing clinics are deserted for no reason other than ignorance. I think movements, while initially they offered a huge range of welfare works, had second thoughts and now they’re focusing more on the quality, on things they can really do well, such as breast screenings, legal counselling for migrants and informal workers, and so on.

é: In a country like Italy, where the nation-state was imposed from above and belonging to a city is important than being Italian, is there a risk that such identities will overlook the non- and peri-urban? PM: It must be surely recognized that the municipalist movement in Naples has characteristics similar to the xenophobic, localist movements born in the 1980s and 1990s in the North. Sadly, it is also much poorer, more culturaloriented. In Naples’ municipalism we can find young utopians who look at the Mediterranean as an apt political horizon for the city’s ambitions rather than the European Union; old royalists who romanticize the Bourbon’s period (neoborbonismo); folk lovers; a proud, educated and Napoli-centred aging middle class who can’t leave the city for too long. It is a soft, porous ideology rooted in the belief that the Italian South was ransacked by the North during the Unification and used as nothing but political reserve after WWII. There’s a lot of victimization, some

reasoned post-colonial theory, some Marxist thinking and way more magical thinking. But what is lacking is the industrial élite or a powerful upper class supporting city autonomy, as in the case of Barcelona or, on a whole different level, New York.

é: Naples is famous for the violence of its municipal police, which often can operate unpunished. What is the relationship between municipal police and municipal politics in Naples? PM: I would say that police brutality in Naples is not greater than in Rome or Milan, but here the police operate in a very different kind of environment: a mix of petty and big crime, from teen gangs to large scale mafia operation. In Naples the police deploy a special division called Falchi (‘Hawks’) who move around the city on motorbikes as a way to deal with hit-and-run offenders. But the way they operate is very obscure, they often use excessive force on teenagers, as most of the police do against migrants when caught stealing or jumping the metro’s turnstiles. Some of the Falchi are former convicts. There is a lot of informality in the police repression, like in the local economy. Funnily enough, we have very few CCTV in Naples. Perhaps the State has a certain degree of tolerance for petty crimes as a social valve, to avoid excessive social tension. The striking aspect of the law enforcement bodies is the lack of education and skills to deal with the increasing cultural diversity. Very few officers speak English, let alone other languages such as French or Arabic. The police are mostly white and Italian-born. The ubiquity of military in the city centre reminds a lot that of Mexico City or some other Latin American megalopolis. It is really disturbing to see armoured vehicles and soldiers holding machine guns next to Renaissance monuments: but when this was implemented by the centre-left government as a demagogic way to deal with terrorism, the Mayor, as usual, was really wary of protesting. He probably thought this could help tourists feeling safe. But de Magistris is always like this: rebellious on Twitter but pretty reassuring for the bourgeoisie status quo in everyday actions.

é: Your observations of Naples as a sensitive insider pose some challenges to any future municipalist movement. How can these criticisms turn into elements of an emancipatory politics? PM: What I am saying is that a municipalist movement alone, without a strong, growing economy, without a credible political class, can pose serious risks of de-legitimization for the Left. Naples is a bit like Cuba, where great solidarity and a fascinating informal economy stand side to side to the de facto neoliberal politics, a widespread laissez-faire where people are

renting their houses without paying any taxes, where bookshops are turning into booze drinking venues, etcetera. The market is actually the King here, more than in many neoliberal cities where the State is actually strong and present. Having said that, Naples is a city where the rent is still not so unaffordable like elsewhere, the food is great and relatively cheap, the city centre is still a great cradle of arts and humanities and intellectual connections, and there’s space for a certain improvisation, for a certain type of social organizing and solidarity that in Milan or Rome is now a mirage. It is a great gym for radical politics. And it is worthy to spend a few months here, or even more if you find a good remote job or love. But be careful not to take for emancipatory elements what are, in my opinion, elements of savagery and regression.

é: Is there a place for arts in municipal politics? PM: Look, I am no fan of private-sponsored art, like in Milan or Rome, so I would say yes. Of course, you cannot expect in Napoli the same type of art market and audience you have in Milan or Rome. We have few galleries and most of them destined to an ageing, aristocratic élite. The biggest contemporary art museum (MADRE) is a decent one but very often empty. People go there mostly for the aperitivi and the DJ sets. You can say this happens pretty much elsewhere; yet again, you must prepare to face a series of obstacles in the process of being part of Naples’ art world. There is less competition for sure (all big talents dream to fly abroad) but this sometimes means people have no choice but to attend really mediocre, locallyoriented folk music concerts. For any talk that starts two hours late, you will have people filling beautiful streets for average performers that in the city centre of London would be banned or replaced by the depressing after work curfew. It’s about perspectives. For any lazy, self-absorbed comrade who makes art without any interest in networking or exchanging ideas, you will find social centres hosting great experimental theatre for free. I always recommend emerging artists planning to move to Naples to keep strict schedules, a certain work discipline, and to put a lot of effort in establishing connections with local people, because this is way less spontaneous than they might think (especially if they are over 30 like me). People here already have their friends, their habits, and they are more close-minded than you can imagine. Also, do not expect any kind of private or state sponsor, that is for sure. But perhaps this is exactly what artists escaping from the Anglophone world hope to find.

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Movements post-hegemony:

How contemporary collective action transforms hegemonic politics

// AlexandrosÂ Kioupkiolis

engagĂŠe | 81

‘P

ost-hegemony’ has become a cri de guerre among theorists who take issue with the modern politics of hierarchical organization, representation, unification, the state and ideology: the politics of ‘hegemony’ (see e.g. Arditi, 2007; Beasley-Murray, 2010; Day, 2005). The term ‘post-hegemony’ purported, initially, to capture transformations in both the dominant regimes of power and in various democratic resistances at the turn of the century (Arditi, 2007; Beasley-Murray, 2010; Lash, 2007). These transmutations seemed to spell the end of modes of domination and organization which could be grasped through the lenses of Gramsci’s (1971) and Laclau’s (2005) theory of hegemony. ‘Hegemony’ turns on the construction of a collective identity out of a plurality of groups and demands, the interplay of force and consent, representation and discourse (or ideology), and the need to engage with both civil society and state institutions in order to bring about historical change.

The crux of the ‘post-hegemonic’ arguments is that neither the global nexuses of power nor the democratic mobilizations against them are now configured in such terms. They are networked, dispersed and immanent. They operate directly on bodies and they work through habits and affects, beyond discourse and representation (Arditi, 2007, pp. 212–224; Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. x, 7; Lash, 2007, pp. 55–56, 60). The label ‘post-hegemony’ can be justifiably extended to a wider spectrum of contemporary thinkers and scholars who do not place themselves under this rubric but they assail the same dominant forms of power and they track the emergence of new structures in global networks and social initiatives (see e.g. Day, 2005; Hardt & Negri, 2004, 2009; Holloway, 2005; Maechelbergh, 2009; Newman, 2011; Nunes, 2014).

The paper will come to grips with those critiques of hegemony which bear specifically on social movements and a nascent radical-democratic culture. ‘Post-hegemonic’ accounts hold that collective democratic agency today is horizontal, i.e. non-hierarchical, networked and plural, and it undertakes prefigurative politics which enact here and now the values of a radical democracy to come. These figures of political action are said to have superseded older, hierarchical forms of agency in political parties, governments and movements. Critical responses to the ‘post-hegemonic’ thesis object that contemporary democratic resistances do not attain, in effect, a full rupture with hegemony or they should not attain it, lest they condemn themselves to insularity and inefficiency (Prentoulis & Thomassen, 2012, pp. 1–19; Stavrakakis, 2014).

The following argument seeks to recast the post-hegemonic thesis, arguing that a movement beyond hegemonic politics drives, indeed, collective action and movement culture(s) over the last two decades (and much earlier, in effect). No doubt, constitutive elements of hegemonic politics, such as representation, concentration of power and unification, are endemic to various instances of anti-hierarchical self-organization. But these gesture effectively beyond hegemony insofar as they transfigure its political logics in distinct ways, opening up representation, leadership and unity to pluralization and non-hierarchical interaction. A ‘bias’ in favour of horizontality marks them off from most modern types of collective organization in parties, trade unions and state institutions.

Post-hegemony (1): inaugurating the debate

‘P

ost-hegemony’ was introduced as the description of a new modality of power at a time when the era of hegemony is ‘beginning to draw to a close’ (Lash, 2007, p. 55). The theory of hegemony was shaped mainly by the writings of Gramsci, Laclau and Stuart Hall (Lash, 2007, p. 56). Laclau’s conceptual elaborations used to provide the key reference, in cultural studies at least (Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. 40). ‘Hegemony’ captures a regime of power which dominates by combining coercion and consent. It relies on discourse rather than ‘facts’, and it is exercised ‘extensively’ over its subjects rather than ‘intensively’ from within social relations (Lash, 2007, pp. 55–56). Lash (2007, p. 60) drew also a link between post-hegemonic politics and the self-constitution of ‘multitudes’, who co-operate in political action and contemporary labour. But it was the work of Jon Beasley-Murray (2003, 2010) and Benjamin Arditi (2007) which popularized ‘post-hegemony’ as the name of a new pattern of resistance and collective agency in our times. Others, including Hardt and Negri and Richard Day, theorized the overcoming of hegemonic logics in the ‘multitude’ and new anarchist currents, although they did not endorse the terminology of post-hegemony itself (Day, 2005; Hardt & Negri, 2004, 2009).

In all these bodies of thought, various figures of egalitarian activism and social experiment are contrasted to a ‘hegemonic’ model of politics. In Gramsci’s thought, hegemony designates a political practice which seeks to construct a majoritarian national-popular will and to ‘become state’. This objective is pursued crucially through a gradual ‘war of position’ in civil society (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 181–182, 239, 418). However, the main antithesis against which contemporary post-hegemony defines itself is Laclau’s recasting of the Gramscian concept (Arditi, 2007, pp. 207–210; Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. 40; Day, 2005, pp. 8–13; Hardt & Negri, 2009, p. 175, 305). In Laclau’s theory, hege-

mony articulates a contingent plurality of autonomous struggles around a ‘chain of equivalence’, welding together a common political front. It is the political process whereby a new social formation is put in place through an antagonistic fight between the dominant regime and an oppositional coalition of forces, or between rival political projects (Laclau, 2000b, p. 207). In political struggles, diverse demands, conflicts and activities may become equivalent through their common opposition to a particular enemy, forging thus a ‘chain of equivalence’ that extends beyond their substantive differences. This chain will coalesce into a ‘collective will/subject’ if a particular force within it rises to become a ‘general representative’ of all equivalent antagonisms and claims. To turn into a hegemonic power, the name or the aims of a particular member of the equivalential chain must be partly emptied of their distinct content in order to become a wider symbol that represents and binds together the entire community of differences (Laclau, 2000b, pp. 210–211). A particularity assumes thus the function of a universality, turning into a force that acts and speaks for a broader community of interests (Laclau, 2000b, pp. 207–212). Hegemony is premised on representation and the uneven distribution of power. Hegemonic practices are inherently processes of representation as they mobilize a particularity which takes up universal tasks in the name of an entire bloc of forces. Laclau has also insisted that political representation is all the more indispensable under actual conditions of increasing social fragmentation, whereby representatives play a key part in constituting a collective will out of disperse social identities (Laclau, 1996, pp. 98–100). Finally, hegemony implies asymmetrical power. Within the community of struggle, a particular agent must operate as the leading force of the counter-hegemonic bloc, and its enemy (‘the regime’) must be excluded and eventually overwhelmed (Laclau, 2000b, pp. 207–208). In sharp contrast to this picture of transformative praxis, ‘[h]abit, affect, and the multitude are the three components of a theory of posthegemony’ (Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. x). The ‘multitude’, a term derived from Spinoza via Hardt and Negri, encompasses a heterogeneous collection of bodies, resistances and agencies. This collectivity self-organizes, cultivates new habits and changes history. The immanent processes of the multitude ‘incarnate a logic from below that requires neither representation nor direction from above’ (Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. x). The same absolute dichotomy between the (post-hegemonic) multitude and the politics of hegemony is asserted by Hardt and Negri. Their ‘multitude’ names a new mode of social production, a collective subject and a political logic that have arisen from post-Fordist ‘biopolitical’ labour, which produces new common knowledge, communication and social relationships (Hardt & Negri, 2004, p. 66, 109, 114–115, 198, 219). The multitude embodies a distinctive figure of collective organization, which informs not only biopolitical labour but

also contemporary resistances to imperial biopower from the Zapatistas onwards: the distributed network. In it, no principal agent stands vertically above other differences and represents the whole in the hierarchical manner of Gramsci and Laclau’s hegemony. Participation and collective decision-making take the place of unaccountable representatives and leaders (Hardt & Negri, 2004, pp. 337–340). The ‘multitude’ captures also the ‘internal organisation of the latest Arab Spring, Indignant and Occupy movements’ (Hardt & Negri, 2012, p. 5). All these established ‘distributed networks’ in which connections expand horizontally, without definite boundaries and the command of a single centre. In the 2011 insurrections, the multitude set in motion new constituent powers which strive to emancipate the self-government of the many from top-down leadership, closed ideologies and representation by political parties, enacting instead plural processes which ‘agglutinated’ divergent views in contingent ways (Hardt & Negri, 2012, pp. 44–45, 64). Hence, ‘the multitude is formed through articulations on the plane of immanence without hegemony’ (Hardt & Negri, 2009, p. 169).

Richard Day was one of the first to proclaim the ‘death’ of Gramsci and hegemony. This dying logic pertains to ‘the politics of representation, recognition, and integration’ (Day, 2005, p. 18). Hegemony is animated by the desire to implement a universal model of social transformation and it is ready to enforce this model upon dissenters (Day, 2005, p. 14, 45, 65). Day illuminates, by contrast, a kaleidoscopic mix of tactics, organizations and initiatives which have surged forth over the last decades in the landless peasants’ movement in Brazil (MST), in indigenous communities in Latin America, in social centres across Europe and in various other sites. These enact new schemes of communal life and political interaction which evince an affinity ‘for non-hierarchical, non-coercive relationships based on mutual aid and shared ethical commitments’ (Day, 2005, p. 9). They strive to block, resist and render redundant both corporate and state power by carving out minoritarian alternative spaces. They seek to configure open and horizontal associations which manage directly their affairs through consensus and decentralized decision-making. They do not adhere to a master plan of social restructuring nor do they seek to forcibly generalize their values and schemes (Day, 2005, pp. 24–45, 156–157, 172, 186–197). Day (2005, p. 215) does not advocate a ‘total rejection of reformist or revolutionary programs in all cases’. engagée | 83

These remain relevant insofar as state and corporate power weigh heavily on our lives. To rule out revolution and reform would be also a paradoxical re-enactment of the ‘hegemony of hegemony’ whereby the politics of ‘affinity for affinity’ would seek to ‘hegemonize the whole field’ of emancipatory action today.

Against post-hegemony

ritical ripostes to the post-hegemonic thesis do not deny that novel or alternative schemes of multitudinous politics have appeared at the turn of the century. They argue, rather, that hegemony and post-hegemony are not two self-standing, internally pure and fully independent poles. Negations of post-hegemony seek to destabilize the stark binary in three different ways. First, it is claimed that in order to achieve transformative effects it is not only possible but also necessary to ally horizontal, spontaneous and ‘non-representational’ action with vertical, centralized and representative politics. Second, the case is made that key components of allegedly ‘post-hegemonic’ politics were already part and parcel of Gramsci’s own take on hegemony. Finally – and this is the most radical challenge – critics have pointed out that vertical logics of representation, leadership, centralization and unification operate within the horizontal multitudes, belying any notion of pure, autonomous counter-strategy. In the different variants of post-hegemony (1), ‘post-’ signifies a full break with hegemonic logics. Whether the contention is that hegemony is now dead and we have entered a new era or that it survives along with other modes of politics, the collective assumption of Beasley-Murray, Arditi, Hardt and Negri and, more hesitatingly, Day is that hegemony and post-hegemony denote two options which are separate and autonomous. Critiques have objected to this idea by pointing to the intertwinement of the supposedly opposite logics. But such objections could not defeat a different take on post-hegemony which understands the prefix ‘post-’ in accord with its standard uses in social and political theory. François Lyotard (1984, p. 79) defined the postmodern as ‘a part of the modern…Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state’. The postmodern reinforces trends and dynamics of the modern without fully overcoming it (Lyotard, 1984, pp. 37–41, 79–82). Crouch (2004, p. 20) fleshes out the meaning of the ‘post-’ in ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-modern’ and his own ‘post-democracy’ as signifying ‘that something has come into existence to reduce the importance of X by going beyond it in some sense … However, X will still have left its mark; there will be strong traces of it still around’. More recently, in his inquiry into ‘post-representation’, Simon Tormey (2015, p. 9) understands the prefix as ‘indicating not the redundancy of the object in question,

so much as it’s querying … an incipient problematization that evinces dissatisfaction but without presupposing the acceptance of a clear break or alternative’. Construing the ‘post-’ in post-hegemony in this way entails a reversal of perspective in the relevant debate. It turns out that those advocates who announce a complete supersession of hegemony or a clear-cut alternative to it deviate from the conventional usage of the prefix in contemporary theory. By contrast, those who oppose the post-hegemonic thesis by highlighting the ‘interpenetration’ of horizontal and vertical logics in late modern struggles sustain in effect this thesis but they rearticulate it in line with the common sense of the ‘post-’. The critics acknowledge that there are indeed incipient gestures beyond hegemonic politics, but these tendencies do not amount to a total rupture or a fully fledged alternative. In other words, the critics submit that there are movements post-hegemony in the precise sense of the ‘post-’ we outlined above.

Post-hegemony (2): transfiguring hegemonic structures

eadership, representation, unification and concentration of forces are emblems of the dominant, hierarchical mode of political organization which resurface in late modern activism. But they are actively contested and transfigured in order to foster horizontalism over and against any residual verticality. However, contemporary anti-authoritarian activism has embarked on an ongoing search for ‘another leadership’. This involves an endeavour to grapple reflectively with power and command, to mitigate their authoritarian implications as far as possible, and to experiment with diverse schemes of collective ‘leadership from below’ (Dixon, 2014, pp. 175–198; Rucht, 2015, pp. 66–67).

It is now more widely acknowledged that inequalities of power cannot be just wished away by calling a movement ‘leaderless’. Contemporary collective action has addressed issues of asymmetrical power by first recognizing its presence and, second, by seeking to institute forms of explicit leadership which do not engender domination and contribute to the collective sharing of skills, knowledge and responsibility. Developing ‘another leadership’ entails essentially a ‘growing attempt to be clear, conscious, and collective about leadership’ (see also della Porta & Rucht, 2015, pp. 223–229; Dixon, 2014, p. 186).

Present-day horizontalism is not a finally achieved condition in which hierarchies have been fully eradicated. It constitutes, rather, a horizon and a regulative principle for which egalitarian movements endlessly strive through critical reflection, political processes and experiments that fight domination and work to minimize or, at least, to control any concentration of power amidst their ranks. Their internal struggle against inequality is sustained through spaces of ongoing reflection in which questions of domination and influence are openly debated and unwarranted authority gets effectively challenged (della Porta & Rucht, 2015, p. 225, 231; Dixon, 2014, p. 72). Such ‘agonistic horizontalism’ contrasts to Gramscian and Laclauian logics of organization which entrench centralization, top-down direction and asymmetrical power as essential structures (see e.g. Laclau, 1996, pp. 54–57, 98–100; Gramsci, 1971, pp.152–153, 181–182).

These instances of grassroots political activity have coalesced around common ends, practices and signifiers (such as ‘the 99%’ and ‘the people’). They have centralized the co-ordination of action in certain ‘hubs’ (such as the Puerta del Sol in Madrid or Zuccotti Park in New York). They have tried to reach out to broader sectors of the population affected by neoliberal governance. They have sought to bring together a variety of actors. They have voiced aspirations to deep socio-political change (e.g. ‘real democracy’, ‘global justice’). And they have confronted dominant structures of power with vast collections of human bodies and networked actions (Dean, 2012, pp. 207– 250; Fominaya, 2015; Giovanopoulos & Mitropoulos, 2011, pp. 274–340; Prentoulis & Thomassen, 2012). Accordingly, they have replicated signal traits of hegemony in tandem with their non-hegemonic horizontalism.

The democratic ‘squares movements’ of 2011 took aim at this institutionalized separation and the sovereign rule of representatives. They set out, instead, to open up the political representation of the people to ordinary citizens by striking down barriers to participation in collective deliberation. The very choice of public squares and streets to set up popular assemblies, in its contrast to decision-making behind closed doors, highlights the will to publicity, transparency and free accessibility of political power to all (Nez, 2012, p. 131). Occupied squares were reconstructed as ‘spaces to do politics without politicians … spaces without money, leaders and merchants’, available to ordinary citizens, poor, non-experts and marginalized people (Dhaliwal, 2012, p. 263). Furthermore, the rejection of ideological closures and set programmes fostered inclusionary openness to diverse multitudes through a spacious discourse (Dhaliwal, 2012, p. 265).

