Political Research Articles

The duality of platforms as infrastructures for urban politics

ABSTRACT Scholarship has recently sprouted up around the notion of “platform urbanism.” In this article, I outline an approach to the specifically communicative politics emerging through, and in relation to, platform infrastructures by drawing on research and observations in London, UK. Defending a phenomenological perspective, which sidesteps an a priori definition of platforms or infrastructures, I put forward a way of thinking about the experiential duality of platforms for urban politics. Here, platform infrastructures can appear as both: emergent objects of urban political concern; and withdrawn media, shaping spatial experience and the political meanings that are made of those spaces.

STRATEGI PEMENANGAN CALEG PARTAI GERINDRA DALAM PEMILU LEGISLATIF 2019: STUDI KASUS BAMBANG PUJIANTO DAPIL 2 SIDOARJO

The present study discusses the strategy of winning the Gerindra party candidates in Sidoarjo. In this case the problem that occurs is the struggle for the seat of Si- doarjo regency DPRD. In this thesis the researcher will explain the winning strat- egies, challenges and obstacles during the campaign process of the Gerindra party candidates. Seeing within the framework of the theory of Firmanzah which states that political marketing is divided into 4 programs (4P) namely: Product, Promo- tion, Price, Place. In this research, it will be seen how the winning strategy carried out by the Gerindra party candidates (Bambang Pudjianto) in electoral districts 2 of Sidoarjo regency, where he is an incumbent candidate who has advanced as a people's representative. His strategy is to rely on 3 products of political jargon; # win us, the medical check-up program and aspiration stalls that reap the enthusias- tic response of citizens. With the strategy carried out by Bambang Pudjianto, he succeeded in attracting the sympathy of the people so that he was re-elected as the sidoarjo district parliament.

Who decides? Urban councils and consensus in the late Middle Ages

ABSTRACT The prosaic records of town council meetings are an essential, if problematic, source for historians of late medieval European towns. They are a window on the concerns, fears and ambitions of urban authorities, yet they have proved especially intractable to historians interested in the social history of urban politics. They seem to present a monotonously harmonious picture of civic unity, social solidarity and political unanimity. Looking outside the town hall for evidence of the social divisions and political discord that characterized town life, urban historians have uncovered an unstable world of ‘contentious politics’, in which revolt was only one possible means of dissent. This article argues that historians should return to the town hall and to the council chamber, to reassess the value of town council minutes. Placing the rich, and still relatively little-used, civic archive of the English city of Norwich within a wider European context, it focuses on the meaning and significance of the records of non-attendance at council meetings. It locates official anxieties about non-attendance not within a narrowly legal or institutional framework, but within a contemporary culture of urban citizenship, which was performative and disputatious. The article identifies a form of ‘consensus politics’ that involved – indeed, promoted – conflict.

Researching SCSU's Hilton C. Buley Library's New Haven Mayoral Archives

Researching SCSU's Hilton C. Buley Library's New Haven Mayoral Archives

Representation in American Cities: Who Runs for Mayor and Who Wins?

Business leaders emerge as key players in canonical accounts of urban politics, but data limitations have hampered efforts to quantify their role in city politics. Drawing on an original dataset that includes gender, race, occupational, and political experience for over 3,500 mayoral candidates from 259 cities over fifty years, I document who runs for office and who serves as mayor, with a focus on candidates who are business owners and executives. Overall, the data indicate that mayors tend to be White and male with prior political experience and white-collar careers. Business owners and executives account for nearly one-third of the candidates in the sample, but I find no indication that they win elections at higher rates than other candidates overall. However, my results do suggest that business owners and executives have better electoral prospects in more conservative cities, especially those that hold nonpartisan elections.

Ben Eersels / Jelle Haemers (Eds.), Words and Deeds. Shaping Urban Politics from below in Late Medieval Europe. (Studies in European Urban History [1100–1800], Vol. 48.) Turnhout, Brepols 2020

Article Ben Eersels / Jelle Haemers (Eds.), Words and Deeds. Shaping Urban Politics from below in Late Medieval Europe. (Studies in European Urban History [1100–1800], Vol. 48.) Turnhout, Brepols 2020 was published on October 1, 2021 in the journal Historische Zeitschrift (volume 313, issue 2).

