Impacts of Urban Movements in Local Governance

Research on the consequences of social movements is a very debated topic recently (for example, Bosi et al. 2016). The global wave of protests and mobilisations in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis has also renewed the interest on both global and local dimensions of social movements (Flesher 2014). Urban movements, in particular, are also enjoying more attention from scholars after decades of being widely neglected within the field of social movement studies (Cattaneo et al., 2014, Andretta et al. 2015, Jacobsson et al. 2015; Mayer et al. 2016). On the other hand, institutionalist approaches have dominated theories on urban governance and participatory planning (for example, Healey 2003) which is preventing a better understanding of the contentious relationships between autonomous, radical and mainly non-institutionally-oriented urban movements and local authorities. Urban movements comprise long-lasting mobilisations in the fields of urban goods, services, public spaces and infrastructures, although quite often they also combine different struggles of urban activism focused on single-issues of collective consumption, urban planning and politics at local and metropolitan scales. The aim of this Section is to share theoretical and empirical research on the impacts that urban movements have had on local government and governance (by assuming the latter as a policy approach in which bottom-up and networked decision-making processes come to the fore). This would entail questions such, and not limited to, the following: * The consequences of the co-option of movement activists and organisations by local governments * Responsive municipal and metropolitan policies regarding the urban movements' demands * Participatory policies with controversial inclusion and exclusion of urban activists as stakeholders * Non-institutional impacts of urban movements and indirect linkages with local governance processes * Advancements in terms of urban commons and the right to the city due to urban movements-activism * Specific outcomes of anti-austerity and anti-neoliberal movements at local scales * Dominant strategies aiming at controlling and integrating urban movements by local authorities * Resistance strategies by urban movements to use local opportunities and overcome repression Proposals focused on European cities as well as on other urban contexts elsewhere, especially those dated after 2008, are welcome. Critical, post-structuralist and political-economy approaches, let alone discussions with the prevailing paradigms in the fields of social movement studies and local governance, are also preferred. References: Andretta, M. Piazza, G. and Subirats, A. (2015) Urban Dynamics and Social Movements. In Della Porta, D. and Diani, M. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bosi, L., Giugni, M. and Uba, K. (eds.) (2016) The consequences of social movements. Cambridge: Cambrdige University Press. Cattaneo, C. and Martínez, M. (eds.) (2014) The Squatters' Movement in Europe: Commons and Autonomy as Alternatives to Capitalism. London: Pluto. Flesher, C. (2014) Social movements and Globalisation. London: Palgrave. Healey, P. (2003) Collaborative Planning in Perspective. Planning Theory 2(2): 101-123. Jacobsson, K. (ed.) (2015) Urban grassroots movements in central and Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate. Mayer, M., Thorn, C. and Thorn, H. (eds.) (2016) Urban uprisings. Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe. London: Palgrave.