The simple blending of unity and concentration with autonomous multiplicity would not suffice, however, to qualify a certain type of politics as post-hegemonic. As suggested above, Gramsci’s counter-hegemony and Laclau’s radical populism appear likewise to endorse a certain combination of horizontality/ autonomy with verticality/hegemony. Yet, contemporary hybrid instances of horizontalism gesture effectively beyond hegemony insofar as they turn the scales in favour of plurality, egalitarianism and decentralization. In that sense, they differ significantly from the most balanced and diversified variants of hegemony.

The anti-representative rhetoric of the 2011 democratic mobilizations targeted long-established institutions and logics of representative governance. Insofar as they pretended to represent the ‘people’ or the ‘99%’, they made, indeed, a representative claim. This, however, was premised on radically different processes of representative decision-making, which were designed to empower anyone to participate and to be accountable to the many, sketching the rudiments of an open, collective and egalitarian mode of governance which would be more fully representative of the many as many. In recent years, however, egalitarian movements have also engaged in broader coalition-building, addressing society at large, constructing collective identities and seeking to amass enough power to alter the prevailing balance of forces. The Occupy Wall Street, the Spanish and the Greek Indignant, along with a multiplicity of anti-authoritarian groups in the U.S. and elsewhere, are again a case in point.

Post-hegemony (2): turning the scales towards open diversity

n the spirit of hegemonic strategies, the foregoing struggles sought, indeed, to overcome sheer dispersion and ‘spontaneity’ by welding together broad coalitions which aspired to large-scale transformation (Dean, 2012, pp. 207–250; Dixon, 2014, pp. 4–5, 118–119, 140, 221; Giovanopoulos & Mitropoulos, 2011, pp. 274–340). But their mode of co-ordination was inflected by a strong commitment to diversity which counters tendencies towards homogeneity and closure. Open pluralism has been persistently pursued through a multiplicity of norms, ethical practices and organizational choices. The following offers a list of salient tactics, norms and forms which are chosen and pursued so as to foster openness and plurality in collective alliances. The construction of open spaces of convergence for collective deliberation and coordination is a key practice for the promotion of diversity (Juris, 2005; Nez, 2012, pp. 131–134). Again, the Indignados and the Occupy in 2011 offer telling examples. Their popular assemblies in squares and streets intended to function as ‘a really big tent’ where individuals and groups

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can operate autonomously ‘while being in solidarity with something much broader and far-reaching … [which] connects all those struggles’ (Klein & Marom, 2012). Moreover, the assemblies forswore ideologies and strict programmatic definitions in order to appeal to all citizens in their diversity (Dhaliwal, 2012, p. 265; Harcourt, 2011). The network form which is widespread among democratic militancy today is also crucial for fostering diversity, openness and decentralization. Pace Hardt and Negri (2004, pp. xii–xv, 288, 336–340), most actual network formations are not fully horizontal. Usually, in extended networks a number of highly connected ‘hubs’ is surrounded by long chains of other nodes with decreasing connections and impact. However, distributed network systems are not ruled by solid hierarchies or a single leadership. They attain flexible, varying combinations of dispersion and unification in different ways, such as swarming and diverse parallel tactics. As hubs can increase and decrease and new hubs can appear, centralization remains relative, distributed, contestable and mutable. Present-day organizations such as the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca in Spain and the Movimento Passe Livre in Brazil illustrate how a more coherent organizing core can tie up with a loose group of diverse agents who participate in different degrees, making up an open ‘network system’ which allows for plurality and resists strong centralization and fixed hierarchies (Nunes, 2014, p. 29, 31–33, 39, 43; Tormey, 2015, pp. 110–115). Finally, in horizontalist schemes of collective confluence, pragmatism facilitates forms of convergence and common identity which uphold diversity and openness. A heterogeneous assemblage of agents and practices can more easily cohere around strategic wagers and practical objectives rather than around group identities and definite political programmes or ideologies. Collective action can avoid thereby both the fragmentation of ‘identity politics’ and the conflicts which tend to erupt among closed identities that assert themselves. Moreover, sustained interaction which advances shared objectives can build a community of practice and, thus, a practical identification which does not rest on common dogma or a collective tradition. Such communities of action can help to minimize exclusions and offset pressures towards homogeneity (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014, pp. 239–240; Hardt & Negri, 2004, pp. 86–87, 337–340; Nunes, 2014, pp. 42–44).

This pragmatic spirit treats big and divisive issues, such as the relation between the state and grassroots movements, as open questions which should be tackled contextually, variously and practically rather than uniformly and abstractly. Recent history shows, for example, that confrontation or collaboration with the state or maximum distance from it can variably constitute the best option in different situations (de Sousa, 2008, pp. 266–267; Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014, p. 81). This conscience and the ethos it animates seem to be spreading today among the ranks of various ‘horizontal’ activists in Spain and elsewhere. An emerging political subjectivity has come to acquire a taste for pragmatic hybrid politics which deploys a heteroclite mix of tools, including participation in formal representative politics in order to open up sovereign institutions to an unruly multitude outside them. Hence, the rise of new citizens’ parties and initiatives such as Party X, Podemos and PAH (Amin & Thrift, 2013, pp. 150–153; Tormey, 2015, pp. 110–119, 149). An affirmation of contamination, heterogeneity and complexity counters radically the trends towards dogmatic closure and homogeneous unification, even unification around horizontal practices as a singular strategy. Such strategies of ‘another politics’ mix horizontalism and verticalism with a clear emphasis on the former, combining heterogeneous spatialities and temporalities. They are anchored in the here and now; this world, its urgent needs and its ordinary people. Yet they are also oriented towards new worlds of freedom and equality, which pertain to the long term and require arduous processes of reflection, struggle and invention.

// This is a shortened version of an article previously appeared on the Journal Social Movement Studies, 17:1, 99-112, 2017.

References Alford, C. F. (1985). The ‘iron law of oligarchy’ in the Athenian Polis . . . and today. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 18, 295–312.

sation about occupy wall street. The Nation. Retrieved December 10, 2012, from https://goo.gl/yup6R Laclau, E. (1996). Emancipation(s). London & New York, NY: Verso.

Arditi, B. (2007). Post-hegemony: Politics outside the usual post-Marxist paradigm. Contemporary Politics, 13, 205–226.

Laclau, E. (2000a). Identity and hegemony. In J. Butler, E. Laclau, & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, hegemony, universality (pp. 44–89). London & New York, NY: Verso.

Beasley-Murray, J. (2003). On posthegemony. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 22, 117–125.

Laclau, E. (2000b). Structure, history and the political. In J. Butler, E. Laclau, & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, hegemony, universality (pp. 182–212). London & New York, NY: Verso.

Beasley-Murray, J. (2010). Posthegemony. Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press. Brennan, G., & Hamlin, A. (1999). On political representation. British Journal of Political Science, 29, 109–127. Day, R. (2005). Gramsci is dead. Anarchist currents in the newest social movements. London: Pluto Press-Between the Lines. de Sousa, Santos B. (2008). Depolarised polarities. A left with a future. In P. Barrett, D. Chavez, & C. Rodriguez-Garavito (Eds.), The New Latin American left (pp. 255–272). London: Pluto Books. Dhaliwal, P. (2012). Public squares and resistance: The politics of space in the Indignados movement. Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements, 4, 251–273. Dixon, C. (2014). Another Politics. Talking across today’s transformative movements. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Fominaya, C.F. (2015). Debunking spontaneity: Spain’s 15-M/Indignados as autonomous movement. Social Movement Studies, 14, 142–163. Giovanopoulos, C., & Mitropoulos, D. (Eds.). (2011). Democratia under construction. Athens: A/Synecheia. Haiven, M., & Khasnabish, A. (2014). The radical imagination. London: Zed Books. Harcourt, B. (2011, October 13). Occupy wall street’s political disobedience. The New York Times. Retrieved June 20, 2012, from https://goo.gl/ HVE0RM Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2004). Multitude. War and democracy in the age of empire. London: Penguin. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2012). Declaration. New York, NY: Argos. Holloway, J. (2005). Change the world without taking power. London: Pluto Press.

Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. London & New York, NY: Verso. Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy. London & New York, NY: Verso. Lash, S. (2007). Power after hegemony. Cultural studies in mutation? Theory, Culture & Society, 24, 55–78. Maechelbergh, M. (2009). The will of the many. How the alterglobalisation movement is changing the face of democracy. London & New York, NY: Pluto Press. Newman, S. (2011). The politics of postanarchism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Nez, H. (2012). Among militants and deliberative laboratories: The Indignados. In B. Tejerina & I. Perugorria (Eds.), From social to political, new forms of mobilization and democratization, conference proceedings (pp. 123–139). Bilbao: University of the Basque Country. Nunes, R. (2014). Organisation of the organisationless: Collective action after networks. Leuphana: Mute/Post-Media Lab. Prentoulis, M., & Thomassen, L. (2012). Political theory in the square: Protest, representation and subjectification. Contemporary Political Theory first online publication. doi:10.1057/cpt.2012.26:1-19 Sitrin, M., & Azzellini, D. (2014). They can’t represent us. Reinventing democracy from Greece to Occupy. London & New York, NY: Verso. Stavrakakis, Y. (2014). Hegemony or post-hegemony? Discourse, representation and the revenge(s) of the real. In A. Kioupkiolis & G. Katsambekis (Eds.), Radical democracy and collective movements today (pp. 111–132). Farnham: Ashgate. Tormey, S. (2015). The end of representative politics. Cambridge: Polity.

Klein, N., & Marom, Y. (2012, January 9). Why now? What’s next? Naomi Klein and Yotam Marom in conver-

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The circular horizon of municipal movements: Democracy, capital and radical politics

* //Alessio Kolioulis, Rahel Sophia Süß

ooking at the history of the radical left, the twentieth century was marked by two opposite political strategies: the vertical strategy of party structures and the horizontal strategies of social movements. We argue in this article that the new strategic horizon is circular.1

In the last two decades, we have witnessed a steady rise of growing distrust of political parties and representatives and a growth of anti-system rhetoric and political extremism. Faced with these challenges, contemporary democracies appear vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. At the same time, new democratic movements in the cities have raised. They strive to back control, influence politics directly and change the conditions under which politics operate. How can the new municipal movements be studied and analysed? What key principles constitute their practices and how can their strategies be distinguished from previous struggles?

1 This is an edited version of an article that appeared on OpenDemocracy. Alessio Kolioulis and Rahel Sophia Suess, ‘Circularity. A New Strategic Horizon’, OpenDemocracy (blog), 15 January 2018, https://www.opendemocracy.net/rahel-sophia-s-alessio-kolioulis/circularity-new-strategic-horizon.

The idea of social movements has been exhausted Historically, new streams of theory and political activism have constantly overturned many assumptions underlying concepts such as power, agency and democracy. Vertical and horizontal principles have been deployed in the past to differentiate political practices and theories. This opposition underpinned debates around key concepts such as hegemony, post-hegemony, exodus, autonomy, representation and spontaneity. Neither of these categories can be linked in a definitive way to one particular movement or political strategy. However, an attempt to simplify political tactics and strategies under the umbrella terms of verticality and horizontalism could bring clarity to the old question: “what is to be done?” There are a set of principles we would like to highlight in order to define these two broader tendencies. Following David Harvey’s reading of the Capital’s structure in Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason, it is possible to distinguish three economic and political paradigms, which also correspond to the three volumes of the Capital

and the historical development of capitalism. The first paradigm hinges on mass production and large factories. It is the era when socialist and communist parties were shaped against the verticality of production lines, mobilising the masses to confront capitalists with a workers’ vanguard. The second paradigm is characterised by the increasing importance of the sphere of reproduction for the expansion of market economies. The struggles move outside the factory and in favour of horizontal alliances. Movements and autonomous formations fight for a new set of objectives such as against racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, the destruction of the environment and colonialism. The third paradigm invoked by Harvey is based on financial capital and the redistribution of realised value in the second paradigm. Struggles are over the extraction of the commons, rent, wages and borders. The extraction of the commons, because the cooperative production of subjectivities creates economic value. Rent, because gentrification denies the demands for social housing. Wages, because the job market is transformed by new technologies. Borders, because new forms of colonialism and climate change are displacing large parts of the global population.

Given the current circumstances, how can we respond to these transformations? Many contemporary initiatives are driven by a strategy that escapes both the verticality of “early socialism” and the horizontality of autonomous movements emerging around the struggles of the long 1968. These political horizons cannot longer be understood within the existing framework, and it is for this reason that the idea of social movements has been exhausted.

Vertical strategies and horizontal strategies What is behind the shift from the opposite political strategies that marked the division between party structures and social movements? While the vertical movements strictly adhered with the Marxist tradition, favouring party lines linked to state-based models of social change that reduced antagonism to class struggle, horizontal movements followed a community-based model for social change. People took back control of their own lives through constant struggles, moving away from the objective of a revolutionary event. Previously, the strategy of vertical movements and unions was primarily or ex-

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clusively class-based, addressing ideal concepts, while the revolutionary force was represented by the political party. The ends of social change were seen as prior to the means: strikes, the destruction of machinery and the activities of revolutionary intellectuals were the only viable way forward to achieve a communist revolution. Horizontal movements, on the contrary, were quick in capturing and implementing autonomous strategies, organizing without leaders in a non-hierarchical and decentralized fashion. This was a type of organisation in line with the democratic principle of self-realization. The strategies focused particularly on anti-representation, the politics of everyday life, individual transformation and on a non-authoritarian society. They engaged in a variety of protests and did not focus solely on class as the fundamental axis of oppression but addressed a wider range of adversaries. In horizontalist struggles, the ends of social change had to be consistent with the means. In today’s circumstances, however, vertical forms of organizations and horizontal movements do face important challenges. Isolated strategies, the incorporation into the conventional scripts of the state and the balance of power between the movement and the political party are serious challenges for those who want to bring about radical change. Even when these movements manage to take power, this does not guarantee effectiveness or radicality, as the cases of Syriza and Podemos demonstrated. Too often those who take power ended up engaging with the practices of those from whom they take power. It is from this strategic and theoretical perspective that the municipal movements’ right to the city should be analysed. The new wave of municipal movements can be seen as a result of the experiences of the left and more specifically of previous forms of protest in the context of the 2008 financial crisis, the struggles against austerity politics, and the experiments with Podemos and Syriza. With this in mind, we suggest a call for a new circular horizon.

A call for a new circular horizon The new circular horizon highlights the shift from vertical and horizontal strategies towards practices which go beyond the dichotomies of hegemony/autonomy or

representation/spontaneity as they change the underlying assumptions of democracy, power and social change. For instance, the new municipal movements challenge the traditional notion of democracy as a form of governance and competing political parties.

They call for a democracy which identifies social relations, everyday praxis and democratic experiences as a characteristic core of democracy. Moreover, these movements do not subscribe to traditional notions of power, as they see it as the capacity to bring about continuous change and adjust to new circumstances and experiences. And yet, they challenge the notion of social change that confines the achievement of radical transformation either to self-transformation or the ‘occupation of institutions’. Rather than looking at these strategies as isolated principles they regard both as part of what makes meaningful change possible. The strategies of the new municipal movements are shaped by constitutive practices, self-transformation, long-term visions and responses to social emergency. They are questioning the leaderless strategies that guided social movements and replacing them by combining elements of non-hierarchical strategies and tactical leadership. As advocated by Hardt and Negri in their recent book Assembly, tactical leadership is limited to short-term action and tied to specific occasions, whereby movements are responsible for constructing the strategy appropriate to new demands. In more concrete terms, what we suggest calling circular strategies can be defined across five key dimensions: radicality, pragmatism, plurality, openness and experimentalism. Circular strategies are radical insofar as they aim to deepen the democratic principles of liberty, equality and solidarity to increasing number of social spheres. It is about expending the democratic horizon by a simultaneous inclusion of excluded people, groups and ideas and the attempt to keep them autonomous. Circular strategies are pragmatic in the sense that they aim at solving concrete

problems and respond to social emergencies by providing access to housing, healthcare, food, water, education, and data sovereignty.

Circular strategies are plural because they connect a plurality of agencies in a circulation of struggles following the idea of co-producing, co-management, co-ownership. The fluid relationship between new alliances of activists, citizens and politicians allow for multiple levels of organised conflicts, coordination and continuous learning, without having to pass through a rigid central leadership. Circular strategies are open and experimental as power is circulating and moves out of the centre as the circle becomes bigger and bigger. These practices aim to continuously test and modify democratic principles, procedures and policies by critically reflecting on their practical consequences for the improvement of democratic experiences. For instance, the ends and means of radical social change are continuously adjusted in order to test how social freedom and equality can best be implemented under specific circumstances. Finally, a call for a new strategic direction intervenes in the critique of the relationship between democracy and capitalism. Away from old and new separations between economics and politics, we reject both social democratic temptations and the autonomy of radical political experiences.

concrete problem solving. It responds to social emergency by providing access to public services, by solidarity-networks, reduction of costs and removal of bureaucratic barriers. Looking at the networked shape of so-called platform capitalism or the gig economy, circularity represents a tactical horizon that can confront the re-appearance of institutionalised racism and the precarization of life in the spaces where they appear. With a circular democracy, the gate-keeper democracy gets replaced with a democratic â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;co-productionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; based on the idea of the commons. Plural practices move beyond the idea of state sovereignty towards a sovereignty of proximity that can co-manage basic needs such as energy, water, food, housing, education and digital sovereignty. If the extractive nature of financial capitalism is able to exploit the cooperation from below of autonomous subjects, the challenge of horizontal and democratic movements is to rethink the construction of institutions able to confront the macro transformations that impact them. Methods for including collective intelligence inspire and inform new democratic practices and institutions that foster lasting structures of discussions and decision-making: What should be our future investments? How do we want to produce? To conclude, the coming circular democracy is open and experimental: democratic principles, procedures and policies are tested in short intervals and adjust to new circumstances by reflecting critically on their practical consequences for the improvement of social relations and democratic experiences.

Coming up: a circular democracy? The new municipal movement can be seen as a prefiguration of a circular democracy to come. In a circular democracy, social relations are becoming the ends and not the means of democratic politics. By maintaining a relevant anchorage in the everyday practices of people, the function of political institutions changes. They improve both the quality of social relations and democratic experience by allowing conflicts to appear and involving people in the decisions that affect them. By doing so, a circular democracy moves from a democracy of bureaucracy towards a democracy of

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Mapping Radical Cities

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s e s s : e s r t r m o o f o t r no living t u b Radical Cities

ies t i c How

er t l e h of s

rk o w d coul

UK e h t in

//Pearl Ahrens

Borders as processes, not lines

olitical theorist Angela Mitropolous has written that it’s more useful to migrant solidarity to think about borders as processes, not lines. She says an obsession with the geographical location of a border as a fixed line means “we stop posing questions about what the border does”.1 Although border processes contain objects (papers, detention centres, walls), the less obvious – but just as sinister – parts of border processes are temporal events (raids, arrests, filling in forms at the hospital). Or sometimes they’re neither: rights, checks, rules and regulations, suspicions and exceptions. In the past, old cities of Europe were surrounded by city walls, to mark and guard the boundaries of the city. As capitalism developed, and its side-effect urbanisation occurred, the point of the walls was undermined by statecraft and they became a half-knocked-down historical feature of the city centres. Nowadays, cities commonly peter out towards their edges – they don’t have boundaries to stop people entering or leaving.

1 [Emphasisadded].Mitropolous,Angela.InBasePublication.“OnBorders/Race/Fascism/Labour/ Precarity/Etc”.(2016). http://www.basepublication.org/?p=107

However, the fact that a city doesn’t have distinct geographical borders doesn’t mean it has open borders, because borders are state processes. In that case, what would it mean to be a ‘City of Shelter’ for migrants in the UK? How could a geographical demarcation defend against a temporal process such as immigration detention, and how would it stop state border processes seeping in through the suburbs? The Radical Municipalism group is a research cluster of UK organisation Plan C. We think a City of Shelter should be an active process undertaken by the municipality and radical civil society, to enable migrants to live their lives and make roots in the city.

What shouldn’t a UK City of Shelter look like? There are currently no Cities of Shelter in the UK. In 2007, Sheffield declared itself a ‘City of Sanctuary’, which means local charities and the council work to make asylum seekers and refugees feel welcome in the city. This is great, but all residents of Sheffield have their lives interrupted by state border processes, no matter their immigration status.2 The ‘sanctuary’ 2 Boutaud,Charles,Cantwell-Corn,Adam,PaoloMancini,Donato.9October2017.“ThousandsofBritishcitizenssweptupinimmigrationspotchecks"

in the name is meaningless if the municipality is ineffective in preventing state border processes from unfolding in the city. Based on Sheffield’s example, there’s a risk that a much- needed UK City of Shelter would end up meaning nothing to most migrants, in the face of powerful state border processes. We, the Plan C Radical Municipalism research cluster based in the UK, believe this liberal model of a refuge city could be more effective if a declaration of City of Shelter committed the municipality and radical civil society to not just protect all ‘illegal’ and ‘legal’ migrants from Immigration Enforcement, but also to make an active effort to provide everyday solidarity to migrants. The idea of working with the municipality to help migrants may seem strange, given the fact that it’s the council that so often is the enemy of current migrant solidarity activities by activists in the UK. Aside from the brilliant work already being done by Anti-Raids Network3, Schools Against Borders for Children4 and Docs Not Cops5, there is a tendency for some migrant solidarity efforts to favour squats as a way to capture and protect a portion of geographical space against the ravages of the state. Despite the constant danger of eviction by the council or the courts, it can feel good to barricade the doors and protect a piece of urban terrain as our own. From the short, sharp squats of banks and million-pound homes to the more open community/social centres, London has had plenty of practice defending a territory. Recent squats such as Sisters Uncut occupation of empty council house in 2016, or Focus E15 mothers occupation of an empty block of council flats in 2014, were antagonistic to their respective borough councils, but unfortunately did not last more than a few weeks. In Brighton, the Labour-led council has since 2017 introduced Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs), which criminalised the erection of tents and the parking of live-in vans in certain areas of the city. These new control orders predominantly affect homeless people, and due to the large number of migrants living on the streets, will negatively impact the ability of migrants to survive in the city. In this way, it’s clear that attempts by migrants and non-migrants to work together to provide mutual support and shelter are frustrated at every turn by the council and the courts. Across the UK, the ever-present danger of eviction, a process, means even well-defended squats are time-limited. It might even be unhelpful to try and set up a squat for migrant children and their asylum-seeking parents, say, if it advertised their whereabouts thereby making them vulnerable not just to eviction from the squat, but to eviction from the country. The ruthless dispensation of fines

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-10-09/review-homeoffice-immigration-checks 3 Anti-Raids Network website http://antiraids.net/

and evictions against people with no choice in where to live demonstrates, surely, that the council is the enemy. It seems like the onus is on the municipality to do less: step back, and allow radical civil society to cover migrant solidarity without the intrusion of institutional processes.

Looking to Europe for inspiration Examples of squats on the continent show us that when the political will exists, the municipality can take action to provide actual support for migrants. They show us that the problem in the UK is with the exact processes, of criminalisation and eviction, rather than with council intervention full stop. If done correctly, the municipality can create or use new by-laws and processes which actually help migrant squats last longer than in the UK. An example of one such strategy is Naples, where the new Government Resolution no. 446/2016 effectively legalises the squatting of empty buildings for “civic use” when turning them into social centres.6 A law like this, framed as an explicit promise not to evict squats housing migrants, could allow radical civil society provide more sustainable places for families to live. In Dijon, despite threats from fascists, 60-80 asylum seekers co-organised a squat with the autonomous left which has survived in a disused hotel for 15 months. Although it has been dragged through the courts numerous times, it has benefitted from two rounds of a law loophole called the “trêve hivernale” (winter truce), which effectively prohibits eviction notices during the cold seasons. In contrast to Naples, the trêve hivernale is a legal convention, not a municipal law, yet suggests the possibility for municipalities to introduce more relaxed eviction processes. The point of these anecdotes is that municipalities have some official powers that civil society does not. Naples’ new by-law did not come out of nowhere: Naples is an excellent example of ‘radical municipalism’, which is where radical civil society and the municipality “discuss together the proposals for new municipal laws, in a process of co-deliberation of the regulations that govern the city”.7 The election of Mayor Luigi de Magistris was one event in a long process of “direct contact, open meetings, popular assemblies in the neighbourhoods, observatories, and by keeping a direct relation with social centres and spaces of activism and active citizenship”.8 This groundwork meant that Naples’ declaration of ‘City of Shelter’ was accompanied by concrete commitments from the municipality and radical civil society to both put work into migrant solidarity. Combined with the case of Dijon, both show that for the state and for radical civil society, ‘defending a territory’ is more 6 Connected Action for the Commons. (2017) “What makes an empty building in Naples a Commons?” P2P Foundation. https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/what-makes-an-empty-building-innaples-a-commons/2017/05/08

4 Schools ABC website https://www.schoolsabc.net/

7 European Alternatives. (2017) “In Naples, We Are All Illegal Or No-one Is”. Political Critique. http://politicalcritique.org/world/2017/in-naples-we-are-all-illegal-or-no-one-is/

5 Docs Not Cops http://www.docsnotcops.co.uk/

8 Ibid.

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to do with negotiating process than drawing lines in geography. And if this territory is a city, how exactly would an effective City of shelter playout?

What should a UK City of Shelter look like? Process is the tool of radical civil society and the municipality working together. But tools aren’t always used to positive, life-enhancing ends. For decades, the UK government has outsourced the administration of austerity to municipalities, in effect cutting double digits off their budgets and letting them take the blame for the resulting chaos in their respective geographical jurisdictions. The decimation of resources for everyday life – housing, schools, hospitals – through budget cuts has restricted access to safety, education and health for migrants and non-migrants alike. Migrant solidarity should start from resistance to these cuts, on the part of the municipality too. But resistance is not enough, it’s necessary to create new structures of support as well. What type of structures could a City of Shelter create, which would provide real, radical, migrant solidarity? We have three ideas. 1. Moratorium on evictions Taking inspiration from Naples, a proud declaration of an indefinite pause on evictions of all houses and squats would prove a City of Shelter to be true to its name. To create longer-term housing solutions, a ring-fenced pot of money could be put aside in the council budget to pay for part of migrants’ rent. One idea is to combine the models of Thousand 4 1000 in Brighton, a crowdfunding system which rents a house for an asylum-seeking family via 1000 donations of £1 per month9, and Greater London Assembly’s civic crowdfunding project, which can support and front 10% of the money for a crowdfunded urban realm project.10 It’s conceivable to imagine a confluence of these two projects, with the municipality recommending a house or flat, chipping in some rent and relying on radical civil society to raise the rest. This sort of structure certainly has flaws, but could commence immediately and would provide a more stable home for migrants than a precarious squat. 2. Legal defence for schools and hospitals that resist the Immigration Act

Immigration Act has pushed aggressive border policies forward. The way the Immigration Act 2016 works is that it criminalises people who provide a service to migrants: doctors who don’t report their patients’ nationalities or immigration status become criminals, teachers become liable for reporting their students’ nationalities, and landlords who rent to migrants can be prosecuted by the Home Office. Exactly how the Immigration Act 2016 plays out is still opaque, but its culture of fear provides a pretext for immigration raids and xenophobia. A UK City of Shelter should make a priority of shameless resistance to the Immigration Act. Municipalities could provide legal and financial support to landlords, schools and hospitals within the city who actively ignore and resist border checks. The unevenness with which the Act is applied across the country could potentially bide Cities of Shelter some time to attackthe ensuing legal challenges with the full support of radical civilsociety. 3. PSPOs for immigrationraids A City of Shelter municipality should make use of every loophole at its disposal to oppose the Immigration Act 2016. Public Space Protection Orders, PSPOs, are like Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) but they apply to places, not people. They are mini-laws which can control behaviour in a city jurisdiction. Since 2014, PSPOs have made it possible for a municipality to criminalise some behaviours in a specified area of the city, for instance a park or a street. Arguably, immigration raids and spot checks fall under the categories of anti-social behaviours eligible for criminalisation by PSPO, due to the extent to which they disrupt the lives of both migrant and non-migrant residents in a city. A City of Shelter council could impose a PSPO on residential areas of the city, which would allow them to fine or prosecute Immigration Enforcement. Another PSPO could make restrict vehicle movement to and from a local G4S Security detention centre or Immigration Enforcement car parks, making it an offence for vehicles to leave to conduct raids. The Mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, puts emphasis on “not occupied but liberated spaces”.11 This should be the watchword for future migrant solidarity actions in the UK: “liberated”. Defending a City of Shelter would mean liberating the migrants who live there from the anti-social violence of state processes, and the municipality would take on more responsibility in protecting its residents from interruptions to their everyday lives.

A necessary part of what a City of Shelter in the UK would mean is to recognise the significant way that the 2016

9 Thousand 4 1000 website. https://thousandfor1000.wordpress.com 10 Mayor of London. Crowdfund London website. https://www.london.gov.uk/whatwe-do/regeneration/funding-opportunities/crowdfund-london

11 European Alternatives. (2017) “In Naples, We Are All Illegal Or No-one Is”. Political Critique. http://politicalcritique.org/world/2017/in-naples-we-are-all-illegalor-no-one-is

Making everyday life For a municipality, being a City of Shelter would mean imbuing migrant solidarity through-out all processes. This means reaching out to migrants to make resources available to them – not just housing, but language learning, bus tickets to enable them to make use of the dense networks existent in cities. Ideally there would be a network of Cities of Shelter in the UK, which links up with those on the continent. Antje Dieterich details the recent multiplication of institutions in Berlin, where migrants and radical civil society can loosen the rules around healthcare provision. She says the long-term goal for migrant solidarity activities in Berlin would be “to develop a complex of participatory institutions that allow us to learn, live and work in our future sanctuary.”12 If this sounds impossible, that’s even more imperative to make it happen. Being a City of Shelter doesn’t just mean opening up the city boundaries, it means creating processes which benefit everyone, by enabling everyday life. References: Anti-Raids Network website http://antiraids.net BBC. (2017) “Reality Check: Can the Government Requisition homes?” http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40303142 Le Bien Public. (2017) “Squat de la rue des Ateliers à Dijon: un délai pour les occupants” http://www.bienpublic.com/edition-dijon-ville/2017/09/29/dijonl-avenir-du-squat-de-la-rue-des-ateliers-se-joue-ce-vendredi Le Bien Public. (2017) “Squat de la rue des Ateliers à Dijon: la décision reportée” http://www.bienpublic.com/edition-dijon-ville/2017/05/24/squat-ruedes-ateliers-la-decision-reportee Boutaud, Charles, Cantwell-Corn, Adam, Paolo Mancini, Donato. 9 October 2017. “Thousands of British citizens swept up in immigration spot checks” https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-10-09/review-homeoffice-immigration-checks Brighton and Hove City Council. 30 January 2017. “Public Space Protection Orders come into force” https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/press-release/public-space-protection-orders-come-force Connected Action for the Commons. (2017) “What makes an empty building in Naples a Commons?” P2P Foundation. https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/ what-makes-an-empty-building-in-naples-a-commons/2017/05/08

Political Critique. http://politicalcritique.org/world/2017/in-naples-we-are-allillegal-or-no-one-is Focus E15. (2014) “E15 Open House Occupation” https://focuse15.org/e15open-%20house-occupation Garrett, Bradley L. 8 September 2015. “PSPOs: the new control orders threatening our public spaces” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/08/pspos-new-control-orders-public-spaces-asbos-freedoms Gateshead Council. “What are Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs)?” http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/People%20and%20Living/CommunitySafety/ Public-Spaces-Protection-Orders.aspx Kitsantonis, Niki. (2017) “Anarchists Fill Services Void Left By Faltering Greek Governance” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/world/ europe/greece-athens-anarchy-austerity.html Mayor of London. Crowdfund London website. https://www.london.gov.uk/ what-we-do/regeneration/funding-opportunities/crowdfund-london Migrant English Project, Brighton. http://mepbrighton.com/#1 Minton, Anna. (2017) “Civic crowdfunding is privatisation masquerading as democracy”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/oct/24/ civic-crowdfunding-erode-democracy-local-authority Mitropolous, Angela. In Base Publication. “On Borders/Race/Fascism/Labour/ Precarity/Etc”. (2016). http://www.basepublication.org/?p=107 Nye, Catrin, and Sands, Leo. (2017) “Asylum seekers face appeals ‘lottery’” BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42153862 Page, Jacky. (2017) “Les migrants du squat de la rue des Ateliers à Dijon resteront au chaud l’hiver prochain” France Bleu. https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/ faits-divers-justice/les-migrants-du-squat-de-la-rue-des-ateliers-a-dijon-resteront-au-chaud-l-hiver-prochain-1506694289 Schools ABC website https://www.schoolsabc.net Simmel, Georg. (1903) “The Metropolis and Mental Life”. http://www.laits. utexas.edu/berlin/pdf/scholarship/Simmel_The%20Metropolis.pdf Squat.net (2016) “Dijon: appel à rassemblement devant le tribunal, en solidarité avec les migrants du 22 rue des ateliers” https://fr.squat.net/2016/10/04/ dijon-appel-a-rassemblement-22 Squat.net (2017) “Dijon: rassemblement en soutien au squat de la rue des ateliers” https://fr.squat.net/2017/03/23/dijon-rassemblement-en-soutien-ausquat-de-la-rue-des-ateliers/#more-35451 “The Best Hotel in Europe” website. https://best-hotel-in-europe.eu Thousand 4 1000 website. https://thousandfor1000.wordpress.com

Dieterich, Antje. (2017) “Urban Sanctuary: The Promise of Solidarity Cities” ROAR magazine, Issue 6. https://roarmag.org/magazine/urban-sanctuary-solidarity-cities-refugees Docs Not Cops http://www.docsnotcops.co.uk European Alternatives. (2017) “In Naples, We Are All Illegal Or No-one Is”.

12 Dieterich, Antje. (2017) “Urban Sanctuary: The Promise of Solidarity Cities” ROAR magazine, Issue 6. https://roarmag.org/magazine/urban-sanctuary-solidarity-cities-refugees

engagée | 97

enseits der neoliberalen Smart City: Commons und demokratische Alternativen

// Evgeny Morozov und Francesca Bria

ie Diskussion über alternative politische Maßnahmen und sinnvolle Interventionen auf der lokalen Ebene sollte vor dem Hintergrund vielfältiger sozialer Bewegungen und Kämpfe geführt werden, die vielerorts zu beobachten sind.1 Sie richten sich gegen das herrschende Austeritätsregime, den zunehmend offen räuberisch auftretenden Neoliberalismus und die allgegenwärtigen Versuche, möglichst alles zu kommerzialisieren und zu kommodifizieren. In Europa streiten soziale Bewegungen unter dem Motto «Recht auf Stadt» für die Wiederaneignung urbaner Ressourcen als Commons sowie für andere, kollektivere Formen der Verteilung und Verwaltung von öffentlichen Ressourcen vor allem in den Bereichen Wasser-, Energie-, Wohnungs- und Gesundheitsversorgung. Dies sind Initiativen und Bündnisse, an die wir uns wenden und die auf jeden Fall gestärkt werden müssen, sollen auch Kämpfe für eine Wiedererlangung von Technologie- Souveränität auf der kommunalen Ebene erfolgreich sein. Diese meist lokalen Bewegungen kämpfen seit Jahren gegen Zwangsräumungen, Energiearmut, die zunehmende Prekarisierung von Beschäftigungsverhältnissen sowie für die Rekommunalisierung von privatisierten Infrastrukturen und Versorgungseinrichtungen. In manchen Fällen haben auch kommunale Regierungen sich gegen das neoliberale Projekt einer 1 Ausschnitt aus “Die smarte Stadt neu denken” von Evgeny Morozov und Francesca Bria; herausgegeben von der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung 2017: https://www.rosalux.de/smartcity; der hier zu lesende Teil wurde insbesondere von Bria verfasst.

fortschreitenden Finanzialisierung gestellt. Einige haben zum Beispiel damit gedroht, die Dienste von Rating-Agenturen nicht länger in Anspruch zu nehmen. In Madrid wurde die Zusammenarbeit inzwischen tatsächlich eingestellt. Die dadurch eingesparten Mittel fließen zum Teil in soziale Programme. Eine verantwortungsvolle öffentliche Politik zu betreiben heißt, sich dem Vorhaben einer undemokratischen und privatisierten Smart City entgegenzustellen, da dieses Modell vor allem die Interessen multinationaler Konzerne bedient. Es heißt darüber hinaus, die Monopolisierung von intellektuellem Eigentum zu bekämpfen und insbesondere den Prozess der privaten Aneignung von kollektiv produziertem Wert durch profitorientierte digitale Plattformen umzukehren. In einer wirklich demokratischen Stadt hätten die Einwohner*innen ein Anrecht auf den freien Zugang zu verschiedenen Wissens- und Open-Data-Ressourcen sowie zu öffentlichen Informationsinfrastrukturen. Mit ihnen gemeinsam würden Vertreter*innen der Kommunen dann um qualitativ hochwertigere, besser zugängliche und den Bedürfnissen der Bürger*innen angemessenere öffentliche Dienste und Einrichtungen ringen, die das Leben aller erleichtern. Das setzt jedoch voraus, dass wir uns das kritische Wissen über Daten und technische Infrastrukturen (wieder) aneignen, das derzeit hauptsächlich von einer Handvoll multinationaler Service-Provider kontrolliert wird. Eine weitere Voraussetzung, um so etwas wie Technologie-Souveränität zu erlangen, ist es, konsequent Open-Source-Software, offene Standards und offene Systemarchitekturen zu verwenden. Nur so lässt sich eine wirklich demokratische und progressive

Technologiepolitik umsetzen, die in der Lage ist, einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Herausbildung einer neuen produktiven Ökonomie zu leisten und einen kontinuierlichen Wissensaustausch zwischen Städten, Ländern und Bewegungen sicherzustellen. Was also können Städte tun, um den Übergang hin zu einer nicht-neoliberalen Smart City zu befördern? Paul Mason hat während einer Veranstaltung anlässlich des Starts der Barcelona Initiative for Technological Sovereignty (BITS)2 die Bedeutung eines ganzheitlichen Ansatzes betont. Eine fortschrittliche kommunale Technologiepolitik sollte deshalb folgende Punkte und Maßnahmen beinhalten:

Städte sollten sich einen gemeinsamen globalen Bezugsrahmen schaffen, sich darin zu Orten der Commons erklären und sich der gemeinschaftlichen Schaffung von Werten verpflichten. Die Praxis der Privatisierung und Übertragung von öffentlichem Vermögen in Privatbesitz gehört beendet. Maßgebliche Infrastrukturen und Dienstleistungen sollten rekommunalisiert werden. Es gilt eine demokratische Öffentlichkeit aufzubauen. Die Wohnungspolitik, der öffentliche Nahverkehr sowie das Gesundheits- und Bildungswesen müssen so gestaltet sein, dass auch für sozial marginalisierte Teile der Bevölkerung eine volle Befriedigung ihrer Grundbedürfnisse gewährleistet ist. Es sollten datengestützte Wirtschaftsmodelle verfolgt werden, mit realen Inputs (inklusive der Nutzung von Echtzeit-Datenanalytik), was komplexe Entscheidungsprozesse transparenter und demokratischer gestalten würde. Im Falle öffentlicher Industriepolitik und Wirtschaftsförderung müssen kollektive und genossenschaftliche Formen Vorrang haben vor zentralisierten Formen staatlicher Kontrolle sowie vor Marktmodellen. Einführung eines bedingungslosen Grundeinkommens, mit einem Fokus auf Armutsbekämpfung und Zurückdrängung sozialer Ausgrenzung. Schaffung von «City Data Commons», wobei rechtlich geregelt werden sollte, dass Daten der Bevölkerung, die im Zuge der Nutzung von öffentlichen Diensten gesammelt werden, nicht

2 BITS ist eine strategische Partnerschaft, an der das Hans Crescent Symposium London, das Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3/UOC), das Institute of Government and Public Policy (IGOP/UAB) und ein Netzwerk, bestehend aus Repräsentant*innen sozialer Bewegungen und Akademiker*innen, beteiligt sind. Ihr Ziel ist es, weltweit eine Debatte über die veränderte Bedeutung von Souveränität in Gang zu setzen und herauszuarbeiten, wie verschiedene Typen von Souveränität – die von Bürger*innen, Städten und Regionen – mit dem Aufkommen und der Wirkmächtigkeit globaler Technologien zu vereinbaren sind.

Eigentum der Anbieter dieser Dienste sind. Ein Beispiel dafür, wie erste Schritte in Richtung einer solchen innovativen Technologiepolitik auf kommunaler Ebene aussehen könnten, ist die «Digitale Agenda» der Stadt Barcelona, die ausdrücklich das Ziel der Technologie-Souveränität verfolgt und dies mit der Philosophie einer commonsbasierten lokalen Ökonomie verknüpft.