Eastern/Western Place and Placelessness in Salman Rushdie’s “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers”

Abstract Written in 1994, Salman Rushdie’s story “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers”, part of the volume suggestively entitled East, West, perfectly thematizes and predicts the East-West cultural conflict which would dominate most of 20th and 21st century politics, economy, and discourse. The story deliberately blurs the dividing line between real and fictional in a magical realist text which masterfully narrates Rushdie’s lifelong identity struggle. With much irony and wit, the multicultural author dwells on what he perceives as obvious shortcomings of both the Eastern and the Western culture. The cultural discourse is permanently intertwined with the one related to ethical versus immoral behavior, and our cultural conditioning which makes us have obviously biased views towards both, as well as with the importance of spatial and cultural paradigms and senses of belonging. Rushdie’s story transposes historical and cultural realities into the realm of the fictional, drawing heavily on nowadays’ global understanding of the terms “home” and “identity”, which have become painfully fluid concepts. Place and placelessness thus beome the central axes around which the story’s culturally tinged narrative evolves.

Democracy and Popular Protest in Europe: The Iberian Case (2011)

Abstract In recent years, Europe has witnessed social movements that break away from the conventional patterns typical of 19th and 20th century movements. The party-or trade union-organised social movements, very much centred on 19th century political and economic issues, or the New Social Movements centred on more universal values such as peace, environment, gender, ethnicity, of the 20th century seem to be changing their ‘repertoire’. At the beginning of the 21st century, parties and trade unions have been losing their leading role in the organisation of demonstrations and strikes and collective actions prepared and led by specific actors have given way to new forms of social action, without leaders, without organisation, without headquarters, and which use social networks as a form of mobilisation. These are social movements that contest not to have more rights but to exercise those that exist, a full citizenship that offers the freedom to express one’s opinion and the regalia of participation in political, economic, social, educational areas. In Europe, there are various types of such movements, but we will highlight the “Geração à Rasca (Scratch Generation)” movement in Portugal and that of the “Indignados (Outraged)” or 15 M in Spain, both started in 2011, and which had repercussions in the main European capitals. Using a qualitative methodology, through these protest movements we seek to understand how the complexity of today’s social movements and their non-institutionalisation represent a challenge to European democracy.

Photo-elicitation and the voiceless: Narrating the “lived experiences” perspective of informal street food vendors in Khayelitsha, Cape Town

This research delves into the symbolic spaces and everyday practices of street food vendors in Khayelitsha, Cape Town - specifically, how traders interact and negotiate their agency within food systems of the poor and marginalised. A key objective for this study is to gain insight into street food vendors’ understanding of the right to food and what it means for them as food system actors. Taking on a gendered lens, findings speak to informal traders existing in a complex space - caught somewhere between exclusionary urban politics, and waiting for the state to address the many governance and political bottlenecks that define the complex environment in which they operate. By focusing on symbolic experiences and actions of vendors in Khayelitsha, the study unveils the often invisible, ordinary, everyday realities of the vendors, through which ‘social capital’ is produced. The irrelevance of an actual constitutionally codified right to food for informality is also revealed through the qualitative essence of informal food traders’ experiences of navigating a livelihood in the fluid and unstable context of the informal economy.

Urban Localities under Glocal Dynamics: The Case of Yeldeğirmeni

As the population in world cities grow and urban transformation processes (gentrification, vitalization etc.) gain speed, it seems that both local and global dynamics intermingle. The term “glocal” has been used as the simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing trends in contemporary socio-political, and socio-economic systems. Since 1990, many scholars argued that the welfare policies of urbanism are superseded by the “neo-urban politics”. This process ended up with a new focus on local economy and competitiveness that is empowered by the process of glocalisation. As far the as urban transformation/renewal/revitalization is concerned it seems impossible to isolate the process from the global market, city branding and the rising new middle class. In this article the term glocalization will be utilized in the context of İstanbul and it will be employed for having a better understanding the two general problematics: Firstly, how does local politics and competitive processes work under the pressure of globalization (i.e special attractions, branding, organizing international events); secondly how urban politics and local actors get influenced by it. The specific focus in this research will be the case of Yeldeğirmeni in Kadıköy which seems to be known as a positive and participatory model for revitalization in Asian side of İstanbul. However according to the findings of this study %90 percent of the people who reside here about 35- 40 years neighborhood have negative responses to it. The results of this study will be discussed in the context of new urban politics and its glocal consequences.

