Social Innovation and Civil Society in Urban Governance: Strategies for an Inclusive City
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Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 11, 2007–2021, October 2005 Social Innovation and Civil Society in Urban Governance: Strategies for an Inclusive City Julia Gerometta, Hartmut Ha¨ussermann and Giulia Longo [Paper first received, June 2004; in final form, June 2005] Summary. Processes of socioeconomic polarisation and social exclusion mark contemporary cities. In many countries, welfare states are in crisis, suffering from post-Fordist transformations. In cities, new ways of governance are needed to overcome the consequences of economic, social and political restructuring. This article seeks to explore the role of civil society in new urban governance arrangements that will hopefully contribute to counter the trends towards social exclusion. While aware of the ambiguity of civil society’s role in rebuilding governance relationships, it is argued that, under certain conditions, civil society is found to be a valuable contributor towards more cohesive cities and governance arrangements that promote them. Such conditions involve the existence of a multiscalar democratic governance regime that favours public deliberation and social economy initiatives. 1. Introduction development of new social integration strat- egies. We use the social exclusion dimensions European cities exhibit rising levels of social outlined in the third section of this paper to exclusion. This article seeks to contribute to operationalise these three core dimensions a conceptualisation of ‘social innovation’ in into the role of civil society and its impact urban development, which focuses in particu- on institutional change, governance dynamics lar on the processes aimed at countering social 1 and empowerment. exclusion. The term ‘social innovation’ is We are concerned mainly with two spatial introduced in this Special Topic (see Moulaert scales: the city and the smaller localities or et al.) with three core dimensions: the satisfac- neighbourhoods within it; but we also include tion of human needs (content dimension); urban conurbations. The city, not primarily changes in social relations especially with the countryside, was the spatial focus and regard to governance (process dimension); engine of the Industrial Revolution, of social and an increase in the socio-political capabi- struggle against capitalist exploitation and lity and access to resources (empowerment the emergence of socioeconomic life as we dimension). Social innovation is understood know it today, with its regulated labour as both a normative and analytical concept markets and welfare systems. Large families in the formation and analysis of solutions to with a subsistence economy gave way to social exclusion problems in European cities smaller families and an increasing individuali- and one with an eventual input into the sation of social and economic life. Under these Julia Gerometta, Hartmut Ha¨ussermann and Giulia Longo are in the Department of Urban and Regional Sociology, Humboldt Uni- versity Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, D-10099 Berlin, Germany. Fax: 49 30 2093 4213. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; and [email protected].þ The authors would like to thank the following colleagues for inspiring discussions, comments and hints to earlier versions of this paper and the research it is embedded in: Erik Swyngedouw, Frank Moulaert, Patsy Healey, Steve Graham, Matthew Gandi, Sara Gonzales, Lena Schulz zur Wiesch, Katrin Luise La¨zer and Christian Bru¨tt. 0042-0980 Print=1360-063X Online=05=112007–15 # 2005 The Editors of Urban Studies DOI: 10.1080=00420980500279851 2008 JULIA GEROMETTA ET AL. conditions, insurance against unemployment governance of urban localities. We also was more urgent in the city than in the country- address the critical aspects found in the litera- side. The current crisis within the welfare state ture. Finally, we use a Hegelian approach to is greater within cities because, in the case of philosophy and to the concept of civil social exclusion, there is a greater erosion society, to deduce aspects which are crucial here of the conditions for the replacement of for social innovation under conditions of welfare services. In general, family ties are social exclusion. limited and weak, providing little support; According to our analysis, civil society is the availability of land for cultivation and and always will be supplementary to the other means of reproduction is very restricted. local state and will never replace it. The Individualisation fosters social fragmentation, rights and legal guarantees which only a emphasises the fault lines between different state can grant are a pre-condition for an social groups and thus limits possibilities for inclusive civil society, as we show in sections integration. At the same time, cities as places 4 and 5. Where crisis develops as a response to of crisis are also places of innovation in gov- new and changing social conditions and inter- ernance relations and institutions and are the ests, civil society can alternatively take the primary arenas of social movements and role of reproducing as well as amending other civil society social experiments. the state’s vision and the embodiment of In this article, we highlight the role of civil the general interest it represents. This role, society in social innovation initiatives and supplementary to those of local states, and organisation. Efficiency-oriented governance located between an innovatory sphere and a relationships within the New Urban Policy, sphere of production of welfare, is analysed such as large project-oriented public–private in greater detail in this article. Furthermore, partnerships often result in more exclusionary we show that certain conditions need to institutions (Moulaert et al., 2002, 2003). apply for local social innovation, driven by Beyond doubt, in the sphere of the reproduc- civil society, to occur: different spatial scales tion of public interests, civil society has and their welfare regimes need to be inter- been found to have potential for innovation mediated in a way that prevents putting local towards needs-satisfaction, with institutional social innovation at risk through develop- change allowing more effective action and ments and actions at higher spatial scales; the development of other socially innovative the deliberation of issues needs to be anti- processes (see the literature on welfare state exclusionary, and thus truly public, and local restructuring, for example: Offe, 2002; social economy experiences need welfare Jessop, 2002) as well as the local development state support. literature (see, for example, Taylor, 2000). We attempt to analyse civil society by examining 2. The Crisis of the Welfare State and the local governance dynamics in order to identify Rise of Aspirations towards Civil Society in factors critical to social integration. We begin Urban Governance with a description of the crisis in the modern welfare state and subsequent new develop- The present crisis facing the welfare state has ments, especially in local welfare regimes. endogenous as well as exogenous causes. Then we model the dynamics of social Exogenous to the actual welfare state are the exclusion in urban societies drawing on the internationalisation of national economies, approaches of the French sociologist and the increase in international competition philosopher Robert Castel (1995) and the which puts pressure on cost structures, curtail- German sociologist Martin Kronauer (1999, ment of national economic and fiscal policy 2002). Next, we present current ideas for autonomy through European Union regu- welfare state restructuring of civil society, lations and the general conception of the thereby highlighting the potential inherent in opposing effects of levelled wages on this sphere of social organisation for the one side and production sites’ positions in SOCIAL INNOVATION 2009 the geography of competition on the other. entrepreneurs and their representations are Endogenous causes are the lower productivity the driving forces of the global neo-liberal rises in large sections of the service economy regime, which Jessop also calls a “successful and consequent lower or more slowly growing hegemonic project” (p. 455), which is the state income and tax revenues, the erosion of outcome of “successful exercise of political, ‘normal’ employment regimes and the pro- intellectual, and moral leadership” (p. 455). liferation of maturing welfare states as a At the same time, the Keynesian welfare result of demographic change (for example, national state is in severe crisis and is being an ageing population as well as the increasing transformed following the end of Atlantic role of women in the labour market), with its Fordism. The associated mixed economy is demands for new welfare measures (Lu¨tz, also undergoing crises, as shown by the deve- 2004). Alongside the crisis in state financial lopments in east Asia, the collapse of the foundations lies the erosion of the moral Soviet bloc and the rise of new social move- basis for redistributional politics. This is due ments in response to economic, political and to the on-going process of social individuali- social changes. sation (work responsibility, financial indepen- Liberalism according to Jessop (2002) can dence) and neo-liberal orientations fostering be seen as a ‘spontaneous philosophy’ in capi- individualist ethics. Since its foundation, the talist societies. It corresponds with four of its welfare state has relied on traditional forms features: private property, free