„Digital City“ Barcelona In Barcelona findet derzeit so etwas wie eine demokratische Umwälzung statt. Die Stadt ist Teil eines internationalen Netzwerkes von sogenannten rebellischen Städten, die dabei sind, das Feld der öffentlichen Politik umzukrempeln und den Status quo infrage zu stellen. Barcelonas Bürgermeisterin Ada Colau steht einer der weltweit radikalsten Stadtregierungen vor und setzte sich zuvor lange Zeit an vorderster Front als Aktivistin für eine gerechtere Wohnungspolitik und gegen Zwangsräumungen ein. Sie gehört der Bürgerplattform Barcelona en Comù an, die 2015 nach verschiedenen Kämpfen gegen die in Spanien vorherrschende Austeritätspolitik in der katalanischen Hauptstadt die Kommunalwahlen gewann. Von daher repräsentiert sie eine neue Generation von Politiker*innen, die sich gegen die politischen und wirtschaftlichen Eliten des Landes richtet, die für Spaniens Finanz und soziale Krise verantwortlich sind und dafür, dass Hunderttausende Familien ihr Zuhause verloren haben. Unmittelbar nach dem Wahlgewinn begann die von Barcelona en Comù angeführte Regierungskoalition mit der Umsetzung von mehreren Sozialreformen. Zuvor hatte sie unter anderem mithilfe einer kooperativ organisierten Internetplattform die Meinung von Tausenden Stadtbewohner*innen darüber eingeholt, welche Maßnahmen zuerst ergriffen werden sollten. Ganz oben auf der Agenda stehen der Stopp von Zwangsräumungen und die Erhöhung des Anteils von Sozialwoh- nungen. Rund 550 Wohnungen und Häuser, die Banken nach Zwangsräumungen leer stehen ließen, wurden inzwischen dem Wohnungsmarkt wieder zugeführt. Die Stadtregierung hat zudem beschlossen, keine weiteren Lizenzen für Hotelbetreiber und andere Anbieter von Touristenunterkünften auszugeben. Und sie hat versprochen, Unternehmen wie Airbnb und Booking.com mit Bußgeldern zu belegen, wenn diese weiterhin illegal Wohnungen anbieten, die nicht im lokalen Tourismusverzeichnis eingetragen sind. 80 Prozent der verhängten Strafgebühren können erlassen werden, wenn die frei stehenden Wohnungen dem «Social Emergency Housing Consortium» von Barcelona zugeführt und dann bis zu drei Jahre lang an Bedürftige engagée | 99

vermietet werden. Die Stadtverwaltung hat nun zu einer Versammlung der Bevölkerung zum Thema verantwortungsvoller Tourismus aufgerufen, auf der eine demokratische Auseinandersetzung darüber stattfinden soll, welches touristische Entwicklungsmodell für die Stadt und ihre Bewohner*innen am besten ist. Neben dieser Initiative, die sich gegen eine unregulierte On-demand-Wirtschaft richtet, verfolgen Ada Colau und ihre Regierung eine Politik der Rekommunalisierung von Infrastrukturen sowie Dienst- und Versorgungsleistungen (Wasser, Energie etc.). Die Stadt hat zudem die Bekämpfung von Energiearmut zu einer ihrer Zielsetzungen erklärt. In Spanien können schätzungsweise mehr als drei Millionen Haushalte ihre Strom- und Gasrechnungen nicht bezahlen. Die Stadtverwaltung von Barcelona plant, die privatisierten Wasserwerke wieder zurückzukaufen und die Vergabe- und Auftragsrichtlinien dahingehend zu verändern, dass Arbeitnehmerrechte, Umweltstandards, Fragen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, Open-Source-Aspekte und andere ethische Maßstäbe eine größere Rolle spielen. Damit würde etwa Sozialunternehmen und Genossenschaften der Zugang zu öffentlichen Aufträgen und Fördermitteln erleichtert. Zur neuen Kommunalpolitik in Barcelona gehört auch eine kritische Haltung gegenüber neoliberalen Smart-City-Modellen, wie sie von den großen Technologiekonzernen angepriesen werden. Stattdessen setzt die Kommunalregierung auf neue Konzepte und Tools wie Open Source, mit denen eine demokratische und commons-orientierte digitale Stadt «von unten» aufgebaut werden kann. Zu diesem Zweck hat die Bürgermeisterin eigens ein Digital Innovation Office eingerichtet. Es soll Vorgaben für die Technologiepolitik der Stadt machen, die digitale Transformation des Rathauses vorantreiben und strategische Projekte entwickeln, in denen sich die politischen Prioritäten aller wichtigen kommunalen Ressorts widerspiegeln, und Vorschläge unterbreiten, wie diese durch innovative technologische Lösungen unterstützt werden können. Es geht darum, einer neuen Vorstellung von technologischer Entwicklung zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen. Die Politik, aber auch alle Bewohner*innen sind dazu aufgerufen, darüber nachzudenken, wie technische Tools und Programme aussehen müssten, die ganz im Dienste der Bürger*innen stehen.3 Im Oktober 2016 stellte die Stadtverwaltung von Barcelona ihre Digitale Agenda vor, die sie zusammen mit Einwohner*innen, technischen Expert*innen, Wissenschaftler*innen und Maker-Communities erarbeitet hat. Die Stadt setzt auf Technologie-Souveränität, weil sie sich davon mehr Freiraum für das Setzen eigener Prioritäten sowie mehr

3 Vgl. www.barcelona.cat/digital.

technologische Innovationen verspricht, mit denen eindeutig gesellschaftliche Vorteile und Gewinne für den öffentlichen Sektor verbunden sind. Zu diesem Zweck sollen kleine und mittlere Unternehmen und innovative Akteure auf der lokalen Ebene eingebunden werden, um mit ihnen zusammen neue digitale Dienstleistungen und Lösungen zu entwickeln, die die städtische Bevölkerung wirklich gebrauchen kann. Zusätzlich hat die Stadt eine Digital Transformation Roadmap vorgelegt mit Leitlinien und einem Verhaltenskodex. Diese sehen die Verwendung von Open-Source-Software, Open Standards und offenen Architekturen vor, die Einführung von nutzerfreundlichen digitalen Diensten mithilfe von agilen Methoden4 sowie ein Handbuch für die Auftragsvergabe im Technologiesektor. In einer neuen städtischen Direktive zum Umgang mit Daten werden ethische Kriterien, Datenschutzanliegen und das Ziel der Datensouveränität der Bürger*innen betont. Dahinter steht die Absicht, Technologien zu entwickeln und zu fördern, die dem Gemeinwohl dienen, die Städten dabei helfen, neue produktive und nachhaltige Modelle der Wirtschaftsentwicklung zu entwerfen, und die den Wissensaustausch zwischen Städten und Bewegungen erleichtern können. Die in Barcelona verfolgte Strategie sieht zu diesem Zweck eine Reihe von «Co-Creation Workshops» vor, die wichtige Inputs für die Stadtverwaltung liefern sollen, sodass aus einer anfänglichen Top-down-Initiative im Laufe der Zeit ein Bottom-up-Prozess werden kann, der auf kollektive Intelligenz vertraut und alle wichtigen städtischen Akteure mit einbezieht.

Der Ansatz der «Data Commons» ermöglicht es Stadtverwaltungen zum Beispiel, selbst Alternativen zu den profitgetriebenen Internetplattformen von Unternehmen wie Uber und Airbnb aufzubauen. Viele Städte setzen sich derzeit für faire Regeln und ein hohes Maß an Transparenz bei auf Algorithmen basierenden Entscheidungen ein, um die On-demand-Ökonomie einzuhegen. Das ist ein notwendiger Schritt, er wird aber perspektivisch betrachtet nicht ausreichen. Barcelona hat deswegen begonnen, Initiativen zu unterstützen, die Teil einer

4 34 Der Begriff agil bezieht sich hier auf Projektmanagement-Methoden bei der Software Entwicklung, wie sie im «Agile Manifesto» (2001) beschrieben werden. Im Unterschied zum traditionellen Sofware-Engineering nach dem Wasserfallmodell zeichnen sich agile Methoden durch ihren iterativen und flexiblen Charakter aus. Software wird als Antwort auf veränderte wirtschaftliche, geschäftliche und gesellschaftliche Anforderungen entwickelt. Neue Lösungen entstehen durch die Zusammenarbeit von funktionsübergreifenden Service-Entwicklungsteams durch frühzeitige Bereitstellung und ständige Verbesserungen.

wirklichen Sharing-Ökonomie sind, darunter sogenannte kooperativ organisierte Plattformen, die mit «Data Commons» experimentieren und großen Wert darauf legen, dass die Bürger*innen Eigentümer*innen ihrer Daten bleiben und diese kontrollieren können.5 Bei der Umsetzung solcher Ansätze, die zu mehr Technologie-Souveränität beitragen sollen, besteht eine Hürde darin, das Selbstverständnis und die Arbeitskultur in der öffentlichen Verwaltung zu ändern. Besonders dringlich gilt es dabei, die Vergaberichtlinien für öffentliche Aufträge neu zu formulieren, sodass Fragen der Zukunftsfähigkeit, der Ethik, der Nachhaltigkeit sowie der sozialen und der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit bei kommunalen Entscheidungen, welche Produkte bei wem gekauft und welche Dienste wem übertragen werden sollen, genauso Berücksichtigung finden wie Kostenaspekte und technische Überlegungen. Staatliche Institutionen erweisen sich oft als abgeschottete Einheiten. Die dort herrschenden Regelwerke sind häufig extrem kompliziert und die Abläufe in Bezug auf Mittelzuweisungen und -verteilung für Außenstehende undurchsichtig. Die Kommunalpolitik sollte daher Wert auf neue, stärker auf Bürgerbeteiligung setzende Förderwege legen. Das kann zum einen bedeuten, ganz neue Förderprogramme für bestimmte Felder aufzulegen, wo es einen besonders hohen sozialen Bedarf gibt. Zum anderen sollten demokratischere Finanzierungsmodelle erprobt werden, die für mehr Menschen zugänglich sind und die mit Instrumenten wie crowd-funding oder match-funding ergänzt werden könnten. Des Weiteren hat sich die Stadt Barcelona einer Kultur der Transparenz verschrieben, um die Korruption im öffentlichen Sektor zurückzudrängen. Derzeit wird am Aufbau eines Pilotprojekts namens «Bustia Etica» gearbeitet,6 einem verschlüsselten Programm für Whistleblower, das es Bewohner*innen der Stadt ermöglichen soll, auf unkomplizierte und sichere Weise ihnen bekannte Fälle von Korruption zu melden. Andere Projekte sollen das Bewusstsein über die Bedeutung von Bürgerrechten in unserem digitalen Zeitalter stärken, darunter das Recht auf Datenschutz und das Recht auf den Zugang zu öffentlichen Informationen und Wissensressourcen. Schließlich ist das Ziel, die Verwaltung agiler und experimentierfreudiger zu gestalten, damit sie sich darauf einlässt, neue Methoden und Organisationsformen (darunter Ansätze agiler Entwicklung und des Co-Designs) bei der Erbringung von Dienstleistungen auszuprobieren, bei denen die Bedürfnisse der Bürger*innen und das gesellschaftliche Gemeinwohl im Zentrum stehen. Öffentliche Einrichtungen sollten sich zudem stärker auf eine Zusammenarbeit und 5 Vgl. decodeproject.eu. 6 Vgl. https://xnet-x.net/en/whistleblowing-platform-barcelona-city-council/.

auf Partnerschaften mit Bewohner*innen und Communities einlassen, statt nur mit Unternehmen zu kooperieren. Der öffentliche Sektor hat zahlreiche Möglichkeiten, Netzwerke von gemeinnützigen Initiativen, Nachbarschaften und andere bürgerschaftliche Bewegungen nachhaltig zu stärken. Er kann ihnen – auch im Sinne langfristiger Strukturentscheidungen – mehr praktische und rechtliche Instrumente an die Hand geben, um sie zu mehr kollektivem Handeln zu ermutigen und dazu, unsere Gesellschaften zum Besseren hin zu verändern.

Andere Formen des Dateineigentums: City Data Commons Die Plattformökonomie verfügt über enormes Potenzial und wird in Zukunft noch größeren wirtschaftlichen Einfluss haben. Deshalb müssen einige entscheidende Fragen geklärt werden, zuallererst die, wer über personenbezogene Daten verfügen darf und wie sie kontrolliert und verwaltet werden sollen.7 Das gegenwärtige digitale Ökosystem8 und die Landschaft des Internets der Dinge (Internet of Things – IoT) sind hochgradig fragmentiert. Es gibt eine Menge von nicht interoperablen9 vertikalen Lösungen, die alle ihre eigenen Vorkehrungen, Schnittstellen, Plattformen und Instrumente der Datenerfassung und -verarbeitung in Datensilos mit sich bringen. Diese Fragmentierung führt dazu, dass Daten nur schwer zu verwalten sind und die Endnutzer*innen im Grunde die Kontrolle über sie verlieren. Dieser unbefriedigende Status quo rührt daher, dass kleine und mittlere Unternehmen, Start-ups und andere potenziell innovative Akteure sich schwertun, offene, horizontale und vollständig kompatible Komponenten und datengestützte Lösungen zu entwickeln und anzubieten. Denn die mit solchen Lösungen verbundenen Konstruktions- und Entwicklungskosten sind so hoch, dass sie sich kaum einer leisten kann. Stadtverwaltungen sollten gleichwohl darauf aus sein, die Art der privatisierten Datenakkumulation, wie sie derzeit stattfindet, unbedingt zu unterbinden. Aufgabe einer progressiven Politik wäre es, Daten über vertikale Silos hinweg zugänglich zu machen, mit dezentralisierten Da-

7 Nuss, Sabine/Braun, Jörg: Eigentum: Daten, in: Nuss, Sabine et al. (Hrsg.): Smarte Worte. Das kritische Lexikon der Digitalisierung, hrsg. von der Rosa-LuxemburgStiftung, Berlin 2016, S. 16, unter: www.rosalux.de/publikation/id/9279/smarteworte/. 8 Der Begriff digitales Ökosystem wird inzwischen immer öfter für eine Soft und Hardware Architektur verwendet, die auf bestimmten Geräten, Systemen und Zugangsvoraussetzungen beruht und damit entsprechendes Zubehör voraussetzt und hervorbringt. Ein Beispiel für ein geschlossenes digitales Ökosystem sind die Produkte von Apple (Anm. d. Übers.). 9 Interoperabel bedeutet, dass verschiedene Systeme oder Techniken kompatibel sind. Dazu ist in der Regel die Einhaltung gemeinsamer Standards notwendig (Anm. d. Übers.).

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teninfrastrukturen und Datenkonten wie Blockchains zu experimentieren und auch neue Rahmenbedingungen und Geschäftsmodelle zu fördern, die auf offene Strukturen setzen, sowohl bei der Datenerfassung und -übertragung also auch bei deren sicherer gemeinsamer Nutzung. Städte sollten einen neuen rechtlichen und wirtschaftlichen Rahmen sowie neue Steuerungsmechanismen und gemeinsame Maßstäbe entwickeln, um kooperatives Verhalten und Beiträge zur Stärkung von digitalen Commons zu fördern. Das schließt auch solche ein, die personenbezogene Daten beinhalten. Heute verfügen Städte über mehr Informationen und Daten als jemals zuvor (90 Prozent der gegenwärtig existierenden Daten gab es vor drei Jahren noch nicht). Dabei handelt es sich in der Regel um Unmengen an Informationen, die weder aufgearbeitet noch zugänglich sind. Ein Teil davon befindet sich im Netz, der andere ist über die diversen Abteilungen, Einheiten und Betriebe verteilt, aus denen sich eine lokale Regierung und ihre Verwaltung zusammensetzt. Die Menschen leben und bewegen sich in verschiedenen, zum Teil hypervernetzten virtuellen Räumen und generieren und benutzen ständig Echtzeitdaten, greifen auf ferne Datenbanken und partizipatorisches Crowdsourcing zurück. Wissen findet sich überall, ist nicht länger zentralisiert. Der Hauptgrund, warum Städte und Kommunen es bis dato nicht geschafft haben, erfolgreich lokale datenintensive Geschäftsmodelle umzusetzen, die zum Beispiel mit Plattformen wie denen von Uber und Airbnb konkurrieren könnten, ist der fehlende Zugang zu Rohdaten. Daher sollten Städte den Aufbau lokaler offener und dezentralisierter Datenplattformen unterstützen, um kontextabhängige Daten zur Verfügung zu stellen, auf deren Grundlage sinnvolle Entscheidungen getroffen und sinnvolle Projekte angegangen werden können. Städte sollten also das Ziel einer commons-basierten «Ökonomie des Teilens» verfolgen, die sich sehr wohl auf Daten stützt, wobei diese Daten aber im Wesentlichen von ihren Bewohner*innen zusammengetragen werden oder aus dem Internet der Dinge und Sensorennetzwerken stammen bzw. offene Daten sind. All diese Informationen würden unter Anwendung datenschutzrechtlicher Bestimmungen verschiedenen Nutzungen zur Verfügung stehen. Start-ups, kleine und mittlere Unternehmen, NGOs, Genossenschaften und lokale Gemeinschaften könnten zugreifen, um Apps und Dienste zu entwickeln, die sich an den tatsächlichen Bedürfnissen der lokalen Bevölkerung orientieren. Die genauen Kriterien hierfür gilt es zu entwickeln. Daten müssen als wesentlicher Teil der städtischen Infrastruktur begriffen werden. Stadtverwaltungen können mit ihrer Hilfe zu besseren, demokratischeren und schnelleren Entscheidungen kommen; Daten können Innovationen und soziales und ökonomisches Wachstum

ankurbeln und darüber hinaus öffentliche Dienstleistungen und das gesamte Auftragswesen verbessern. Damit soll unter anderem gewährleistet werden, dass öffentliche Ressourcen und Vermögenswerte in erster Linie dem Gemeinwohl dienen.

Was wir brauchen, sind offene, für alle zugängliche städtische Dateninfrastrukturen in Kombination mit einer klaren Strategie, die den Zugang demokratisiert, an deren Erarbeitung Bürger*innen, Repräsentant*innen der lokalen Communities sowie Unternehmen und Universitäten zu beteiligen sind. Ziel ist es, eine kritische Masse innovativer Akteure zu mobilisieren, die in der Lage sind, das gegenwärtig zentralistische System einer datengestützten On-demand-Ökonomie in eine dezentralisierte, nachhaltigere und commons-basierte Form des Wirtschaftens zu überführen. Ziel der Idee einer «City Data Commons» ist es, Bürger*innen auch im digitalen Feld wieder zu Handelnden zu machen und dafür zu sorgen, dass sie die Kontrolle über ihre eigenen Daten zurückgewinnen. Alternative Digitale Urbane Infrastrukturen Überall auf der Welt investieren Stadtverwaltungen verstärkt in technologische Infrastrukturen wie Breitbandkabel, um die Nutzung grenzüberschreitender digitaler Dienste zu gewährleisten und möglichst allen Bevölkerungsgruppen einen Zugang zum Internet zu ermöglichen. Die vermehrten Aktivitäten in diesem Bereich sind auch Angriffen auf die Netzneutralität und verschiedenen regulatorischen Vorschlägen geschuldet, die den marktbestimmenden Internetunternehmen und kommerziellen Content-Anbietern noch weitere Vorteile verschaffen würden. In einigen Städten wird deshalb am Aufbau von dezentralisierten digitalen Infrastrukturen gearbeitet, dazu gehören Speicher für offene Daten, Bottom-up-Networking, Ad-hoc-WLAN, zusammengeschlossene Clouds und dezentrale Datenverwaltungssysteme. Über die genannten offenen städtischen Plattformen hinaus müsste es darum gehen, ein offenes Ökosystem von Diensten und Anwendungen zu schaffen, das nicht zuletzt durch die Nutzung von Open-Source-Software und frei

zugänglicher Hardware mehr Transparenz und Demokratie durch Formen der Bürgerbeteiligung ermöglicht. Es wäre sinnvoll, solche alternativen Entwicklungsansätze, die bislang eher unkoordiniert und isoliert vor allem von Netzaktivist*innen und Hacker*innen verfolgt werden, durch staatliche Interventionen auf der regionalen, nationalen oder EU-Ebene (etwa durch das Einrichten von spezifischen Entwicklungs und Infrastrukturfonds) zu fördern. Hier liegt insofern ein großes öffentliches Interesse, als solche Strukturen auch dem kurzfristigen Geschäftsinteresse von multinationalen Hightech-Konzernen etwas entgegensetzen. Ein solches alternatives digitales Ökosystem könnte der Ausgangspunkt einer ganz neuen Generation von maßgeblichen industriellen und gesellschaftlichen Innovationen sein. Würde man das kooperative Potenzial von gemeinsam genutzter Software und Telekommunikationsinfrastruktur mobilisieren und mit mehr öffentlichen Investitionen verbinden, würde das auch die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Städten und Regionen bei der Entwicklung von zukunftsfähigen Infrastrukturen deutlich erleichtern. Auch wenn es langfristig darum geht, städtische und regionale Plattformen als selbstverwaltete und selbsttragende Strukturen zu etablieren, scheint es evident, dass es hier zunächst einer substanziellen Anschubfinanzierung und institutionellen Ermöglichung auf der regionalen Ebene bedarf. Beispiele für europäische Bemühungen in diese Richtung sind das Programm CAPS (Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation) der Europäischen Kommission und das Next-Generation-Internet-Programm. CAPS hat 60 Millionen Euro für die Entwicklung von kooperativ organisierten und offenen digitalen Plattformen zur Verfügung gestellt, um bürgernahe Projekte und Ansätze «von unten» mit hohem gesellschaftspolitischen Anspruch anzustoßen. Das Next-Generation-Internet-Programm fördert den Aufbau europäischer Internetplattformen, um damit den US-Firmen mit ihrer gegenwärtigen monopolähnlichen Marktstellung Optionen entgegenzusetzen, die sich besser mit europäischen Werten und Regularien vertragen.

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La Révolution Est en Marche Challenging France’s Neoliberal Colonialism in Paris

//Cosimo Lisi

Paris or the Capital of Neoliberal Colonialism

‘colonisation’ as a particular, statebound form of organising hierarchical territorial relations. […] Rather than a delimited historical era of European territorial expansion followed by non-territorial imperialism, ‘colonisation’ in Lefebvre thus refers to the role of the state in organising relationships of centre and periphery. […] In twentieth-century neo-capitalism and neo-imperialism, formal decolonisation goes hand in hand with a ‘world-wide extension of the colonial phenomenon’. […] It also extends to ‘internal colonisation’ of peripheral regions in metropolitan countries. […] Most importantly, ‘colonisation’ in neo-capitalism includes a transformation of cities according to the vulgar modernist ‘model of isolated units’. This model orders space into a hierarchical ‘collection of ghettos’, facilitates the dispersal of workers” (Kipfer, 2013: 94-97).

rance is the country where the rigour of disciplinary institutions (which originated here) and the harshness of colonial history graft perfectly in the new mechanisms of neoliberal control. Without a doubt, Paris is the physical and symbolic space where these dynamics are most visible. Haussmann’s original gesture – which inaugurated policed urbanism (in a sort of a large “original accumulation” represented by his travaux) and sought to get rid of the dangerous classes through organized forms of urban space experimented in colonial Algeria – defines a trajectory that, notwithstanding differences and breaks, prolongs previous experiments. The “Schéma Directeur d’Aménagement et d’Urbanisme de la Région Parisienne” (SDAURP), a 1965 project by Paul Delouvrier ordered by De Gaulle, represents the functionalist translation of the objective pursued by Haussmann. The SDAURP was amply criticized by Lefebvre (1978: 170-86) as part of its scrutiny of processes of territorial planning, that he read as a mode of colonization. As Stefan Kipfer aptly underlines “In his four-volume work on the state, Lefebvre explicitly conceptualises

The resort to the term colonization is not metaphorical: in his 1970s texts, Lefebvre underlines how urban planning projects fill the gap between the imperial centre and the territory of the colonies. During the second half of the Twentieth century, Lefebvre argues that the neo-colonial model asserts itself in the field of urban planning: a form of colonization that organizes spatially the territory of “internal colonies,” resorting to tools that had

been experimented during the terminal phase of colonial wars. Examples of such tools are isolation and hierarchical squaring of territorial units, zoning and director plans. For instance, Paul Delouvrier, director of planning for the Parisian region, had directed the “Plan Constantine,” one of the provisions enacted to pacify Algeria that failed not long before independence (Fredenucci, 2003b; DeluzLabruyère, 2004).

Neocolonial Urban Policies

hrough the use of decentralized governance and of mixité sociale (social mix), 1980s urban policies that implement neo-colonial strategies within a specifically neoliberal context came to represent an answer to the crisis of French Fordism and the 1970s political struggles. Specifically, the mixité sociale and the militarization of working-class areas stood as an answer to the destabilizing integration of non-white immigrants in working-class housing during the 1970s. Functioning as instruments of gentrification of the banlieue proche (near suburbs), the processes of urban destruction recently adopted as mass-measures in the context of Grand Paris (the project of administrative rearrangement of the Parisian region

that follows the competitive model of neoliberal global cities) exemplify, as Kipfer has aptly demonstrated (Kipfer, 2016: 603-625), a form of “neocolonial urbanism” aimed at striking the “internal enemy.” As Rigouste has shown (2009) notions such as “internal enemy” used during the colonial wars of the 1950s have been rehabilitated since the 1980s when, in police schools, techniques and principles of the “Revolutionary War Doctrine” or DGR were reintroduced. The DGR had been theorized by generals of the IV Republic, that directed war actions in Indochina and Algeria, in order to justify the brutality of the repression. Formally eliminated from military schools’ programmes after the purge of the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète of officers from the army, DGR counter-insurgent techniques reappeared through the 1970s and 1980s in a completely different context: the neoliberal transformation of French society. It is at this point, when the deployment of deindustrialization processes took place and unemployment began to rise, when the welfare state lost power and the penal state strengthened that public discourses began to focus on the problem of the banlieue. Contextually, Rigouste talks about practices of “sociopoliced” or “endocolonial” segregation and introduces the notion of “socioapartheid”.

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According to Rigouste, this system is rooted in the designation of “sensitive areas” or “dangerous areas” that necessitate a specific treatment concerning the management of order. Residents of these areas, that Rigouste qualifies as “damned of the interior,” are considered as the “indigenous” by public institutions, the media and the police. This process has become even more tangible after the institutionalization of the state of emergency that followed the 2015 attacks in Paris. The law that authorizes the suspension of “democratic freedom” to confer “extraordinary” powers to public security management was approved in 1955 during the colonial war in Algeria.

The State of Emergency

pplied in 1984 in New Caledonia as well as in 2005 in Paris’ Metropole during the “banlieue uprising,” the state of emergency is grounded in colonial and postcolonial wars, representing the institutional framework needed to govern the population and for the development of neoliberal projects in contexts of crisis. Extended for the first time within national territory in 2015 and still ongoing, the state of emergency has implied an augmentation of ethnic-based police controls (controlès aux faciès), a massive diffusion of police violence, precautionary arrests and searches without judiciary warrants, as well as the strong repression of social movements (more than two thousand militants/activists arrested within a year). Besides, new processes of territorial colonization activated by the Grand Paris project are at work following the paradigm of the governance, which envisages the participation of private actors and civil society to government processes. In this sense, processes of rénovation urbaine, while retaining a typically French dirigisme, act in synergy with estate promoters and associations that operate to legitimate processes of gentrification, such those involved in the bid promoted by local authorities, the Réinventons le Grand Paris.

La Révolution Est en Marche

t is in this context – the instauration of a permanent state of exception and the acceleration of processes of urban financialization going hand in hand with a growing crisis of representation and the de facto deposition of demo-

cratic capacities of a territorial organization – that the movement La Révolution est en marche (LREM) was born. Created in 2016 in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Paris, and now present in more than twenty French districts (among which Nice and Marseille), LREM has shattered the cards of French politics. Hadama Traoré, the spokesperson of LREM, is known as the French Black Alinsky, thanks to the empowering abilities that the two organizers have in common. Previously municipal agent in Aulnay-sous-Bois (recently fired because of his political activism), Hadama Traoré was born in La Cité des 3000, a historically working-class neighbourhood situated in the northern Parisian banlieue, and sadly notorious for the numerous episodes of police violence. Théo L., a 17-year-old young man of Malian origins, was violated here by the police with a baton during a control in February 2017; here Yacine B. was killed, a 24-year-old man found in a cave, his body in a puddle of blood, yet declared dead by overdose in the police report. The fight against police violence in working-class neighbourhoods is one of the objectives that animates LREM, together with other associations and the families of the victims, the different committees that claim “verité et justice” (truth and justice) for all ‘second-class’ citizens, fallen to the violence of French neo-colonialism. Self-determination and self-representation in working-class areas, in those territories excluded from the social contract and governed through mechanisms of neo-colonial control and speculative processes, are the baseline of LREM political strategy. One of the struggles the movement is mostly invested in is the opposition to the destruction of “Galion” centre, in Aulnay-sous-Bois. Situated within the Cité des 3000, Galion is a polyvalent centre that hosts community businesses and neighbouring cultural associations. The project of destruction of “Galion” is part of the process of urban renovation of the Cité started in 2007, when Aulnay-sous-Bois was selected as one of the stations crossed by the new Grand Paris Express, a section of the infrastructure around which the project of building of the Métropole revolves. Several public housing buildings have been demolished, the inhabitants displaced and substituted with new white residents from wealthier classes, who have begun to settle in the new apartments constructed by property developers. For more than a year LREM has been carrying on a strenuous fight against the project of demolition of what stands for the symbol of the neighbourhood, its community centre, a stronghold against social cleansing.

A group of architects, artists and constructors (born and raised in 93) launched a counter-project that envisages the restructuring of “Galion” and of the neighbourhood, which does not imply projects of speculation and gentrification (the project excludes property developers). The counter-project designed collectively for the dwellers of the neighbourhood foresees the transformation of abandoned buildings in a centre of urban agriculture, the construction of a centre for the arts and popular culture managed by residents, and the transformation of the market square (that will be moved inside the “Galion”) in a space for neighbourhood democracy, which will host assemblies of residents and new cooperatives, trying to rethink the productive activities of the local territory. The strength of the movement, steeply growing during the last months, resides in the fact of being a vector of political subjectivization for the inhabitants of French banlieues through, for instance, the struggle for public housing that the donors neglect on purpose. The resort to empowering strategies and the engagement in self-government practices by the people and from below has allowed the movement to get past the boulevard périferique (Paris’ ring road), tracing new alliances. Since last summer, the movement has been involved in the struggle for refugees and sans papiers (without papers), denouncing the colonial practices of immigration shelters, and committing to the endorsement of self-government strategies. Furthermore, LREM has tightened an alliance with ZAD, the movement opposing the construction of a new airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, that has occasioned several moments of interchange between the militant experiences. The discovery of a long-term, victorious struggle and of the biggest experiment of self-government in France has allowed LREM to import and adapt “zadist” tactics to an urban context.

some sectors that have been part of the experience of Nuit début will translate into a joint candidature for the municipal elections in 2020; this may be the occasion to question the neoliberal and neo-colonial project of Macron’s La République est en marche.

References: Deluz-Labruyère Joëlle (2004). “Les grands ensembles ou l’impuissance de l’utopie: L’exemple d’Alger.” In Frédéric Dufaut, Annie Fourcaut, (eds.). Le monde des grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis, 183-198. Fredenucci, Jean-Charles (2003). “L’urbanisme d’Etat: nouvelles pratiques, nouvelles acteurs.” Ethnologie française 37, 13-20. Kipfer, Stefan (2013). “Urban Marxism and the Post-colonial Question: Henri Lefebvre and ‘Colonisation’”, Historical Materialism 21.2, 76–116. Kipfer, Stefan (2016). “Neocolonial Urbanism? La Rénovation Urbaine in Paris”, in Antipode 48/3, 603-625. Lefebvre, Hernri (1978). De l’état IV, Paris: Union générale des editions. Rigouste, Mathieu (2009). L’ennemi intérieur. La généalogie coloniale et militaire de l’ordre sécuritaire dans la France contemporaine, Paris: La Découverte.

The fight to defend the “Galion” has also permitted the movement to enter the Assemblée contre le Grand Paris, that reunites different collectives implied in territorial struggles against urban renewal projects in the Ile-de-France. For the first time in French recent history, a convergence has taken place between the struggles of the racialized working classes residing in the banlieue, and those of young precarious workers rebelling against the state of emergency and the neoliberal government of crisis, as happened during the movement against the loi travail et son monde (a set of neoliberal job reforms) in 2016. The alliance with

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CITY AIR MAKES YOU FREE Urban Transformation and Counter-Power in Bologna

I Maurilio Pirone

n Medieval Age, the famous popular motto “Stadtluft macht frei” (“City air makes you free”) addressed urban spaces as sites of liberation from feudal duties. Nowadays cities seem to be an effective ground to experiment with emancipatory practices within and against the post-democratic neutralization of politics and the neo-liberal market economy. Indeed, there is a strong connection between the valorisation of the urban dimension as a space for re-production and the development of experiences that pose themselves as an alternative to social exclusion, poverty, and exploitation. Such ambiguous transformations are flourishing everywhere in Europe, and Bologna is among them.

What are the present duties and constrictions from which cities need to free themselves? Generally, municipalities have been politically reduced to administrate the effects and the normalization of austerity policies imposed (often undemocratically) by central State powers or by EU agreements. At the same time, urban spaces became sites for capitalist profits as real estate investments and platform capitalism expansion. Local institutions often act as partners1 in these processes of valorisation, trying to attract companies and financial funds and changing the geographical profile of cities through infrastructural transformations. Moreover, security policies2 – that are imposing controls and barriers inside cities – are a tangible sign of democracy erosion, in favour of governance and administrative procedures. Ironically, their task is to manage one of the consequences of urban over-exploitation: social exclusion. In recent years, Bologna attracted many of such vectors of transformation and radically changed its economic vocation3, moving from motor industry and third sector to tourism and food business. Symbolic of this new urban imaginary in Bologna is Fico Eataly World, the so-called Disneyland of food: an agribusiness park built in the suburb of the city thanks to private investors, cooperatives and a municipality that promises “a unique and authentic experience” of Italian food specialities. At the same time, the city centre is increasingly crowded with restaurants and major brands shops for tourists, thus replacing students and inhabitants. Digital platforms offering host or food delivery services are rapidly expanding, not by chance. Several new infrastructures have been planned. Some of them have been completed but largely criticised (such as the new high-speed train sta1 See David Harvey, ‘From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: the transformation of urban governance’, Geografiska Annaler 71B, pp. 3-17. 2 See Marco Allegra, Anna Casaglia, Jonathan Rokem, ‘The Political Geographies of Urban Polarisation: A Critical Review of Research on Divided Cities’, Geography Compass, 2012, 6/9, pp. 560-574; Ralph Brand and Sara Fregonese, The Radicals’ City: Urban Environment, Polarisation, Cohesion, Ashgate, 2013 3 See Struggles in Italy, What is really happening in Bologna, https:// strugglesinitaly.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/en-what-is-really-happening-in-bologna

tion), while others are under construction (such as the shuttle service to the airport). Other projects have also been abandoned. In response to these transformations, multi-level urban experiences developed, re-inventing social and political participation. Bologna turned into a contested zone, with many evictions against squatted houses, social centres, collective spaces, thus whitewashing the so-called “Red City”4. In the last few years, different phenomena took place in the urban spaces of Europe, such as occupations, innovative unions and local voting coalitions, which allowed to contrast austerity policies and to renew democracy. It is possible to categorize three different directions of city radical innovation: experiments of self-organized welfare, social unionism, and municipalism. In each case, the long history of socialist and working-class practices is brought and re-invented for the neo-liberal city. These experiences highlighted problems and gaps in public intervention: the lack of housing policies, the inefficiency of migrants’ reception system, the requirement of places for public and social life instead of private instances. The practice of occupation5 acquired new energies in last years, especially in countries harshly affected by austerity policies. At the same time, practices of urban regeneration widely spread not only in the form of neo-liberal gentrification but also fostering citizens’ commitment to the city as collective good. Squatted or regenerated spaces host medical ambulatories, small-farmers’ markets, workers labs, migrant hospitality, free cultural production. The volunteering works as a form of practical social engagement in the construction of a community welfare from below, opposing policies of privatization carried on by central governments. Different urban subjects started to self-organize beyond classical trade union forms: food delivery riders’ protests, housing movements, peddlers, and migrants. Experiments of horizontal and urban unionism allow for the definition of new rights and the overcoming of exclusion from city life and benefits. In particular, the so-called gig economy represents both a field for capital real subsumption through digital platforms and the site for labour struggles: since 2016, riders’ resistance6 in food platforms spread all around Europe cracking the narrative of the end of work because of digital technologies and collaborative economy. Moreover, it is at the city level that we saw forms of popular voting coalitions flourishing7. Spanish experiences, 4 See Darren Patrick, Bologna’s latest eviction threatens to whitewash the ‘red’ city’s political legacy, The Guardian, 14 October 2015, https:// www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/oct/14/bologna-eviction-atlantide-red-city-political-legacy 5 See Squatting Europe Kollective, Squatting in Europe. Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles, Minor Compositions, 2013. 6 See Callum Cant, ‘The wave of worker resistance in European food platforms 2016-17’, Notes From Below, 1, 2018 7 See Bertie Russell and Oscar Reyes, Fearless Cities: the new urban move-

grown in 2015 with a strong connection with the Indignados movement, inspired many other European political groups and movements to enter institutions. This wave of municipalism could not be understood – in the modern state scheme – as the representation of a social composition; rather, it is a way of common and downwards-oriented participation beyond representation. Bologna has a long history of squatted spaces and a solid background of volunteering associations. Despite increasing police repression and law restrictions, new experiences were formed in last years. Làbas8 is the most well-known: an abandoned military barrack squatted in 2012 which hosted a kindergarten, a weekly bio-market with a local farmers association, a brewery, an urban vegetable garden, a bike shop, a carpenter’s shop, and a dormitory for migrants and the homeless. In August 2017, it has been evicted because of state property administrators and private investors who wanted to replace it with a luxury hotel, shops and a car park. Nevertheless, a big demonstration of more than fifteen thousand people crossed the streets of the city in September 2017 reclaiming Làbas back and city government had to give up and in February 2018 had to grant a new space where to host all the activities and projects. This dispute triggered a larger public debate9 on models of urban development and democratic participation pursued by the city’s administrators. Moreover, since Autumn 2017, food delivery riders of many platforms as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Glovo started to gather and organise to protest against their exploitation. They gave life to Riders Union Bologna, an inter-platform and self-organised collective to bargain standard and better conditions of work. The first breaking action they carried out had been a sudden and wild strike during a snowstorm in November because platforms wanted to force them working despite safety risks. In the following months, they continued to protest promoting public rallies and critical mass biking. City council had to meet them and partially welcomed their requests so to promote a confrontation with

companies’ managers. The result is a ground-breaking attempt of urban collective bargaining which aims to write a Chart of Digital Labour for food delivery workers that could standardise and improve working conditions, wages and rights. Finally, the same Làbas has been involved – together with other collectives, associations and parties – into a local project of left-wing voting list10 named “Coalizione Civica” (Civic Coalition) that firstly imported in Italy the model of Spanish civic platforms. As result, one of the activists has been elected as district council member in 2016 and two representatives in the city council. To conclude, I would like to propose some remarks inspired by these experiences and changes. The city reveals to be a central political stage, both to trigger economic and social innovation and to produce contradictions and struggles. Neo-liberal transformations evolve alongside with resistances that do not limit themselves to oppose power but that build autonomous lifestyles and practices. While neoliberal policies are eroding forms of wealth redistribution and democratic participation, urban resistances are promoting new forms of engagement, commonalities and collective decision. Urban activism has been socialized – as new forms of engagement come from practical action – and social sphere has been politicized – as these experiences of mutualism sometimes do not limit themselves to welfarism but demand to decide about city life. These forms of counter-power, therefore, do not develop simply as another power that contrasts the institutional one, but as another way to build relations, to do society: whereas neo-liberal policies impose hard concurrency or pretend to manage from the top the social cooperation, urban movements are producing autonomous institutions and forms of organization. Coalition and intersectionality are the ways in which to reinvent a hybrid type of politics. Finally, the attempts to create rebel cities’ networks embody the real possibility to design a transnational European political space beyond state and sovereignty, as the latter seems to be increasingly caught into neo-liberal governance and rightwing populisms.

ments, Red Pepper, 16 August 2017, https://www.redpepper.org.uk/fearless-cities-the-new-urban-movements 8 For a brief history and a political evaluation of Làbas see Conflict and Autonomy in Bologna, http://kumu.info/conflict-and-autonomy-in-bologna 9 See Maurilio Pirone, Defending the Red City: Why the Fight for Làbas is a Fight for the Future of Bologna, Novara Media, 5 September 2017, http://novaramedia.com/2017/09/05/defending-the-red-city-why-thefight-for-labas-is-a-fight-for-the-future-of-bologna

10 See Dana Berg, ‘Podemos auf italienisch. Bewegungslinke in Bologna starten Marsch durch die politischen Institutionen’, Neues Deutschland, 13 July 2016, https://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/1018436.podemos-auf-italienisch.html

/ / S N T R E D E H A D C T N S A MA Spekulative Thesen zur Praxis der radikalen Stadt //Anton Brokow-Loga und Gunnar Grandel (Kollektiv Raumstation)

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ir wollen nicht darauf warten, dass sich die Stadt von alleine verändert. Wir wollen es selbst machen.« Unter dieser Devise erkunden wir als Kollektiv Raumstation den städtischen Raum, den wir nicht nur als Produkt, sondern auch als Grundlage gesellschaftlicher Prozesse verstehen. Wir glauben an die dem Stadtraum innewohnenden Potenziale politischer Ermächtigung.

