State Restructuring Research Articles

Taking back the city: Inner-city slum and homeless movement collective action in São Paulo

This article analyses the collective action of the São Paulo inner-city slum movement during the 1997-2000 period. This movement mobilized thousands of slum dwellers and homeless in the downtown core and occupied dozens of abandoned buildings during this period. The author explains through economic, political and social factors the building occupations in the Sao Paulo downtown core, an urban region with little history of collective mobilisation and political contention, at a time when urban movements became more institutionalized. In addition, this article introduces a different analytical frame that identifies both structural and agency factors, while taking into account the associated objective (economic) and subjective (political and cultural) conditions. It first describes the relevant economic variables in their specific situational context, which in this case are the changes in the political economy and their impact on the low income urban population and on state restructuring. Second, it explores local urban political dynamics, institutional practices involving housing policy and the interaction among different political actors which condition the collective action and organisation of social movements. Finally, it studies the characteristics of this movement and how the contention of other national social movements influenced the repertoire of action and the framing of this urban popular movement.Key words: social movement, slums, collective action, urban poor, housing, Brazil.

Welfare institutions and the mobilization of consent: Union responses to labour market activation policies in France and the Netherlands

Trade union responses to labour market activation policies are central to any assessment of their attitudes and strategies in the face of contemporary welfare state restructuring. Yet this issue has to date been the object of only limited theorization and minimal empirical investigation. We attempt to remedy this. Drawing on existing literatures in different disciplines, we first outline the theoretical grounds for predicting union opposition to or support for labour market activation measures. We then explore these competing arguments through a reconstruction and comparison of the development of union positions on labour market activation over time in two countries, France and the Netherlands. The case studies suggest that union stances on these policies are not straightforwardly determined by the structure of labour market institutions; considerations regarding the impact of activation initiatives on the role of unions in the institutions of the welfare state play a major role in mobilizing their consent or dissent.

Fuzzy-set method in comparative social policy: a critical introduction and review of the applications of the fuzzy-set method

This article critiques the Fuzzy-set Qualitative Analysis (fs/QCA) methodology by examining its applicability in three studies in the field of comparative social policy. In each of these three test cases, I focus on the validity of fuzzy-set’s claimed function—its ability to combine theoretic discourse and evidence analysis. All three studies investigate welfare state reform in the late twentieth century and apply fs/QCA: (1) “Welfare Reform in the Nordic Countries in the 1990s: Using Fuzzy-set Theory to Assess Conformity to Ideal Types,” (2) “States of Welfare or States of Workfare? Welfare State Restructuring in 16 Capitalist Democracies, 1985–2002,” and (3) “The Diversity and Causality of Welfare State Reforms Explored with Fuzzy-sets.” This article begins by discussing the ontology and epistemology of comparative social policy. The fuzzy set logic and set theoretic nature of social science theory is then discussed to align the ontology with fuzzy set methodology. Next, a more detailed introduction of fuzzy-set method (fs/QCA) is followed. This study suggests that fs/QCA is a unique and useful method for comparative social policy. It advances quantitative analysis by exploring cases configurationally and also advances the qualitative analysis by applying the fuzzy set logic and the principle of calibration.

Crime prevention and community safety policies from a dynamic and comparative perspective: The cases of Rome and London

In the past 30 years, the issue of urban community safety has gained increased social and political relevance, being decisive in the results of national and local elections in Europe and elsewhere. Western countries have responded to increasing levels of fear and insecurity through the diffusion of ‘new prevention’ approaches, giving place to what has been called the ‘preventive turn’. The spread of these new approaches generated a debate around the convergence of policy ideas and solutions. These convergence processes have been widely interpreted as the result of macro-factors such as the deep socio-economic and cultural processes of change impacting post-modern societies, determining a phase of state restructuring rooted on neo-liberal principles. Despite the fact that convergence processes are taking place, significant elements of divergence are still present across Europe. These are attributed to the complexity and heterogeneity of what Hughes defines as ‘geo-histories’ (namely, a place's own geographic and historical context of reference) and to a country's institutional infrastructure. The objective of this work is to offer a contribution to the debate around convergence and policy change processes of crime prevention and community safety in Europe through a comparative analysis of community safety policies in Rome and London. The article concludes that different factors may impact upon policy divergence or convergence at different times. In the period of left-wing dominance up to 2008, local discourses and practices were strongly influenced by the different national and local politics on crime prevention and security, as well as by the different normative framework and governance patterns. However, since 2008 and the shift to right-wing local governments that assumed power, there has been a convergence based on discourses operating more at a symbolic and emotive level. Furthermore, there may be greater continuity in policy between politically different administrations than is immediately apparent.

Contesting the Space: The “New Biafra” and Ethno-Territorial Separatism in South-Eastern Nigeria

This article examines the emergence of a neo-Biafran movement, known as, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) in Nigeria. Drawing on a prior idea of statehood, the advent of MASSOB marks a shift in the tenor of ethnic nationalism by virtue of the fact that the movement entirely rejects a state-led process and demands the creation of an independent state of “Biafra.” The analysis dissects the change in the tempo of contemporary Igbo nationalism and identifies the need for a major restructuring of the Nigerian state in order to forestall the possibilities of other ethno-nationalist claims becoming uncompromisingly separatist.

Quantifying citizens: neoliberal restructuring and immigrant selection in Canada and Australia

This article analyzes the ways in which Canadian and Australian immigration policies represent causes and consequences of neoliberal restructuring. Interrogating neoliberalism as a series of political-economic and moral changes derived from the marketization of societal and governmental arrangements, it illustrates how numerically-based ‘points systems’ have been employed as mechanisms for: gauging human capital; establishing indices of risk and undesirability; and promoting the ‘responsibilization’ of incoming migrants. In doing so the points systems' historical trajectory is traced through a variety of administrative reforms characteristic of neoliberal government and flexible accumulation. Ultimately, this article contends that as rational, technical and economically guided systems of enumeration and assessment, both governments' policies mirror, enhance and extend neoliberal arrangements and sensibilities. In providing ostensibly objective techniques of evaluation the points systems have assisted in injecting the ideal neoliberal citizens- who are, above all, flexible, cosmopolitan, entrepreneurial and autonomous- from abroad. Overall this paper contributes to studies of state restructuring by providing new insights into the links between the neglected domain of immigration control and emergent techniques of societal regulation and citizen-making.

Diffusion, transmutation, and regulatory regime in socialist market economies: telecoms reform in China and Vietnam

Marketization and state restructuring are proceeding apace in China and Vietnam. China and Vietnam are not, however, converging upon the global regulatory model, even allowing for customary national variations. Rather, they are building up distinctive forms of regulatory regimes aiming to maintain the party-state's control over key state sectors, while at the same time integrating with the global economy and conforming to international norms and standards. This study argues that the regulatory model being adopted in Vietnam and China is the product of a specific kind of transition from a command to a market economy within an authoritarian political regime. While diffusion theories are of use in identifying external driving forces for the reform effort, these theories are of limited value for unveiling the dynamics of local contexts. Indigenous incentives, opportunity structures, and the experimental nature of public policy explain why, despite their exposure to global reform movements and commitment to multilateral institutions, China and Vietnam are likely to end up not with just a variety of the same regulatory regime, but a different one. The case of telecommunications regulation is used to illustrate this.

The Politics of Urban Informality in Philadelphia’s Recovery House Movement

There are some 60,000 vacant properties in the city of Philadelphia, 30,000 of which are abandoned row houses. In the neighbourhood of Kensington, street-level entrepreneurs have reconfigured hundreds of former working-class row homes to produce the Philadelphia recovery house movement: an extra-legal poverty survival strategy for addicts and alcoholics located in the city's poorest and most heavily blighted zones. The purpose of this paper is to explore, ethnographically, the ways in which informal poverty survival mechanisms articulate with the restructuring of the contemporary welfare state and the broader political economy of Philadelphia. It is argued that recovery house networks accommodate an interrelated set of political rationalities animated not only by retrenchment and the churning of welfare bodies, but also by the agency of informal operators and the politics of self-help. Working as an alternative and partially vestigial boundary institution or buffer zone to formal regimes of governance, the recovery house movement reflects the ‘other story’ of the new urban politics in Philadelphia.

Building the Healthy City: The Role of Nonprofits in Creating Active Urban Parks

Access to parks and recreational opportunities contributes to physical activity and positive health outcomes. But who is responsible for building the healthy city, particularly where resources are limited? While neoliberal state restructuring and fiscal austerity measures have increased the responsibility of nonprofit organizations in local services provision, little is known about their role in promoting healthy urban environments. This article investigates the role of nonprofits in supporting parks and physical activity in Southern California and analyzes the relationships between levels of voluntary-sector activity and the socio-demographic, economic, and fiscal characteristics of municipalities. Results indicate that nonprofits are unevenly distributed and more active in affluent, fiscally stronger, suburban, conservative, and white municipalities, reproducing intra-urban differences underlying health disparities.

Local Government at the Nexus?

The modernisation of local government in the UK, pursued by Labour governments since 1997, has covered many, often conflicting elements. Councils have been encouraged to be both strategic ‘place shapers’ and also involved in the nurturing of democratic engagement. This latter theme of ‘democratic renewal’ has in itself contained paradoxical elements, but has been a consistent focus of attention. This debate around democratic renewal has also taken place in the context of a broader ‘rethinking’ of local governments’ role, in an era of partnerships, governance and new models of service delivery. Normatively and practically new justifications for local government have been sought. One such normative foundation has drawn on a range of theoretical perspectives to reimagine the place of local government in the democratic polity, seeing local authorities and local councilors as facilitators or nurturers of democratic health. In particular, broad theoretical developments in communicative and deliberative democracy, and also, more recently, on work based in ‘second generation’ governance theory, have been drawn upon to place local government at the nexus of state and civil society. This paper will examine the possibilities for such a role, from a normative standpoint, to argue that local government can have only limited success in this role, particularly in the context of New Labour's restructuring of the local state.

Barrio resurgence in Buenos Aires: Local autonomy claims amid state-sponsored transnationalism

This paper argues that observing neighborhood movements through the lens of territorial state restructuring holds theoretical promise. Contemporary struggles over municipal decentralization need to be located within broader state re-scaling processes. Seeking to contribute a Latin American perspective to the largely Anglo-American field of urban neoliberalization research, this study engages with the emergence of local autonomy claims in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Middle-class activists and organizations advanced such claims against the background of thorough transnationalism, in what may be interpreted as a localist political reaction to the socio-spatial consequences of urban and state restructuring. Field evidence is used to assess the ultimate political efficacy and democratic implications of their political agency, particularly in what concerns municipal decentralization. It is argued that curtailing the empowerment of barrio districts were the following conditions: mayoral opposition to communal reforms; ongoing cross-scalar tensions between the city and national government; and the barrio-centric issue framings of activists, which hampered social recruitment in an increasingly heterogeneous and transnationalized urban space.

FAITH‐BASED INITIATIVES AND THE CHALLENGES OF GOVERNANCE

The task of this paper is to offer an analysis of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI) established by George W. Bush and continued under the Obama administration based on a critical and decentred approach to governance (networks). The paper starts out by placing FBCI in the context of the welfare reform of 1996 arguing that both share certain basic assumptions, for example, regarding the nature of poverty, and that FBCI can be interpreted as a response to the relative failure of some aspects of the reform of 1996. In what follows, FBCI is analysed as a typical case of (welfare) state restructuring from government to governance. Emphasis is given to the way discourses and traditions such as communitarianism and public choice have shaped the formation of this new governance arrangement in the field of social service delivery in order to strive for a ‘decentring’ of FBCI by drawing attention to actors' beliefs and worldviews. Finally, I argue that it is not least because of a divergence of such views between policy-makers and faith-based organizations that the effect of FBCI remains for the time being limited.

‘Bodies is what makes it work’: Statecraft and urban informality in the Philadelphia recovery house movement

There are some 30,000 abandoned row houses in the city of Philadelphia. In the neighborhood of Kensington, recovery house operators have reconfigured hundreds of row homes to produce the Philadelphia recovery house movement: an extra-legal poverty survival strategy for addicts and alcoholics located in the city’s poorest and most heavily blighted zones. The purpose of this article is to explore, ethnographically, the ways in which street-level survival mechanisms articulate with the restructuring of the contemporary welfare state and the broader political economy of Philadelphia. I use ethnographic data to reveal how the recovery house, as an unplanned predatory ‘subsistence niche’ (Davis, 2006), operates in concert with the workfare state, the informal/deregulated low wage service sector, and the criminal justice system. The contradictions of the movement explain how informal street level poverty politics in areas of spatially concentrated poverty work along the periphery of post-welfare regulatory institutions.

Law and the geographic analysis of economic globalization

This article focuses on the curious absence of law in geographic accounts of state restructuring in relation to neoliberal economic globalization. It argues that law is ever-present in many of the issues at the center of geographic debates, yet rarely given sustained attention. In response, three approaches are offered, each emphasizing a different aspect of the law and each producing different geographies. First, I consider the absence as symptomatic of the problematic of state theory. Second, I review arguments from outside the discipline of geography concerning the ways actors involved in state restructuring engage with and think about the law. Third, I argue for a historical-philosophical investigation into the way that law produces the pockmarked landscape of the global economy through both the extension of legal frameworks and the legally authorized suspension of legal systems. The final section examines how these different approaches deepen our understanding of economic globalization by considering the role of transnational corporations as regulatory institutions in the global economy.

Crisis Management and Resolution: Early Lessons from the Financial Crisis

This paper compares the policy choices in recent and past crises, explains why those choices varied, and assesses the current state of financial and operational restructuring and institutional reform. While acknowledging the unique and global nature of the recent crisis and varying country circumstances, analysis suggests that the diagnosis and repair of financial institutions and overall asset restructuring are much less advanced than they should be at this stage and that moral hazard has increased. Consequently, vulnerabilities in the global financial system remain considerable and continue to threaten the sustainability of the recovery. These conclusions point to a number of steps to finish the business of financial sector repair and reform. JEL Classification Numbers: G01; G18; G32; G33; H12

Ethnic Identity, Participation and Social Justice: A Constitution for New Nepal?

