Skip to main content

Introduction: Locating the Political in Late Neoliberalism

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Urban Political

Abstract

This introductory chapter takes as its starting point two pathbreaking moments: the financial collapse of 2008 and the urban protests and insurgencies of 2011. Together these have set the stage for what we term the late neoliberal condition. The introduction first offers an overview of existing conceptual approaches that attempt to come to terms with the shifting ground of the urban political today, connecting these reflections to the trajectories of contemporary capitalism. It then argues that our current urban political horizon is ambivalent: marked by myriad experiments in progressive politics as well as resilient forms of exploitation and domination.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aalbers, M. B. (2013). Neoliberalism is dead … long live neoliberalism! International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(3), 1083–1090.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, J. (2011). Topological twists: Power’s shifting geographies. Dialogues in Human Geography, 1(3), 283–298.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, J., & Cochrane, A. (2007). Beyond the territorial fix: Regional assemblages, politics and power. Regional Studies, 41, 1161–1176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, J., & Cochrane, A. (2010). Assemblages of state power: Topological shifts in the organization of government and politics. Antipode, 42(5), 1071–1089.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allmendinger, P., & Haughton, G. (2012). Post-political spatial planning in England: A crisis of consensus? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 37(1), 89–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arboleda, M. (2015). The biopolitical production of the city: Urban political ecology in the age of immaterial labour. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 33(1), 35–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Badiou, A. (2012). The rebirth of history: Times of riots and uprisings. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, C. (2014). What do cities have to do with democracy? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(5), 1625–1643.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, N. (2004). Urban governance and the production of new state spaces in Western Europe, 1960–2000. Review of International Political Economy, 11(3), 447–488.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, N., Madden, D. J., & Wachsmuth, D. (2011). Assemblage urbanism and the challenges of critical urban theory. City, 15(2), 225–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, N., Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2010a). After neoliberalism? Globalizations, 7(3), 327–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, N., Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2010b). Variegated neoliberalization: Geographies, modalities, pathways. Global Networks, 10(2), 182–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, N., & Schmid, C. (2011). Planetary urbanization. In M. Gandy (Ed.), Urban constellations (pp. 10–13). Berlin: Jovis Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, N., & Theodore, N. (2002). Cities and the geographies of “actually existing neoliberalism”. Antipode, 34(3), 349–379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bresnihan, P., & Byrne, M. (2015). Escape into the city. Everyday practices of commoning and the production of urban space in Dublin. Antipode, 47(1), 36–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, W. (2003). Neo-liberalism and the end of liberal democracy. Theory and Event, 7(1).

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the demos. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caldeira, T. P. (1996). Fortified enclaves: The new urban segregation. Public Culture, 8(2), 303–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cox, K. R. (1993). The local and the global in the new urban politics: A critical view. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 11(4), 433–448.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crouch, C. (2004). Post-democracy. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, M., & Iveson, K. (2015). Recovering the politics of the city: From the ‘post-political city’ to a ‘method of equality’ for critical urban geography. Progress in Human Geography, 39(5), 543–559.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dean, J. (2009). Democracy and other neoliberal fantasies: Communicative capitalism and left politics. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dikeç, M. (2007). Badlands of the republic: Space, politics and urban policy. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dikeç, M. (2015). Space, politics, and aesthetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dikeç, M., & Swyngedouw, E. (2017). Theorizing the politicizing city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.12388

  • Ferguson, J. (2006). Global shadows: Africa in the neoliberal world order. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, J. (2010). The uses of neoliberalism. Antipode, 41(1), 166–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Florida, R. (2005). Cities and the creative class. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giroux, H. A. (2011). Zombie politics and culture in the age of casino capitalism. New York: Peter Lang.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (2014). Critique and communication: Philosophy’s missions. Interview with Michaël Foessel. Retrieved from http://www.pro-europa.eu/index.php/en/zodiac/489-critique-and-communication-philosophy-s-missions

  • Hackworth, J. (2007). The neoliberal city: Governance, ideology, and development in American urbanism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haiven, M. (2014). The radical imagination: Social movement research in the age of austerity. Halifax: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, S., Massey, D., & Rustin, M. (Eds.). (2015). After neoliberalism?: The Kilburn Manifesto. Chadwell Heath: Lawrence & Whichart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (1978). The urban process under capitalism: A framework for analysis. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2(1–4), 101–131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (1989). From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, 71(1), 3–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2008). The right to the city. New Left Review, 53, 23–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel cities—From the right to the city to the urban revolution. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jessop, B. (2002). Liberalism, neoliberalism, and urban governance: A state–theoretical perspective. Antipode, 34(3), 452–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keil, R. (2009). The urban politics of roll-with-it neoliberalization. City, 13(2–3), 230–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larner, W. (2000). Neo-liberalism: Policy, ideology, governmentality. Studies in Political Economy, 63(1), 5–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, H. (1996 [1968]). The right to the city. In E. Kofman & E. Lebas (Eds.), Writings on cities. Cambridge: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leitner, H., Peck, J., & Sheppard, E. (2007). Contesting neoliberalism: Urban frontiers. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemke, T. (2001). The birth of bio-politics: Michel Foucault’s lecture at the Collège de France on neo-liberal governmentality. Economy and Society, 30(2), 190–207.