In diesem Beitrag möchten wir aus unserer Perspektive als Raumpraktiker*innen das Verhältnis unserer Arbeit an der Schnittstelle zwischen Aktivismus, Kunst, Planung und radikaler Demokratietheorie herausarbeiten. Dazu stellen wir spekulative Thesen auf, anhand derer wir radikale Ideen in der Praxis denken. Denn die radikale Stadt benötigt eine aktive, ortsbezogene und direkt praktische Haltung zum öffentlichen Raum – auch wenn eine solche Haltung unweigerlich Widersprüche produziert, die kritisch reflektiert werden müssen.

Die radikale Stadt geht nur jetzt Das konkrete Erproben alternativer Raumpraktiken steht im Mittelpunkt unserer Arbeit – schon seit der Gründung der Raumstation 2013 als interdisziplinäre Gruppe Studierender der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Dieses Erproben zielt auf eine Auseinandersetzung in und mit herrschenden Raumpraxen für die bewusste Umgestaltung vorgefundener (räumlicher) Situationen. Dies bedeutet das Risiko, sich für ein konkretes Handeln immer

in Abhängigkeiten begeben zu müssen. De Certeau (1980: 85ff ) beschreibt diese Praxis als eine Taktik auf »feindlichem Terrain«. Im Gegensatz zur Strategie, die einen Ort hat, der eine Differenz zum Anderen erzeugt und damit eine Machtposition sowohl voraussetzt als auch schafft, muss sich die Taktik auf die Zeit verlagern, die Gelegenheit »im Flug erfassen«, um einen »Coup zu landen«. Wir glauben, dass es nötig ist, dieses Risiko einzugehen – auch wenn dabei immer Widersprüche produziert werden, keine klaren Erfolge gefeiert werden können. Miessen (2016: 50ff ) spricht hier von einer »nicht-illusionären Form von Pragmatismus«. Er plädiert gegen eine »hektische, prekäre Aktivität« und dafür, in diesem Abhängigkeitsverhältnis normative Verständnisse, Rituale und Codes nicht einfach abzulehnen. Stattdessen gehe es darum, eine ausbaubare Rolle des uneingeladenen Außenseiters in der Raumproduktion einzunehmen, durch die »agonistische Felder der Begegnung« geschaffen werden können. Radikalität wird insofern von uns nicht als eine radikale Abtrennung von bestehenden Praxen und Institutionen verstanden, sondern als das Anstreben radikaldemokratischer Momente im Jetzt. In diesem Sinne arbeitet die Raumstation immer wieder mit bestehenden Institutionen zusammen, will dabei aber eine Rolle als Problemlöserin ablehnen. So begaben wir uns im vergangenen Jahr für das Projekt Geras Neue Mitte in eine Zusammenarbeit mit der Internationalen Bauausstellung (IBA) Thüringen, um statt der (geschlossenen) Begleitung einer städtebaulichen Planung eine

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(offene) Auseinandersetzung mit Raumproduktion zu ermöglichen. Im Projekt konnten wir uns eine Position »von außen« zwischen Kunst und Planung erarbeiten. Das eröffnete uns einen Spielraum für experimentelle Raumerkundung statt Bürgerbeteiligung – in Form der »Zitronenpresse«.

Die radikale Stadt geht nur hier Fragen der Raumproduktion werden »meist an Expert*innen delegiert, die objektiv-fachliche Lösungen finden sollen, [...] weite Teile des gesellschaftlichen Lebens werden einer Verrechtlichung unterzogen«, der »Konflikt eines demokratischen Moments«, eine »uneindeutige Deutung« werde verunmöglicht – so überträgt Rosemann Konzepte Ranciéres auf den Raum. Auch der Vormarsch partizipativer Verfahren in der Planung kann als Vorgehensweise betrachtet werden, die radikaldemokratische Momente verhindert. Wenn so im und durch den Raum regiert wird, muss radikale Praxis die Setzung der gegebenen räumlichen Ordnung unterlaufen (Rosemann 2013: 45-50). Das von uns gewählte Feld für Auseinandersetzung mit dieser im Jetzt gegebenen Ordnung ist der reale Ort. De Certeau beschreibt den Blick von oben in seiner Kritik am Funktionalismus als eine Fiktion von Wissen, die die nicht-verwaltbaren »wuchernden Finten und Bündnisse von Mächten ohne erkennbare Identität« nicht sehen kann. Wir glauben, dass eine radikale Praxis nicht in der Überflugshöhe der Stadt als Abstraktum verharren darf. Sie muss sich, wie auch mit den im Jetzt gegebenen Bedingungen, mit räumlichen Situationen konkret beschäftigen. Sie muss sich auf die »undurchschaubare und blinde Beweglichkeit der bewohnten Stadt« einlassen (de Certeau 1980: 182ff ). Den kleinen Maßstab als Ausgangspunkt zu nehmen, bedeutet nicht zwangsweise, die Auseinandersetzung mit nur abstrakt zugänglichen gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen zu umgehen. Vielmehr bedeutet es, deren lokale Auswirkungen an räumlichen Ausprägungen fest- und so zugänglich zu machen. Wir glauben an die Möglichkeit, potentielle Brüche aus der Besonderheit eines Ortes herauszuarbeiten, einem Ort Bruchpotentiale zu injizieren.

Dabei geht es in keinem Fall darum, räumlich abgegrenzte Enklaven zu bilden, sondern um das Öffnen für Aushandlung, Streit und Dissens in und um Räume. Dafür gilt es, einen situativen Rahmen zu schaffen. Der räumliche Bezug unserer Arbeit in Gera war eine Brache am Rand der Altstadt, die nicht nur unter Schrumpfung, demographischem und strukturellem Wandel, sondern seit Ende des vergangenen Jahrtausends auch mit der Konkurrenz großer Shoppingcenter zu kämpfen hat. Direkte Nachbarinnen sind das 1977 als Teil des sozialistischen Stadtzentrums erbaute Kultur- und Kongresszentrum (KuK), mit Gewerbeflächen unterlagerte Plattenbauten und gleich zwei Shoppingcenter. Trotz des Abrisses 1997 in der Erinnerung stark verankert, sind das Interhotel und ein Faltdach-Bau, der ein Café und Intershop beherbergte – wegen seiner Form liebevoll Zitronenpresse genannt. Seither wird das Gelände sporadisch für Events wie den Winzermarkt genutzt. An diesem Ort verschränken sich unterschiedlichste Erzählungen und Entwicklungen: Erinnerungen an die DDR-Geschichte, an die herausragende Stellung der damaligen Bezirkshauptstadt wie an Einschränkung und Entbehrung. Erinnerungen an die Nachwendezeit, an neue Möglichkeiten wie das Verschwinden von Vertrautem. Erinnerungen an die vergangenen Jahre, an Arbeitslosigkeit, Langeweile und Ohnmacht wie an gesellschaftliche Initiativen und räumliche Qualitäten. Die Fläche vor dem KuK kann Kristallisationspunkt Geraer Geschichte wie Zukunft sein – und dieser Potentialität wollten wir einen Rahmen geben. Dazu ließen wir die Zitronenpresse in abstrahierter Form als Pavillons auferstehen.

Die radikale Stadt entsteht zwischen uns Obwohl die Entscheidungsdelegation und Verrechtlichung, aber auch Privatisierung und Überwachung fortschreitet, birgt der öffentliche Raum ein großes Potential, Aushandlungs- wie Aneignungsprozesse zu ermöglichen. Öffentliche Räume sind »Basis gelebter Demokratie« (Lange/Prasenc/Saiko 2013: 222). Sie verwandeln ein gesellschaftliches Nebeneinander in ein potenzielles Miteinander: Individuelle Kämpfe können sichtbar gemacht und so als kollektive Probleme kommunizierbar werden.

Durch ihre prinzipielle (und dennoch: umkämpfte) Offenheit und Zugänglichkeit werden sie zum Schauplatz gesellschaftlicher Konflikte und geben all den Stimmungen, Meinungen und Bewegungen Raum, die noch nicht identifiziert sind. Von wem wird dieser Raum, in dem wir agieren, dominiert? Entspricht das unseren Vorstellungen einer gerechten Gesellschaft? Wer wird im öffentlichen Raum sichtbar, wer hat eine Stimme – und wer nicht? Mit diesen Fragen im Hinterkopf versuchen wir, den öffentlichen Raum nicht nur als Medium für unsere Arbeit zu nutzen, sondern seine Rolle als Medium in unserer Arbeit zu thematisieren. Mit der Zitronenpresse ging es uns darum, zusätzlich zum Aufzeigen vorhandener Perspektiven auf die Brache durch eine aktive Auswechslung neue, produktive und offene Fragen entstehen zu lassen. Für die experimentelle Raumerkundung bedienten wir uns verschiedener Ansätze, um unterschiedlichsten Stimmen mittels (erlebter und fiktionaler) Geschichten eine neue Sichtbarkeit zu geben – und damit auch der Konflikthaftigkeit unterschiedlicher Wahrnehmungen eines Raums an sich. Abweichende Raumentwürfe und Modi der Produktion sollen so konkret vor Ort denkbar werden.

und Brüche im alltäglichen Raum neue gesellschaftliche Realitäten produziert werden. Emanzipatorische Formate der Teilhabe sind dafür genauso notwendig wie kritische Selbstreflexion und prinzipielle Offenheit: »Democracy means that the future is open, and it is up to us to create it« (Purcell 2017: 46). Dafür sind allerdings nur erste, zaghafte, experimentelle Schritte gemacht. Weder maßen wir uns an, unsere Taktiken in der Kooperation mit bestehenden Institutionen, noch unsere Analysen des Orts oder unsere daraus entwickelte Intervention als erfolgreich zu bezeichnen. Vielmehr möchten wir Erfahrungen und Positionen aus einer konkreten Raumpraxis in die theoretische Diskussion zur radikalen Stadt einbringen – und die Frage über den Wert dieser Praxis, die sich uns selbst immer wieder aufs Neue stellt, mit den Leser*innen teilen. Literatur Certeau, Michel de; Voullié, Ronald (1988): Kunst des Handelns. Berlin: Merve-Verl. (Internationaler Merve-Diskurs, 140). Laimer, Christoph (2013): Es geht nicht um ein Stück vom Kuchen, es geht um das Rezept. Aktuelle städtische Bewegungen und die Forderung nach einem "Recht auf Stadt". In: Ortsentwürfe: Urbanität im 21. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Jovis.

Die radikale Stadt muss gemacht werden

Lange, Bastian; Prasenc, Gottfried; Saiko, Harald (2013): Ortsentwürfe: Urbanität im 21. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Jovis.

Durch die Transformation der Raumwahrnehmung vor Ort, für Andere wie für uns selbst, möchten wir zum (agonistischen) Handeln einladen, ihm einen fördernden Rahmen geben. In der radikalen Stadt geht es uns um das Recht auf Stadt – jedoch nicht um das heute omnipräsente, strukturalistisch aufgeladene Abbild des Lefebvre'schen Entwurfs. Viel eher geht es uns um eine ursprüngliche, engere Bedeutung: jene »Repräsentationen, die ihn zu definieren beanspruchen, beiseite zu schaffen, um den Menschen sich selbst in der Praxis definieren zu lassen« (Mullis 2013: 64; Bz. auf Lefèbvre 1965: 327). Genauer geht es uns also um das Ermöglichen einer experimentellen, ergebnisoffenen Praxis, ein Recht auf Stadt selber machen (Laimer 2013: 89). Die radikale Stadt bleibt dabei für uns eine "reale Utopie" (Wright 2010) – ein kleinteiliger, dialektischer Prozess, in dem durch Verschiebungen

Miessen, Markus (2016): Crossbenching. Berlin: Merve Verlag (Internationaler Merve-Diskurs, 431). Mullis, Daniel (2013): Recht auf die Stadt. Facetten und Möglichkeiten einer Parole. In: Emanzipation - Zeitschrift für sozialistische Theorie und Praxis. Jg.3, Nr. 2. Frankfurt/Main: Jakob Moneta Stiftung. Online verfügbar unter http://www.emanzipation.org/articles/em_3-2/e_3-2_mullis. pdf, zuletzt geprüft am 28.11.2017. Purcell, Mark (2017): For Democracy: Planning and publics without the state. In: Dérive - Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung. Wien: Dérive - Verein für Stadtforschung. Rosemann, Till (2013): Planning in the Face of Democracy. Mit Jacques Rancière über Raumplanung und Demokratie nachdenken. In: sub\urban. zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung 2 (1), S. 41–60. Online verfügbar unter http://zeitschrift-suburban.de/sys/index.php/suburban/article/ view/95, zuletzt geprüft am 28.11.2017. Wright, Erik Olin (2010). Envisioning real utopias (Vol. 98). London: Verso.

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Radical Cities

Alternative ZukĂźnfte erfinden Die munizipalistische Bewegung in Barcelona // by Andreea Zelinka

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Mit den Platzbesetzungen durch 15M artikulierte sich 2011 eine harsche Kritik an der spanischen Regierung. Die Unzufriedenheit der Protestierenden richtete sich gegen die soziale Ungerechtigkeit und die prekären Lebensverhältnisse. Ab 2008 war immer deutlicher geworden, dass das Leben vieler unter dem Diktat der Finanzsysteme stand und viele Hypothekenbesitzer*innen einer Existenz lebenslanger Schulden überlassen wurden.1 Die Protestierenden wehrten sich gegen ihre Ohnmacht, die sie auf einen Mangel an Demokratie und politischer Repräsentation zurückführten. Sie wehrten sich gegen die ‚alte Politik‘ bestehender politischer und finanzieller Eliten und begannen, ‚neue Formen von Politik‘ zu praktizieren. Damit regten sie Innovationen politischen Handelns und Denkens an. Die hegemoniale (oder normative2) liberale Demokratie und ihr liebstes demokratisches Werkzeug, die Wahl, wurden in Frage gestellt. Die Stimme des Menschen schien den Protestierenden in der Massendemokratie Spaniens zu einem Stimmzettel verkümmert, den es alle paar Jahre auszufüllen galt, der jedoch keinen wirklichen politischen Einfluss bedeutete, sondern allenfalls zur Erhaltung des Status Quo beitrug. Die Protestcamps von 15M etablierten einen Ort, an dem neue politische Visionen geschaffen wurden. Nach ihrem Ende wurde jedoch deutlich, dass die Forderungen der Proteste in den Institutionen verteidigt werden mussten. Es kam zur Gründung neuer Parteien, wovon Podemos sicherlich die bekannteste ist. Die anfängliche Begeisterung ebbte allerdings schnell ab, da es den Parteien auf nationaler Ebene nicht gelang, auch parteiintern demokratische Strukturen durchzusetzen und eine ständige Verbindung zur Basis aufrecht zu erhalten. Vielversprechender schienen hingegen die Entwicklungen in den Kommunen. Im ganzen spanischen Territorium kam es zur Gründung von Bürger*innenplattformen und Initiativen, denen der ‚Sprung in die Institutionen‘ gelang. So

1 Der Fall von Lehman Brothers im September 2008 hatte starke Auswirkungen auf die spanische Ökonomie. Ähnlich abhängig vom Immobilienmarkt wie die U.S.A., vergrößerte sich nach dem Platzen der Immobilienblase das Prekariat und der Wohlfahrtsstaat erwies sich als unfähig, die eigenen Bürger*innen vom verursachten Schaden zu schützen. Als Teil der EU entschied sich Spanien dazu, Austeritätsmaßnahmen einzuführen, um internationale Verpflichtungen erfüllen zu können. Folglich wurden Löhne von Beamten gekürzt, das Pensionsalter angehoben und die Wichtigkeit herausgestrichen, Investoren zu schützen, wohingegen öffentliche Schulden erhöht wurden. Reformen des Arbeitsrechts umfassten die Schmälerung historischer Siege der Arbeiter*innenbewegung, wie z.B. Tarifabkommen, Mindestlohn und Abfindungsvereinbarungen. Außerdem kam es zu Kürzungen im Bereich der Bildung und des Gesundheitssystems. Siehe zur weiteren Information: Rocafort, Victor Alonso/ Medialdea, Bibiana (2013): Presentación, in: Colectivo Novecento (ed.), Lo llamaban democracia. De la crisis económica al cuestionamiento de un régimen político, Barcelona: Icaria, p. 5-8; Montanyà, Miguel (2013): La respuesta de las élites: del “giro keynesiano” al volantazo neoliberal, in: Colectivo Novecento (ed.), Lo llamaban democracia. De la crisis económica al cuestionamiento de un régimen político, Barcelona: Icaria, p. 16-22. 2 Nugent, David (2008): “Democracy Otherwise. Struggles of Popular Rule in the Northern Peruvian Andes”, in: Paley, Julia (ed.) (2008): Democracy. Anthropological Approaches. School for Advanced Research, S. 21-62, S. 56.

entstand seit 15M ein konstituierender Prozess3, der dazu führte, dass die neuen politischen Akteure der munizipalistischen Bewegung in die öffentlichen Institutionen gewählt wurden, um diese zu demokratisieren. Die Demokratisierung umfasste die Herstellung einer neuen Institutionalität, das heißt öffentlicher Institutionen, die ein offenes, partizipatives Verhältnis der politischen Koproduktion zwischen Bürger*innen und Regierung schafften.

Zur Notwendigkeit neuer Institutionen 15M forderte Mitspracherecht, das Recht auf Stadt und das Recht auf Zukunft. Die Aktivist*innen bedienten sich existierender politischer Protestformen und aktivierten die Bürger*innen, Interaktionsformen zu kreieren, die die Realisierung dieser Rechte ermöglichten. Um neue politische Visionen zu entwerfen, wurden Versammlungen abgehalten, in denen jede*r zur Teilnahme ermuntert wurde und in denen es nur erlaubt war, für sich selbst und nicht repräsentativ für eine Organisation zu sprechen.4 Mit Tarrow und Tilly lassen sich die Protestformen während 15M auch als contentious politics verstehen, da die politischen Akteure auf bestehende Protestrepertoires zurückgriffen und diese weiterentwickelten, um dadurch Forderungen an die Regierung zu stellen. Abseits der Institutionen stritten ihre innovativen kollektiven politischen Handlungen die Legitimation der spanischen Regierung an.5 Anstatt das bestehende politische System zu zerstören und auf den Trümmern dessen ein Neues zu errichten, wurde der Beschluss gefasst, dass es mit friedlichen Mitteln möglich sein müsste, Veränderung herbeizuführen. Diese Motivation liegt den neu entstandenen Bürger*innenplattformen zu Grunde, die nun Prinzipien partizipatorischer und radikaler Demokratie in den Institutionen implementieren möchten. Indem neue Formen politischer Repräsentation erarbeitet werden, die die Mitsprache der Bürger*innen als Ressource für politische Entscheidungen nutzen, um die unmittelbaren Lebensumstände in den Nachbarschaften zu verbessern, wird versucht, die Legitimation demokratischer Regierungen auf lokaler Ebene wiederherzustellen. In Barcelona gründete sich zu diesem Zweck 2013 die Initiative Guanyem Barcelona (Wir gewinnen Barcelona) und später die Bürger*innenplattform Barcelona

3 Lorey, Isabell (2012): „Demokratie statt Repräsentation. Zur konstituierenden Macht der Besetzungsbewegungen“, in: Lorey, Isabell (ed. et. al) (2012): Occupy! Die aktuellen Kämpfe um die Besetzung des Politischen, Wien/Berlin: Turia+Kant, S. 7-49, S. 11. 4 Corsín, Alberto/Estalella, Adolfo (2011): #spanishrevolution, Anthropology Today, 27/4, p. 19-23, S. 19. 5 Tilly, Charles / Tarrow, Sidney (2015): Contentious Politics, Oxford University Press, S. 7.

en Comú (im folgenden Text Bcomú), die 2015 kandidierte und wider Erwarten die Wahl gewann. Seither regiert sie mit einer Minderheitsregierung im Stadtrat und stellt mit Ada Colau, einer ehemaligen Aktivistin der PAH,6 die Bürgermeisterin. Die meisten Mitglieder* und Aktivist*innen von Bcomú kommen aus sozialen Bewegungen und Nachbarschaftsvereinen. Einzige Ausnahme sind die Politiker*innen der Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (katalanischen Grünen), die bereits Erfahrungen mit institutioneller Politik (katalanisches Parlament, Cortes Generales) gemacht haben. Diese machen aber nur einen geringen Teil von Bcomú aus. Bei dem Großteil der neuen politischen Akteure handelt es sich weder um professionelle Politiker*innen noch um Personen, die eine professionelle politische Karriere anstreben. Im Gegenteil, letzteres wird dezidiert ausgeschlossen. Die Aktivist*innen fühlen sich in den Institutionen als hätten sie ‚die Seite gewechselt‘. Sie, die nun die Regierung stellen, sind von der demokratischen Revolution in den Alltag öffentlicher Institutionen geschlittert und erleben dort nun nicht nur Erfolge, sondern auch die alltäglichen Enttäuschungen ihrer politischen Ideale und Erwartungen und jene ihrer Mitstreiter*innen. Es ist deutlich geworden, dass ein Großteil der politischen Arbeit auch den Umgang mit diesen Enttäuschungen umfasst und der tatsächliche Austragungsort demokratischer Praxis die Gegenwart ist. Ihre Politik der Allmende gründet nicht auf Interessen einzelner Gruppierungen, sondern auf der gemeinsamen Sorge um das Allgemeinwohl und kann auch als eine „anti-utopische, pragmatische Politik der Gegenwart“ verstanden werden.7

Zur Innovation politischer Organisation Die ständige Frage innerhalb von Bcomú ist: Wie lassen sich politische Partizipation und Konsensbildung in die Entscheidungsprozesse integrieren? Wie muss das Verhältnis zwischen Bürger*innen und Institutionen, ob Rathaus oder Partei, organisiert sein, um dies zu bewerkstelligen? Wie ist es möglich eine neue Institutionalität zu entwickeln? Schon 2002 prognostizierten Rucht und Neidhardt das Entstehen einer ‚movement society‘, in der soziale Bewegungen eine zunehmend wichtige Rolle in (westlichen) Gesellschaften einnehmen würden. Dadurch würden klassische Strukturen nicht verdrängt, sondern vielmehr zusätzliche Formen politischer Organisation eingeführt. Das heißt, dass Bewegungen zunehmend Teil

des institutionellen Apparats werden.8. Ein Beispiel dafür ist die ‚movement-party‘ – eine politische Organisation, die versucht, traditionelle, hierarchische Parteistrukturen aufzulösen und diese mit den horizontalen Organisationsformen sozialer Bewegungen zu verbinden.9 Das heißt, es handelt sich um das Bestreben, gleichzeitig Bewegung und Partei zu sein. Eine Unternehmung, die auch unter den Aktivist*innen von Barcelona en Comú nicht immer als umsetzbar gilt. Jedoch lassen sich die von ihnen instituierten partizipatorischen Räume und Aktivitäten in Barcelona als Orte zur experimentellen Erarbeitung neuer Formen politischer Handlungsfähigkeit verstehen, die eine neue Institutionalität ermöglichen, politische Imagination und Auseinandersetzung fördern und damit als „Laboratorien alternativer Zukünfte“10 fungieren. Der politische Innovationsdrang ist in der spanischen Linken eng mit dem Begriff der Feminisierung des Politischen verknüpft. Zentral ist die Umsetzung feministischer Politiken und somit die Forderung nach Diversität, gemeinsamer Verantwortung und Sorgeaktivität.11 Die radikale Verwundbarkeit, Interdependenz und Mit-Verantwortung der Einzelnen wird als notwendiges und universelles Risiko in den humanen und post-humanen Relationen betrachtet – und dies in scharfer Abgrenzung von neoliberalen Ideen. Gefordert wird eine Ethik der Verantwortung, die nicht davon ausgeht, dass die Menschen autonom und selbsterhaltend sind, sondern voneinander abhängig, um zu überleben. Damit stellt die Sorgeaktivität dezidiert keine feminine, sondern eine zivile Tugend und eine öffentliche Pflicht dar. Zentral ist ein Begriff von Mitbürger*innenschaft, der die Verantwortung gegenüber den gelebten Verhältnissen des Werdens übernimmt.12 “Responsibility, then, is a matter of the ability to respond. Listening for the response of the other and an obligation to be responsive to the other, who is not entirely separate from what we call the self.“ Dieses Verhältnis des Relationalen soll lokal gelebt und institutionell umgesetzt werden. Wie also können traditionelle, hierarchische Parteistrukturen vermieden und stattdessen eine neue Ins8 Rucht, Dieter/Neidhardt, Friedhelm (2002): „Toward a ‘Movement Society’? On the possibilities of institutionalizing social movements“, Social Movement Studies, 1:1, S. 7-30, S. 24. 9 Kate Shea Baird (2016): „How to build a movement-party: lessons from Rosario’s Future City“, open democracy, 15.11.2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/kate-shea-baird/how-to-build-movement-party-lessons-from-rosario-s-future-city, 15.11.2016. 10 Rose, Nikolas (1999): Powers of Freedom. Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge University Press., S. 279.

6 Die PAH (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca) ist eine Initiative, die sich 2009 formierte, um sich für die Rechte von Hypothekenopfer einzusetzen und diese rechtlich, aktivistisch und psychologisch zu unterstützen.

11 Galcerán, Montserrat/Carmona, Pablo (2017): „Die Zukünfte des Munizipalismus. Feminisierung der Politik und demokratische Radikalisierung“, in: Die neuen Munizipalismen. Soziale Bewegungen und die Regierung der Städte, Hg. v. Christoph Brunner, Niki Kubaczek, Kelly Mulvaney und Gerald Raunig, Wien (u.a.): transversal texts, S. 105-112: 108.

7 Greenberg, Jessica (2014): After the Revolution. Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia, Stanford University Press, S. 26ff.

12 Dolphijn, Rick/van der Tuin, Iris (2013): New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies, University of Michigan: Open Humanities, S. 52.

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titutionalität entwickelt werden? Mit dieser Frage rückt die Organisation politischer Repräsentation selbst in den Fokus und damit das Verhältnis zwischen jenen, die an entscheidungstragender Stelle sitzen und jenen, die das nicht tun.

Die Versammlung als Motor der Demokratisierung Die Platzbesetzungen von 15M wurden auch als „sich entfaltende Landschaft von Versammlungen“ beschrieben.13 Die Versammlung, asamblea, ist fester Bestandteil der politischen Organisation von Bcomú. Es gibt sie in jedem Bezirk und sie wird von vielen Aktivist*innen als wichtigste Innovation verstanden. Sie nimmt eine vermittelnde Rolle zwischen Bürger*innen und Aktivist*innen und jene, die in den Institutionen arbeiten, ein. Während meiner Feldforschungen in Barcelona 2016 besuchte ich regelmäßig die Versammlung von Ciutat Vella, der Altstadt Barcelonas, die alle 15 Tage stattfanden. Die Versammlung von Ciutat Vella findet in einem Nachbarschaftszentrum in El Gòtic statt, das Räume für verschiedene Initiativen, Vereine und politische Gruppen bereitstellt (z.B. CUP, 15M). Durchschnittlich nehmen zwischen 12 und 20 Menschen an den Versammlungen teil. Der Verlauf der Debatten ist durch eine Agenda festgelegt, die vorher online gemeinsam bestimmt wird. Ein paar Tagesordnungspunkte sind dabei feste Bestandteile, wie z.B. die sogenannte Rückkehr der Munizipalgruppe (retorn del grup municipal), bei der die gewählten Repräsentant*innen, zu der Versammlung ‚zurückkehren‘, um darüber zu berichten, was sich die letzten zwei Wochen ereignet hat. Nach einer Beschreibung eines Mitglieds14 versucht die Versammlung Augen, Ohren und Stimme der Organisation zu sein. Sie wird als eine Verlängerung des Rathauses gesehen. Jedoch dient sie nicht als Ort für Politiker*innen, um Reden zu halten, sondern um Begegnung zwischen Bürger*innen, Aktivist*innen und Repräsentant*innen zu schaffen. Dabei ist es nicht notwendig Parteimitglied* zu sein, um teilnehmen zu können, und „du musst die Partei nicht einmal gut finden. Du kannst kommen und

nörgeln und du wirst immer noch deinen Platz haben.“15 Jedoch gehen hier die Meinungen auseinander und andere sehen die Versammlung in erster Linie als Ort für konkrete Verbesserungsvorschläge und effektive politische Arbeit. Auch bezüglich des Zugangs zur Versammlung gibt es verschiedene Ansichten. So äußerte ein Mitglied der Versammlung, der auch Repräsentant im Rathaus ist, Bedenken, da in der Versammlung auch viele interne Themen der Organisation besprochen werden und die Teilnehmenden absolute Freiheit haben sich auszudrücken. Auch wenn es relativ einfach ist, Teil der Versammlung zu werden, ist es wichtig aufmerksam zu bleiben, um die interne politische Organisation nicht zu behindern.16 Nichtsdestotrotz, durch die Rückkehr der Munizipalgruppe, ist die Partizipation und Präsenz der gewählten Repräsentant*innen ein permanenter Bestandteil der Versammlung. Ein Mitglied erzählte mir, dass er früher, wenn er ein*e Politiker*in des Rathauses treffen wollte, ein Formular ausfüllen und abgeben musste und die Politiker*in entschied, ob und für wann ein Treffen vereinbart wurde. Nun gibt es ein institutionalisiertes, regelmäßig stattfindendes Treffen innerhalb der regierenden politischen Partei, das es ermöglicht, problemlos persönlich mit der Repräsentant*in in Kontakt zu treten. „Das ist etwas, das kultiviert, erhalten und genährt werden muss“17 – damit verwendete er Wörter, die Wachstum bezeichnen, das Zeit braucht, um sich zu vollziehen und um das sich gekümmert werden muss. Die institutionalisierten Begegnungen von Bürger*innen und Politiker*innen ermöglichen so das Wachstum einer demokratischen Kultur über die öffentlichen Institutionen hinaus. Ein Wachstum, das sich nicht linear, sondern rhizomartig, entfaltet. Die Versammlung ist eine Möglichkeit zwischen Bürger*innen und Regierung einen ständigen Austausch herzustellen und Entscheidungsprozesse zu öffnen. Allerdings ist die Umsetzung schwierig, da temporale Dissonanzen Unterschiede in den Zugängen zu Informationen bestehen. Das heißt nicht jede*r hat den gleichen Zugang zu Informationen, abhängig davon, ob die Person sich innerhalb oder außerhalb der Institution befindet. Außerdem verhalten sich die Geschwindigkeiten der Entscheidungsprozesse in der Institution und in der Bewegung konträr

13 Corsín Jiménez, Alberto/Estalella Adolfo (2014): „Assembling Neighbors: The City as Hardware, Method and “a Very Messy Kind of Archive”, Common Knowledge, 20/1, S. 150-171, S. 151.

15 Interview mit Mitglied der Versammlung von Ciutat Vella (Barcelona, 9.6.16).

14 Zum Schutz der Informant*innen wurden alle anonymisiert.

17 Interview mit Mitglied der Versammlung von Ciutat Vella (Barcelona, 9.6.16).

16 Interview mit Mitglied der Versammlung von Ciutat Vella (Barcelona, 17.3.16).

zueinander: Während Entscheidungen in der Institution oft schnell fallen müssen, die Umsetzung sich dann aber über einen langen Zeitraum erstreckt, dauern Deliberation und Entscheidungen in der Bewegung relativ lang, wobei die Umsetzung dann recht schnell erfolgt. So beschrieben viele politische Akteure von Bcomú ihre Erfahrungen der rigiden institutionellen Strukturen des Rathauses als verhärtet, unbeweglich und dies in einem unvorhersehbaren Ausmaß. Ihrer Erwartung nach sollte die Bewegung die Institution erfassen und für sich einnehmen, anstatt dessen scheint die Institution die Bewegung zu schlucken. Aufgrund dieser Konfliktpotenziale wird auch in Ciutat Vella eine konstante Debatte über die Rolle der Versammlung und das Verhältnis zwischen Bewegung und Institution geführt. Dabei werden Mängel an interner Demokratie und Kommunikation streng kritisiert und in Frage gestellt, inwiefern die Versammlung zum Rathaus gehört oder als unabhängige politische Einheit existiert. Letztlich sind die formalen Prozesse der Einflussnahme der Versammlung auf Entscheidungen in den Institutionen erst im Entstehen. Daher kommt es vor, dass sich Versammlungen übergangen oder nicht gehört fühlen, was zu internen Protesten führen kann. Auch wenn bestimmten Forderungen nachgekommen wird, zur Zufriedenheit unter den Mitglieder*n trägt dies nicht bei, solange nicht alltagstaugliche Kommunikationskanäle implementiert sind. Doch der ständige Austausch zwischen den verschiedenen organisatorischen Ebenen verlangt einen erhöhten Energieaufwand gerade derjenigen, die sich im Rathaus befinden und bereits über Überforderung und Zeitmangel klagen. Außerdem ist es problematisch, dass die anderen Parteien der Stadtregierung eben keine Versammlungseinheit in ihren Parteistrukturen haben. Daher sind für andere Parteien die Versammlungen und was dort passiert bedeutungslos. Aktivist*innen von Bcomú hoffen daher langfristig strukturellen Wandel zu provozieren, indem sie die Rolle der Versammlung stärken und durch diesen partizipatorischen Organismus für Prozesse der accountability sorgen – um Repräsentant*innen in Rechenschaft ziehen zu können, aber auch selbst berücksichtigt zu werden (to take into account and to be taken into account18). Folglich existiert zwischen der Institution und den Bürger*innen eine zeitliche und räumliche Trennung, mit der durch Begegnung und Dialog zwischen 18 Paley, Julia (2004): „Accountable democracy: Citizens’ impact on public decision making in postdictatorship Chile“, American Ethnologist, 31/4, p. 497-513.

Repräsentant*innen und Bürger*innen umgegangen wird. Demokratie ist daher nicht nur politisches System, sondern ebenfalls ein sozio-kulturelles Gefüge interaktiver Praktiken. Dabei will die munizipalistische Bewegung über bloße Formalia und quantitative Informationen hinaus, politisches Handeln wieder im Alltag etablieren. Langfristiges Ziel ist die Demokratisierung der Zivilgesellschaft und damit die Entwicklung einer demokratischen Kultur. Diese muss aus der Bürger*innenschaft selbst entstehen, um in der Tat demokratisch sein zu können, jedoch können öffentliche Institutionen ihr Entstehen unterstützen. Denn die Art des Regierens und der politischen Organisation der Regierung steht in Wechselwirkung mit der Gestaltung von Lebensstilen, Typen von Bürger*innen und des guten Lebens – kurz einem Modus der Existenz.19 Daher sind eine Aktivierung von Bürger*innen, aufgeschlossene, lokal verankerte politische Repräsentant*innen und ein Management von Inkohärenz notwendig. Letzteres insbesondere deswegen, da die munizipalistische Bewegung keinem einheitlichen ideologischem Dogma folgt, sondern vielmehr Menschen aller politischer Façon umfasst. Die Politik der Allmende kümmert sich nicht um die Umsetzung einer fixen Ideologie, sondern um die Ermittlung des Gemeinwohls. Daher gibt es zum Erreichen des guten Lebens nicht einen vorgefertigten Lösungsvorschlag, sondern die gewagte Behauptung, Lösungen könnten in Gemeinschaft durch Dialog und Konsens fortwährend gefunden werden. Unabhängig von der politischen Ideologie, sozialer Herkunft und individueller Disposition, wollen die Aktivist*innen von Bcomú durch Versammlungen die Politik der Interessen, die unsere derzeitige Welt dominiert, fragmentiert und in die existenziellen Abgründe treibt, durch eine Politik der Allmende, des Gemeinwohls und der Gegenwart ablösen und damit die Art und Weise, wie über Politik und politisch gedacht wird, revolutionieren.

Kollektive Horizonte – Kollektive Zukünfte Es ist ein Fehler von einer universellen Zukunft zu träumen. Es gibt viele Träume. Es gibt viele Zukünfte. Für viele Menschen, die von Leid, Vertreibung, Desas-

19 Rose, Nikolas (1999): Powers of Freedom. Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, S. 283.

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ter und Krankheit betroffen sind, ist die größte affektive Realität jedoch eine Zukunft, die sich durch die Beschreibungen ständiger Krisen traumatisch auf die Gegenwart auswirkt.20 Daher sind Vorstellungen von Zukunft oft mit Ängsten, Unsicherheiten und Ohnmachtsgefühlen verbunden. Um diese katastrophale Zukunft und damit auch die Gegenwart zu ändern, müssen Hoffnung und Zuversicht gestärkt und materielle Umstände umgestaltet werden. Um dies zu erreichen, müssen wir uns neue Vorstellungen davon machen, wie das Leben auf der Erde sein kann und ebenso beginnen wieder daran zu glauben, dass Veränderung möglich ist. Imagination ist eine vitale Ressource in allen sozialen Prozessen und Projekten,21 die politisches Handeln als eine aktive Kunst des Lebens ermöglicht.22 Die Versammlung kann ein Ort dafür sein, um Mut zu politischer Innovation, zu Pragmatismus und zum Ausprobieren neuer Formen des Zusammenlebens zu sammeln. Dadurch treten die Teilnehmenden dem gezielten Ausmerzen ihrer Hoffnungen durch die derzeitige Politik der Deregulierung und Prekarisierung entgegen, gestalten Zukunftsvorstellungen und kollektive Horizonte, die wiederum die Basis für kollektive Erwartungen und Handlungen bilden.23 Menschen sind future-maker, die sich durch die Fähigkeit auszeichnen, nach etwas zu Streben und sich Wege zur Erfüllung ihrer angestrebten Ziele auszudenken. Hierdurch wird auch der Status Quo in einer Gemeinschaft stetig ausgehandelt.24 Auch wenn derzeit die Regierenden den Status Quo mit allen Mitteln aufrechterhalten wollen und ihn als einzige Alternative darstellen, ist dieser keinesfalls ‚natürlich‘ und ‚immer schon‘ gegeben. Ganz im Gegenteil: Es gibt sie noch, die Utopien einer besseren Welt. Jedoch sind sie nur der erste Schritt

in Zukünfte eines besseren Lebens, denn sie dienen allein zur Anregung und Reaktivierung unserer Vorstellungskraft. Notwendiger ist es, neue, pragmatische Dispositive für die Gegenwart zu erdenken, Praktiken, die unser gegenwärtiges Zusammenleben als gutes Leben gestalten. Dadurch werden historisch geformte Grenzen politischer Imagination überwunden25 und neue Formen politischen und sozialen Handelns lokal ermöglicht. Das Recht auf Zukunft realisiert sich in der Gegenwart. Future-maker sollten eine Politik machen, die pragmatisch und von der Sorge um die gegenseitigen Bedürfnisse angetrieben ist. Indem wir uns Zukünfte vorstellen, die für möglichst viele Menschen ein gutes Leben bedeuten, gelingt es auch, sich Wege auszumalen, um diese erreichen zu können. Diese Politik konstituiert eine demokratische Praxis, die die Erwartungen und Herausforderungen der Gegenwart sowie deren implizite Widersprüche handhabt. Daher handelt es sich um eine anti-utopische Politik, die nicht aufgrund einer bestimmten Ideologie verspricht in einer absehbaren Zukunft die perfekte Gesellschaft zu kreieren. Viel eher begründet sie sich auf dem alltäglichen Miteinander und ist daher immer schon antithetisch. Unsere politischen Institutionen müssen diese pluralen Lebensrealitäten in ihre administrativen Logiken inkorporieren und ein Verständnis von Demokratie reflektieren und praktizieren, das von ethischen Prämissen und einem Sinn für das Gemeinsame ausgeht. Vor allem aber braucht es Hoffnung, Engagement und die Fähigkeit, sich andere Zukünfte vorstellen zu können, um diese auch zu erreichen.

20 Appadurai, Arjun (2013): The Future as Cultural Fact. Essays on the Global Condition, London/New York: Verso, S. 299. 21 Ebda., S. 287. 22 Rose, Nikolas (1999): Powers of Freedom. Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, S. 283. 23 Appadurai, Arjun (2013): The Future as Cultural Fact. Essays on the Global Condition, London/New York: Verso, S. 180. 24 Ebda., S. 286.

25 Ebda., S. 279.

let me

you include

//Zuzanna Zajac

n the era of globalisation and rapidly changing circumstances, designers often turn to the physical environment to find solutions to issues of tolerance and functionality. Focusing only on the material surroundings is, however, a safety net, which is only seemingly effective. The installation of products, services and facilities ticks all the boxes of safety and inclusivity and calms down the conscience of designers, who feel they have answered all the required standards, but only address the surface of the problem. Functionality is a complex, layered concept and ‘form follows function’ is no longer a sufficient approach to a theme which faces a new, unprecedented definition.