AbstractFor nearly two centuries Nepal has been governed under the hegemony of three upper caste communities: Brahmins, Chettries and Newars. Under the influence of Hinduism and the monarchy, other communities, Dalits, women, indigenous peoples and the people of the southern parts were marginalised. Struggles of democracy in the 1950s were less about social justice than the access of the elite communities to increasing shares in the spoils and administration of the state, which was achieved in the 1990 Constitution. The Maoist rebellion in the mid 1990s seriously hampered the working of the Constitution, although not the hegemony of the upper caste communities. The uprising of the people against the King in April 2006 changed the context of that rebellion, accelerated the ceasefire and introduced a new constitutional agenda, based on social justice and the inclusion of the marginalised community in the affairs and institutions of the state. However, despite the overthrow of the monarchy, a multi-party government, of parties committed to fundamental state restructuring, progress towards a new dispensation has been slow. A new Constitution should have been adopted by April 2010 by an elected, representative Constituent Assembly but disagreements between the former elites, still firmly in control of politics, has diverted attention from constitutional reform.

Between Demos and Ethnos: The Nepal Constitution and Indigenous Rights

AbstractThis article examines the contested reception of the Convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (“ILO Convention 169”) in Nepal, particularly in the context of current constitutional reform and post-conflict economic development. Compelling evidence suggests that exclusionary political institutions, laws and structures have been the major cause of exclusion in contemporary Nepal. While Nepal is home to a range of different ethnic, language, religious and caste-based groups, the Adivasi Janajati (around 37 per cent of the population) consider themselves indigenous peoples. With such a sizeable minority, Nepal was the first and so far only Asian country to ratify the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169, which has considerable significance in a context of state restructuring and the accommodation of indigenous rights. The form of recognition of indigenous rights in the constitutional drafting process has created much heat, particularly over questions of autonomy and federalism, control over natural resources and land and quotas for political representation, but with less light concerning political consensus. The ILO Convention 169 has figured prominently in this process with various interpretations by different actors. Reconciling international meanings of this treaty with national interpretations used for political purposes in Nepal foregrounds a paradox existing between liberalism (in the form of rights and freedoms) and equality (democracy). Through a range of disciplinary methods, this article analyses the background to indigenous demands, the political and legal contestation over the interpretation of ILO 169 and the specific case of natural resources.

Different Forms of Governance: Responses of Two Metropolitan Regions in Turkey to State Restructuring

Important differences have recently become apparent in the forms of governance being implemented in different metropolitan regions, even among those within the same country. A number of theoretical debates attempt to explain the nature of these differences, emphasizing the importance of structural factors as well as embedded economic and social characteristics. This article aims to show that existing theoretical debates are linked by three issues that act as interfaces among them: institutions, flows in the form of material resources and regulatory power, and governance capacity and coalitions. This article explores the emerging forms of governance within the two largest metropolitan regions of Turkey, Izmir and Antalya, taking into consideration these three issues.

ENTREPRENEURIALISM IN THE GLOBALISING CITY‐REGION OF TANGIER, MOROCCO

ABSTRACTThis paper inspects the territorial and state restructuring of the globalising city‐region of Tangier. It argues that recent economic growth and transnational connections follow new forms of entrepreneurial development that aggravate social and spatial inequalities. The analysis shows that these forms of urban and regional management are embedded in the neoliberalised, yet monarch‐centric Moroccan state. Analysis of local governance arrangements demonstrates the pivotal importance of an elite cadre of urban managers within the monarchic power structure. Fieldwork evidence documents the emergence of megaprojects as preferred vehicles for entrepreneurial development through site observations, indepth interviews and archival research. The Tanger City Center project presents a case that illustrates the social and spatial implications of a restructuring territorial economy and the effects of new polarities being overlaid on existing urban and regional geographies. The paper concludes with a reflection on the comparative and relational lessons that can be drawn from Tangier's restructuring.

Culture Change as Identity Regulation: The Micro-Politics of Producing Spatial Planners in England

Attempts to reform planning systems often draw into question the attitudes and commitments of the planners charged with realising change. Since 2001 the English planning system has been subject to a complex series of reforms designed to modernise its workings. Central to this have been calls for a culture change, focusing on professional planners in the public sector. The discourse of culture change is rooted in the managerialist thinking that has been central to long-term processes of state restructuring. Du Gay describes this as a project designed to change the identities of public servants. This article therefore explores the messy ways in which reform has sought to re-regulate the identities of English planners, and the response from planners themselves as they have begun to negotiate these changes to their identities and practices. It is argued that attentiveness to the lived experience of change can help to inform a more critical and nuanced account of the normative promises of planning reform.