“A Dumping Ground for the South”: Race, Place, and Poverty in Newburgh, New York (1945-1961)

This article explores the urban politics that led to the outbreak of the Newburgh, New York, welfare controversy in 1961. It uncovers the intricate interplay between race, place, and poverty that led to the early backlash against social welfare from the immediate postwar years to the early 1960s. Newburgh officials engineered their welfare reform as a political response to the economic, demographic, and urban transformations the city underwent in the 1950s. Race was central to their concerns as they scapegoated newly arrived African American migrants and blamed them for the city’s population loss and slowing economy. Welfare reform served at once as a tool for migratory, demographic, and racial regulation. The Newburgh story demonstrates that welfare regulation was used by city officials to enforce racial hierarchies in the Jim Crow North and suggests that city politics should be taken into greater account in the history of the American welfare state.

Факторы трансформации политического ислама в мировой политике: возникновение насилия и терроризма

The article studies factors of transformation of political Islam and reasons for its “tightening” in the modern context. On the basis of the ideas of social constructivism, the author traces the main milestones in the evolution of political Islam and the formation of its radical branches that orient towards violence and terrorism. The article examines nine mega-events that ultimately determined the specifics of the modern union of Islam and poli tics — the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the September 11 attacks (2001), the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the “Arab Spring”, and the establishment of political Islam with a “Turkish face”. The author demonstrates that after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Islam began to gradually transform from the social phenomenon into the world-political factor. Initially, this tendency was observed in the intellectual and ideological spheres, but then penetrated practical politics. The article identifies four models of modern political Islam — Shiite, Salafi-jihadist, Takfirist-jihadist and moderate political Islam. According to the author’s conclusion, the attitude towards violence within these models is largely determined by the peculiarities of the formation, geographic ambitions and goals of the respective branches. The Shiite branch of political Islam that has established in Iran justifies violence for solving defensive tasks and appeals mainly to the categories of justice and protection of the oppressed. Salafijihadist and Takfirist groups, in essence, see violence as a key instrument for implementing the commandments of Allah and rebuilding the world on the principles of Sharia. The moderate political Islam (as shown by analyzing the case of Turkey) completely rejects violence, and religion remains largely a social phenomenon, although it is used for political purposes, in particular, to attract the electorate. On the basis of his analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the idea of violence as an inherent element of political Islam is erroneous, but at the same time he points out risks of the increasing significance of this factor.

Pandemics and Economy- A Review

Just like any other directly quantifiable natural or man-made disasters, contagious diseases have had long lasting effects on the economics and politics of the world throughout history. The COVID-19 pandemic, apparently, has led to a substantial upshot on the world economy, a complete tangible analysis of which still remains incomplete. In this light, it is essential to take a look back into the preceding pandemics and acquire knowledge on the subsequent socio-economic impacts. This research assesses some of the most infamous diseases and their impacts on economics through a systematic review of literature. Thereafter we evaluate the potential impacts of COVID-19 till date and probable ways of overcoming these impacts. In order to escape the vicious cycle of economic instability, it is essential to prevent scores of unemployment across various sectors through government support and policy interventions.

‘[La casa] non è più sexy in Italia.’ The absent politicization of housing in Italy, insights from Turin

During the years of economic crisis and austerity, and the subsequent economic growth dependent on real estate and tourism, housing has returned into the spotlight on the political agenda in Southern European countries and cities, where activists and social movements scaled up their struggles and created bridges with institutional actors, fostering policy change. The latter, however, did not happen in Italy. In this article, based on exploratory case study research carried out in the city of Turin, we present three themes that help explain what we call the 'absent politicization' of housing in Italy during the last decade: a multi-actor, multilevel housing policy capable of defusing specific problems; the absence of bridges between politicized and institutional actors; and the role played by party-politics, with attention to 'populist' Movimento 5 Stelle in power in Turin. By focusing on differences with Southern Europe, we contribute to overcoming dichotomies that have long dominated comparative housing studies; and contribute to linking housing studies with contentious urban politics in the post-crisis years.

Introducing the YIMBYs: Renters, housing, and supply-side politics in Los Angeles

This paper advances debates around the financialization of housing with a case study of Los Angeles’s yes-in-my-back-yard (YIMBY) groups. In response to the post-2008 affordable housing crisis, YIMBYs have emerged in support of orthodox economic policies that deregulate land use, expedite construction, and intensify financial accumulation in rental housing. Using detailed empirical analysis collected from YIMBY housing activists, this paper examines how the market-based logics they advance take root in local land use issues. It focuses specifically on the impact of YIMBYs on existing divisions within urban politics, including the scale at which housing is contested. By conceptualizing the YIMBY position as one that facilitates financialization, this paper reveals the ways financialization is more than a mode of accumulation: it is a political process embedded in the state from the bottom up and inside out.

Lula and the Future of the Past

Lula and the Future of the Past

Problematising concepts of transit-oriented development in South African cities

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is generally defined as planned high-density development containing a mixture of residential, retail, commercial and community uses around a transit hub and surrounded by a high-quality urban realm that prioritises the pedestrian (and more recently the cyclist) over the automobile. This article analyses the steps taken in Cape Town and Johannesburg to develop TOD schemes. In so doing, it problematises both the concept of TOD as a universal mechanism in which all cities apply a similar set of guidelines as well as the specific planning practices in South African cities. Drawing on the policy mobilities literature and specifically the emerging discussions of policy mobilities failure, I note the challenges and delays in implementing TOD in South Africa. It is not so much that TOD has been applied incorrectly as that it has been unable to stick in the local context. Rather than furthering the debate on whether a city should or should not promote TOD, viewing their planning through a policy mobilities lens highlights the urban politics of policymaking. Accordingly, the article presents a fine-tuned analysis of TOD as both a conceptual framework as well as a process for actually doing transport planning. Such a critical reading of the intertwined and overlapping practices of policymaking provides insights into the process of urban development and spatial transformation in (South/ern) Africa as well as across cities of the global south.

The Elephant in the Room in Presidential Politics: Informal Powers in Western Europe

Presidents’ informal powers remain under-investigated especially in Western European democracies. This gap might hamper the full understanding of how presidents ultimately behave and act. The objective of this article is twofold. First, it aims at adopting a definition of presidents’ informal powers by distinguishing them from formal ones and from informal institutions. Second, it distinguishes among different kind of informal powers by focusing on why presidents use them. To this end, a typology based on the following two criteria is proposed: (1) the existence of formal powers at disposal of the president in a specific sphere and (2) the evaluation of public support each individual president thinks to enjoy should they act or refrain. Four types of informal powers can be derived from these dimensions: substitutive informal powers, parallel informal powers, risk-taking informal powers and subverting informal powers.

The Beijing Rainbow Film Festival: between depoliticisation and performative activism

This article examines Chinese queer activism by offering an empirically grounded discussion of the Beijing Rainbow Film Festival. The central argument is that while the exterior image of the film festival is to foster a context for queer culture and transform queer politics, an interior view of the festival’s aim is to widen repertoires of acquaintance. The Beijing Rainbow Film Festival nourishes discursive urban experiences of foreseeable obstacles and expected coalitions, which fully embrace local indie filmmakers, tongzhi activists, cinephiles and LGBT spectatorship. It mirrors a ritual gathering, filled with conflict, resistance and variability alongside celebration. The analysis offered utilises a wide-ranging methodology drawn from urban, film, queer and organisational studies and seeks to juxtapose the tactics of depoliticisation with performative activism. In examining the relationship between the film festival and queer communities, cinephiles, (queer) auteurs, and the festival’s curators, the article first examines the film festival for its depoliticising tendencies, in line with hegemonic neo-liberal society and the dynamics of urban politics in the context of an authoritarian state. The article finally analyses the organisation’s performative practices, which I argue advance an ostensibly subversive position vis-à-vis political agents and the aesthetics of tongzhi films.

Borrowed production: spatial processes of urban waterfront tourism in Guangzhou

ABSTRACT Urban waterfronts are time-space constructions encompassing various social relationships and functions. They become tourism spaces in the context of particular interactions among multiple stakeholders, including local governments and tourism enterprises. Yet the processes for and approaches to transforming urban waterfronts into tourism spaces remain under-researched. Based on the lens of Lefebvre’s space production theory, this research explores how tourism spaces are generated in the waterfront area of Pearl River in Guangzhou that originally featured no tourism attributes. The city government has conceived the shifting representations of space for the Pearl River waterfront over time including commercial space, scenery space, and a showcase of a prosperous city image, but neglected tourism development. Cruise companies are the key entity facilitating the spatial processes of the Pearl River Tour. The approach to space production presents itself as a means of ‘borrowed production,’ where cruise companies produce tourism spaces by embedding themselves into government plans and flexibly utilizing public projects that significantly improve waterfront infrastructure and views. This study contributes to the literature on tourism space production by clarifying the negotiating relationship between urban politics and tourism enterprises.