Inclusivity is fundamentally understood through the concept of disability, which has always been a controversial topic, and remains a taboo in a society, which seems to prefer keeping it on the peripheries of most pressing social issues. Although seemingly treated with utmost care, mental and physical disability are still the cause of huge separations within the social structure. The question, which must be therefore asked is whether or not disability and thus lack of inclusion for the disabled is an inevitable part of our developing society. The first factor which should be considered is the oppression of the disabled not only by the ones considered ‘healthy’, but also

by themselves in their own groups. What is created is a power struggle between ‘us’ and ‘them’, which throws all disabilities into one pot and forces individuals to identify with this singular group they have been associated with. An approach like that may or may not lead to the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where disabled individuals see lack of inclusivity everywhere they go thus causing the concept of absolute inclusion to be unreachable. This dispute is unfortunately advantageous to many and has become, as Grossman has suggested, a political imperative. Campaigns are based on promises to bring equality to those who are still being placed in ‘special schools’ or isolated from the society. These guarantees of liberation from the basic forms of institutionalized oppression becomes thus a perfect strategy for politicians. People who feel like they are being denied the access to basic human rights are presented with a future of equal labour market, access to education and processes where it is the environment, not the individual, which is forced to change. We notice, however, that one by one, head of states take office and little change is visible. Additionally the media is still pumping the same criteria of success where individuals must perform physical activities to: save the environment (cycling and walking schemes), be seen as powerful or attractive or to be diligent contributors to the economy. It is difficult to imagine a human being feeling included in

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a city, where train stations have additional lifts, but the machine to buy tickets is 15 cm higher than the eyes of a wheelchair user can reach. We cannot keep kidding ourselves and pretend that it encourages human interaction, when the individual feels dependent, helpless and lost, and everyone around rushes to catch the train at 8:15 sharp. The concept of intangible inclusivity also takes centre stage when it comes to institutionalized education. Even dismissing the most visible proof of lack if inclusivity such as BME Attainment Gap, male to female ratio, ethnical discrimination and outdated assessment criteria, education is still the least progressive sector when it comes to giving access. Let us begin with the concept of language. For decades researchers representing sciences and humanities have been focusing on improving our society by investing time and money into creating publications, medicine or exhibitions. Philosophers have taken painstaking hours to produce papers, which are written in such high language that only individuals who have the background of at least higher education are able to decipher them. Steps to bridge the gap between scientific and public communication are not effective enough, which discourages civic engagement and understanding. It seems counterproductive to give the responsibility of educating the masses to the chosen few rather than writing it in a language, which can be comprehended by a majority. I am not referring here to language as a dialect but as a method of communication. It becomes questionable, therefore, whether this lack of inclusivity is a way of mass control. It would be interesting right now to return to the idea of functionality. Is education suited to serve its purpose in a practical way? A good argument would be that the access to the language of newest technologies is now becoming opensource therefore inclusivity is expanded. Nevertheless it is mainly revolving around digital skills, where masses only

gain base access and high-skill people still have restricted approach. Secondly, education has also been created to increase awareness and critical thinking instead of just supplying dry expertise in a particular field. From that stand point, learning is still very controlled by political powers, who use it as a medium of mass manipulation thus making it very impractical and not inclusive to individuals, who are seen as redundant in the eyes of heads of states. Considering these two examples it is interesting to dwell on the reasons for this lack of inclusivity and propose certain measures to be taken, which could lead to a scenario where unlimited access is possible for all. From both a local and global perspective privatization is one of the clearest reasons for the lack of inclusivity. It leads to a situation where only privileged individuals from minority groups gain possibility of using services, facilities and knowledge thus our environment becomes functional only to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the chosen fewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, which deepens the problem of social stratification. Privatization is however not the cause of the problem, but rather a result of a much bigger issue, where cities become centres for a globalized economy and separate from their local context in order to satisfy the needs of the developing market and compete with other metropoles. This is to say that lack of inclusivity stems from the process of denationalization of public sectors or services and governments (worldwide) placing the responsibility of arranging public space onto private businesses rather than the people.

There is a visible disinvestment among the society, especially younger generations, and a general blasĂŠ attitude. Unfortunately with the addition of mass media and a rapidly increasing urbanization, we risk that

these issues are forgotten under a palimpsest of financial gains, lack of time and technological advancement. Moreover the idea of activism has turned into a trend, utilized by artists or politicians for the creation of an image of a balanced society, where antagonistic powers have the opportunity to coexist, which makes them actually co-dependent thus decreases their importance. So what does our future bring in terms of inclusivity and access? There are many great initiatives already, which include opening database and making them available on the internet, transcribing books and translating texts or creating platforms for participatory design. Nevertheless the true source of lack of inclusivity comes from the fact that our society is constantly floating on the surface of reality. The unfortunate truth is that as a whole, the world is constantly on a search for an ideal and humanity is suspended in a limbo, where we await the perfect time, place or circumstance, which will allow us all to live together on equal terms. What we must realize is that every issue is unprecedented. Not because it has not been present is some forms before, but because each new subject is a unique combination of previous ones. The bottom line is that existing ideas related to concepts of disability, education or accessibility are all man made and it is solely up to an individual to decide how we want to address them. Higher power in the sphere of human rights is a dangerous area to rely on. Nobody will save us if we do not step up and take charge. That is why it is impossible to ensure absolute inclusivity by only addressing the periphery or the exterior of our thinking patterns. It is therefore not enough to change our material environ-

ment and assume that a human being will feel like a fully participating member of the society. What we need is a revolution. People must learn to question and criticise the existing status quo from the beginning of their lives. If children are taught to take full responsibility for not only their actions, but their decisions and thoughts, while working collaboratively with their surroundings, as adults they will be less likely to become affected by the manipulative voices of politicians thus choosing their own path in life and finding inclusivity within them. The world is changing extremely fast and we expect increased amounts of tolerance, accessibility and acceptance. However, siding with Zizek’s theory of the ‘Big Other’, we are still very much confined by a system, which is stagnant, old and not adapted to today’s world. To achieve honest functionality and sincere inclusivity, humans must learn to be fully aware of their own thoughts, needs, mind, body and feelings. This, however, is not a skill to learn overnight. It is a skill acquired during a lifetime, so it is time to start teaching our children now and maybe the next generation can be a bit more inclusive than we are today.

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Call for Action #8

More infos: www.engagee.org/call

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Autor*innen & Künstler*innen Radical Cities

Pearl Ahrens lives in London. Her text is presented on behalf of the Plan C Radical Municipalism and Directional Demands research cluster. The cluster seeks inspiration from international municipalism to pursue taking the conditions of life into common ownership. They can be contacted at info@weareplanc.org. Marc Amann ist unterwegs in sozialen Bewegungen zwischen Zivilem Ungehorsam, kreativem Protest und solidarischen Ökonomien. https://marcamann.net Clive Barnett is Professor of Geography and Social Theory at the University of Exeter in the UK. His work investigates the intersections between democracy, public life, and urbanization. Clive´s current research includes work conceptualising the relationships between democracy and urbanization; work on the contemporary ‘urbanization of responsibility’; and research on the geographies of contentious public action. Francesca Bria ist Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer in der Stadtregierung von Barcelona. Zuvor war sie Koordinatorin des Projekts D-Cent zu direkter Demokratie und sozialen digitalen Währungen. Sie war Beraterin der Europäischen Kommission zur Zukunft des Internets und zu Smart-City-Politiken. Sie ist seit vielen Jahren in sozialen Bewegungen aktiv und publiziert in unterschiedlichen Medien. Anton Brokow-Loga studierte Politikwissenschaft in Berlin und Dar es Salaam (Tansania), um die Notwendigkeit emanzipatorischer Stadtpolitik zu begreifen. In Weimar verbringt er seine Zeit mit politischer Arbeit in unterschiedlichen Zusammenhängen, pleniert mit der Raumstation und studiert nebenbei Urbanistik. Initiative Ne da(vi)mo Beograd (Don’t let Belgrade d(r)own) brings together organizations and individuals interested in urban and cultural policies, sustainable city development, fair use of common resources, and the involvement of citizens in the urban development of their environment. Belgrade is our home. We are responsible for each of its parts, processes, and problems, both for the present and for the future we will leave. Jeremy Gilbert is Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. Jeremy has written and spoken widely on politics, music and cultural theory and writes regularly for the British press. Gunnar Grandel Nach Umwegen in Stuttgart und Berlin zog Gunnar Grandel 2013 für das Urbanistik-Studium an der Bauhaus-Universität nach Weimar und stieß direkt auf die Raumstation. Mittlerweile in Wien wohnhaft, lässt ihn glücklicherweise trotzdem weder die theoretische noch die praktisch Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema Stadt selber machen los. Gabu Heindl, Architektin und Urbanistin in Wien, Lehre an der TU Wien und der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien. Ihr Architekturbüro GABU Heindl Architektur bearbeitet öffentliche kulturelle und soziale Bauten, alternative Wohnbauprojekte, Ausstellungsarchitekturen sowie Freiraum- und Stadtplanungsprojekte. Ihre Vorträge und Publikationen fokussieren auf das Verhältnis von Planung, Politik und Popular Agency in Bezug auf öffentlichen Raum, gegenhegemoniale Planungsstrategien sowie Gerechtigkeit und Solidarität als Planungsparameter.

Alexandros Kioupkiolis is an Assistant Professor in Contemporary Political Theory, at Aristotle University, Greece. His research interests focus on modern philosophies of freedom, contemporary philosophies of justice, theories of democracy, analyses and critiques of power. Alessio Kolioulis is a Doctoral candidate at Paris 8 / Rome La Sapienza and Visiting Research Scholar with the Sonic Research Group at London South Bank University. He studies techno cultures and has a background in the third sector. Alessio is an editorial board member of Eterotopia France and engagée. Dr. des. Friederike Landau (*1989) ist politische Theoretikerin und Stadtsoziologin. In ihrer Dissertation (2015-2017) beschäftigte sie sich mit den politischen Organisations- und Repräsentationspraktiken freischaffender Berliner Künstler*innen sowie mit deren Einwirkungsstrategien auf die Berliner Kulturpolitik. Friederike arbeitet an der Schnittstelle zwischen Kultur- und Stadtentwicklungspolitik, (künstlerischen) Interventionen im öffentlichen Raum und neuen Momenten des Politischen in einem angeblich postpolitischen Zeitalter. Oskar Mayböck wurde 1991 im oberösterreichischen Raab geboren und lebt in Wien. Er studierte dort Philosophie und arbeitet als Lyriker, Sound Poet und Musiker. Er ist Gründungsmitglied des Kollektivs Philosophy Unbound. Im Dezember 2016 veröffentlichte er bei Gully Havoc (Berlin) seine Debut EP „The Lane“ unter dem Namen Oskar May. Cosimo Lisi is a PhD student at the Department of Aesthetics, Sciences and Art Technologies, Paris 8. Cosimo is an editorial board of member of Eterotopia France and is currently curating a book by Stefan Kipfer on the neocolonial character of processes of urban transformation. Luiza Margan Die bildende Künstlerin Luiza Margan (Wien und Rijeka) verschränkt unterschiedlichste künstlerische Formate miteinander, die von öffentlichen Aktionen und Interventionen bis hin zu raumgreifenden Installationen mit Objekten, Film und Fotografie reichen. In ihren Arbeiten untersucht sie die Beziehungen zwischen politischen Ideologien und persönlichen Erlebnissen und ihren Verschiebungen und hinterfragt kritisch, auf welche Art und Weise sich Geschichte darin manifestiert. www.luizamargan.net Felix Maschewski ist Mitglied des PhD-Nets „Das Wissen der Literatur“ der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin und wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Wirtschaftsgestaltung (Berlin). Aktuell forscht er zum „kybernetischen Realismus“ an der Princeton University. Neben akademischen Publikationen schrieb er zuletzt als freier Autor für die Neue Zürcher Zeitung, SPEX, agora42, Public Seminar und Merkur (Blog). Evgeny Morozov ist einer der profiliertesten Kritiker des digitalen Kapitalismus und beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, wie große Technologiefirmen unsere Gesellschaft und Demokratie umbauen. Er schreibt für diverse Zeitungen, u.a. The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian und die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, und ist Autor mehrerer Bücher. Paolo Mossetti is a writer from Naples. He collaborates for many newspapers and magazines such as the Huffington Post, Domus, Il Tascabile, Salvage, and N+1 writing stories that span from anthropology of food to urbanism.

Daniel Mullis ist promovierter Humangeograph. Seine Interessen liegen in der politischen Philosophie, Sozialprotesten sowie Krisendynamiken, aktuell arbeitet er zum Neuen Autoritarismus in Deutschland. Miriam Nessler studied and studies cultural anthropology, urbanism and urban studies in Hamburg, Paris and Weimar. She likes to explore material and immaterial Freiräume (open/free spaces) in a theoretical as well as a practical way. Anna-Verena Nosthoff ist freie Autorin, Philosophin und Politische Theoretikerin. Sie arbeitet derzeit an einer Dissertation über die Kybernetisierung des Politischen. Akademische Aufsätze erschienen zuletzt u.a. in Cultural Politics, Critical Research on Religion und Culture, Theory & Critique sowie in Sammelbänden; journalistische Beiträge u.a. im Feuilleton der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung. Maurilio Pirone has a PhD in Politics, Institutions, History at University of Bologna and participates to the international collective research project Into the Black Box. He is an activist of Bologna Social Centre TPO. Marina Prentoulis is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Media at the University of East Anglia. She completed her PhD in Ideologies and Discourse Analysis at the Department of Government, University of Essex. She has been working on contemporary social movements and European radical ideologies. She has been involved in numerous campaigns and movements. She has been the UK spokesperson of Syriza and of ‘Another Europe is Possible’. Kollektiv Raumstation 2013 in Weimar gegründet, ist die Raumstation heute auch in Berlin und Wien eine interdisziplinäre Plattform für kreative und engagierte Köpfe, die die Stadt aktiv gestalten wollen. Stets vernetzt agieren die drei Raumschiffe Weimar, Berlin, Wien unabhängig voneinander und mit unterschiedlichen Schwerpunkten. hallo@raumstation.org - facebook.com/raumstationweimar - Instagram @raumstation Nikolai Roskamm lebt und arbeitet in Berlin und Erfurt. Er ist Mitglied des Redaktionskollektivs von sub\urban, zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung. Seit 2015 ist er Professor für Planungstheorie, Stadtbaugeschichte und Städtebau an der FH Erfurt. Zuletzt erschienen ist von ihm „Die unbesetzte Stadt. Postfundamentalistisches Denken und das urbanistische Feld“, Bauwelt Fundamente 158. Valerie Scheibenpflug ist am 03. Juli 1991 in Korneuburg geboren. Zurzeit schreibt sie an ihrer Dissertation mit dem Arbeitstitel „Gemeinschaft. absolut-sein. unmöglich-sein“ und arbeitet als Lehrerin in Wien. Sie hat Philosophie, Psychologie und Germanistik studiert. Während ihres Studiums verbrachte sie Forschungsaufenthalte in Nottingham und Heidelberg und war in verschiedenen Studierendeninitiativen tätig.

Rahel Sophia Süß is a Lecturer in Political Theory, author and initiator of engagée whose aim is to transform the theory/practice divide into everyday knowledge and experience. Rahel lives in London where she is a Phd Visiting Scholar at the Centre for the Study of Democracy doing research on radical democracy. Das Team Sowieso“ setzt sich aus Aktivist*innen, Künstler*innen und Theoretiker*innen zusammen, die sich gemeinsam über ihre Praxis austauschen und mit anderen Menschen die Ergebnisse dieses Austausches teilen, diskutieren, reflektieren und in Frage stellen. Lasse Thomassen is Reader in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. He is currently working on representation and new forms of radical politics, and he is the co-editor of Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack (Manchester University Press, 2005). Norma Tiedemann is a PhD-student and research assistant at the University of Kassel’s Political Science Department. Before that, she studied Global Political Economy and now attempts to bring together critical urban studies, radical geography and materialist state theory when analyzing social movements and the local state. Contact: norma.tiedemann@uni-kassel.de Markus Wende ist Animator, Illustrator und Comiczeichner in Berlin. Er verabscheut Autowerbung und beschäftigt sich künstlerisch gerne mit menschlichen und politischen Angelegenheiten. www.animationsfilm.de Zuzanna Zajac has a background in Interior Design, completed in Kingston University, London. She is currently studying MA Social Design in Universitat fur Angewandte Kunst, where she focuses on mappings, urban innovation and collaborative projects. Her main interests revolve around participatory design, construction, education and material science. She has worked extensively in architectural practices in London, Poland and Malta and is currently engaging in a variety of political and academic undertakings in Vienna. https://www.behance.net/zuzannazajacdesign Andreea Zelinka ist Masterandin der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie an der Universität Wien und der Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Ihre Masterarbeit befasst sich mit Demokratisierungsbewegungen in Barcelona. Darüber hinaus ist sie in Menschenrechtsbewegungen aktiv.

Johannes Siegmund (PhD student, Vienna) creates publics at the interface between arts, theory and politics. He is part of engagée, philosophy unbound, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and University of Vienna. Paul Sörensen, Dr. phil., ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Fachbereich Politische Theorie und Ideengeschichte der Universität Augsburg. Kontakt: paul.soerensen@phil.uni-augsburg.de

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Impressum

engagée #6/7 „Radical Cities“, 2018. ISSN 2413-4279 Wien | Berlin | London Medieninhaberin: engagée – Verein für politisch-philosophische Einmischungen (ZVR-Zahl: 807011148). Hermanngasse 19 - 1070 Wien. Prozesskoordination: Alessio Kolioulis, Felix Maschewski, Anna-Verena Nosthoff, Valerie Scheibenpflug, Johannes Siegmund, Rahel Sophia Süß, Zuzanna Zajac. Kontakt: info@engagee.org, www.engagee.org. Offene Redaktion: #6/7: Pearl Ahrens, Anton Brokow-Loga, Gunnar Grandel, Alessio Kolioulis, Felix Maschewski, Miriam Nessler, Anna-Verena Nosthoff, Maurilio Pirone, Paul Sörensen, Valerie Scheibenpflug, Johannes Siegmund, Rahel Sophia Süß, Norma Tiedemann, Zuzanna Zajac. Beiträge: Pearl Ahrens, Marc Amann, Clive Barnett, Francesca Bria, Anton Brokow-Loga, Don’t let Belgrade d(r)own, Jeremy Gilbert, Gunnar Grandel, Gabu Heindl, Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Alessio Kolioulis, Friederike Landau, Cosimo Lisi, Luiza Margan, Felix Maschewski, Evgeny Morozov, Paolo Mossetti, Daniel Mullis, Miriam Nessler, Anna-Verena Nosthoff, Maurilio Pirone, Marina Prentoulis, Kollektiv Raumstation, Nikolai Roskamm, Valerie Scheibenpflug, Johannes Siegmund, Paul Sörensen, Rahel Sophia Süß, Team Sowieso, Lasse Thomassen, Norma Tiedemann, Markus Wende, Zuzanna Zajac, Andreea Zelinka. Die Verfasser*innen sind für die Inhalte selbst verantwortlich. Die darin vertretenen Positionen spiegeln nicht zwangsläufig die Meinung der Redaktion wider. Die Beiträge dürfen von Dritten nur unter der Bedingung der Rücksprache mit den Verfasser*innen verbreitet werden. Gestaltung: Oskar Mayböck, Rahel Sophia Süß. Cover: Alessio Kolioulis, Oskar Mayböck, Rahel Sophia Süß Erscheinungsweise: 2 x jährlich. Preise: Einzelpreis: 10 € / £ 9. Jahresabonnement 15 €: Das Jahres-Abonnement umfasst zwei Ausgaben von engagée zum Vorzugspreis von 15 € (inkl. MwSt. und zzgl. Versand). Druck: Sieprath, Köln. engagée ist in ausgewählten Buchhandlungen und über www.engagee.org erhältlich. Eine Liste der Buchhandlungen ist über die Website aufrufbar. Kontoinformationen: Erste Bank: engagée - politisch-philosophische Einmischungen IBAN: AT96 2011 1827 7441 6100 BIC: GIBAATWWXXX engagée wurde gedruckt mit finanzieller Unterstützung der Studienvertretung Philosophie der Universität Wien.

#6/7 Radical Cities

Articles inside

Let me include you

Alternativer Zukünfte erfinden. Die munizipalistische Bewegung in Barcelona

STADT/ANDERS/MACHEN

City Air Makes You Free”. Urban Resistances And Counter Power in Bologna

La Rèvolution Est en Marche. Challenging France’s Neoliberal Colonialism in Paris

Movements post-hegemony: how contemporary collective action transforms hegemonic politics

Jenseits der neoliberalen Smart City: Commons und demokratische Alternativen

Not fortresses but living rooms: How Cities of Shelter could work in the UK

The circular horizon of municipal movements: Democracy, capital and radical politics

Against Radical Tourism. A conversation with Paolo Mossetti on Naples

Un]settling the City

Movement Parties: New Breed of Radical Democratic Politics?

Vom Recht auf Stadt zur radikalen Demokratie

Täglicher Widerstand?

Taking back the city

Für ein konfrontatives Miteinander

Transformation findet Stadt: präfigurativ urban rebellieren

Why is municipalism thriving?

Radical Democracy and Municipal Movements. A conversation with Jeremy Gilbert