    Google Scholar 

  • Logan, J. R., & Molotch, H. L. (1987). Urban fortunes: The political economy of place. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacLeod, D. G. (2011). Urban politics reconsidered: Growth machine to post-democratic city? Urban Studies, 48(12), 2629–2660.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Magnusson, W. (2013). Politics of urbanism: Seeing like a city. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcuse, P. (2009). From critical urban theory to the right to the city. City, 13(2–3), 185–197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, M. (2009). The ‘right to the city’ in the context of shifting mottos of urban social movements. City, 13(2–3), 362–374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCann, E., & Ward, K. (Eds.). (2011). Mobile urbanism: Cities and policymaking in the global age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McFarlane, C. (2009). Translocal assemblages: Space, power and social movements. Geoforum, 40(4), 561–567.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFarlane, C. (2011). Assemblage and critical urbanism. City, 15(2), 204–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McGuirk, P. (2017, forthcoming). Review of Ugo Rossi’s ‘Cities in global capitalism.’ AAG review of books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merrifield, A. (2011). Crowd politics: Or, ‘here comes everybuddy’. New Left Review, 71, 103–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merrifield, A. (2014). The new urban question. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, B., & Nicholls, W. (2013). Social movements in urban society: The city as a space of politicization. Urban Geography, 34(4), 452–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, D. (2003). The right to the city: Social justice and the fight for public space. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paddison, R. (2009). Some reflections on the limitations to public participation in the post-political city. L’Espace Politique. Retrieved from http://espacepolitique.revues.org/1393

  • Peck, J. (2005). Struggling with the creative class. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29(4), 740–770.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2015). Fast policy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Peck, J., Theodore, N., & Brenner, N. (2010). Postneoliberalism and its malcontents. Antipode, 41(1), 94–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peck, J., & Tickell, A. (1994). Searching for a new institutional fix: The after-Fordist crisis and the global-local disorder. In A. Amin (Ed.), Post-Fordism: A reader (pp. 280–315). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, P. E. (1981). City limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pløger, J. (2004). Strife: Urban planning and agonism. Planning Theory, 3(1), 71–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purcell, M. (2003). Citizenship and the right to the global city: Reimagining the capitalist world order. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(3), 564–590.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purcell, M. (2008). Recapturing democracy: Neoliberalization and the struggle for alternative urban futures. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Purcell, M. (2013a). A new land: Deleuze and Guattari and planning. Planning Theory & Practice, 14(1), 20–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purcell, M. (2013b). The down-deep delight of democracy. New York: Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Raco, M. (2003). Governmentality, subject-building, and the discourses and practices of devolution in the UK. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 28(1), 75–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raco, M., & Imrie, R. (2000). Governmentality and rights and responsibilities in urban policy. Environment and Planning A, 32(12), 2187–2204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, J. (2001). Ten theses on politics. Theory and Event, 5(3).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, J. (2004). Disagreement: Politics and philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, J. (2006). Hatred of democracy. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, J. (2006). Ordinary cities: Between modernity and development. London: Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, J. (2011). Cities in a world of cities: The comparative gesture. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(1), 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, J. (2015). Thinking cities through elsewhere: Comparative tactics for a more global urban studies. Progress in Human Geography, 40(1), 3–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rossi, U., & Di Bella, A. (2017). Start-up urbanism: New York, Rio de Janeiro and the global urbanization of technology-based economies. Environment and Planning A, 49(5), 999–1018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, A. (2009a). Civic governmentality: The politics of inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai. Antipode, 41(1), 159–179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, A. (2009b). The 21st-century metropolis: New geographies of theory. Regional Studies, 43(6), 819–830.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, A., & Ong, A. (Eds.). (2011). Worlding cities: Asian experiments and the art of being global. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sassen, S. (2001). The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sheppard, E., Leitner, H., & Maringanti, A. (2013). Provincializing global Urbanism: A Manifesto. Urban Geography, 34(7), 893–900.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simone, A. (2010). City life from Jakarta to Dakar: Movements at the crossroads. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, N. (2002). New globalism, new urbanism: Gentrification as global urban strategy. Antipode, 34(3), 427–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soja, E. W. (2000). Postmetropolis: Critical studies of cities and regions. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stone, C. (1989). Regime politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946–1988. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swyngedouw, E. (2007). The post-political city. In BAVO (Ed.), Urban politics now (pp. 58–76). Rotterdam: NAI Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swyngedouw, E. (2011). Interrogating post-democracy: Reclaiming egalitarian political spaces. Political Geography, 30(7), 370–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swyngedouw, E. (2014). Where is the political? Insurgent mobilisations and the incipient ‘return of the political’. Space and Polity, 18(2), 122–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swyngedouw, E., Moulaert, F., & Rodriguez, A. (2002). Neoliberal urbanization in Europe: Large-scale urban development projects and the new urban policy. Antipode, 34(3), 542–577.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • The Economist. (2013, June 22). Zombie democracy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toscano, A. (2004). Factory, territory, metropolis, Empire. Angelaki, 9(2), 197–216.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uitermark, J. (2005). The genesis and evolution of urban policy: A confrontation of regulationist and governmentality approaches. Political Geography, 24(2), 137–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uitermark, J., & Nicholls, W. J. (2014). From politicization to policing: The rise and decline of new social movements in Amsterdam and Paris. Antipode, 46(4), 970–991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Virno, P. (2007). General intellect. Historical Materialism, 15(3), 3–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wacquant, L. (2008). Urban outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality. London: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the poor. The neoliberal government of social insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, J., & Swyngedouw, E. (Eds.). (2014). The post-political and its discontents: Spaces of depoliticization, spectres of radical politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, S. (1999). The ticklish subject. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Enright, T., Rossi, U. (2018). Introduction: Locating the Political in Late Neoliberalism. In: Enright, T., Rossi, U. (eds) The Urban Political. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64534-6_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64534-6_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64533-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64534-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics