Final Thesis Fearless Cities

THE RISE OF THE FEARLESS CITIES NETWORK Using local governance to tackle global issues and the development of ‘Fearless City’ Amsterdam fearless city amsterdam Photo: BNNVARA (2017), edit: Author (2019) Author: Suzan de Jong Master Thesis Student ID: 10574727 Master: Political Science Supervisor: Dr. A. Afsahi Second Reader: Dr. L. W. Fransen Date: 21-06-2019 !1 !2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 4 2. Theoretical Framework 6 2.1 The Fearless Cities network 6 2.2 Radical Urban Theories 7 2.2.1 Introduction 7 2.2.2 Bookchin’s (1991) ‘Libertarian Municipalism 7 2.2.3 Lefebvre’s (1968) ‘Right to the City’ 8 2.2.4 Harvey’s (2012) ‘Rebel Cities’ 10 2.2.5 Barber’s (2013) ‘If Mayors Ruled the World’ 11 2.3 Beyond theories: going into existing city networks 12 2.3.1 Studies of city governance and networks 12 2.3.2 The C40 network 13 2.3.3 The Sanctuary Cities network 14 3. Methodology 16 3.1 Research strategy 16 3.2 Research methods and data collection 16 3.3 Limitations 17 4. Analyzing the Fearless Cities Movement 18 4.1 The Fearless Cities Network: A network of cities or of organizations 18 4.2 Unraveling the Fearless Cities ideology 20 4.2.1 A ‘new’ municipalist ideology 20 4.2.2 Altering the way we do and think of politics 20 4.3: So: how new is the ‘new’ municipalist movement? 23 5. Amsterdam, a Fearless City? 25 5.1 Introduction 25 5.2 Contextual challenges 25 5.3 Application of the Fearless Cities ideology in Amsterdam 26 5.4 What does this entail for the meaning of Fearless Cities? 29 6. Discussion and conclusions 30 6.1 Discussion 30 6.2 Conclusions 33 7. Literature 34 !3 Chapter 1: Introduction City governance is all the rage right now. The idea that national and supranational governments have failed us and that our democracy is in jeopardy is gaining ground both in the media and in public discourse. The answer to this is increasingly searched and found in our municipalities, our local councils, and our neighborhoods. Bringing politics back to the local level is beginning to be viewed as the secret formula against all of the challenges we currently face. Just take these news articles’ headings as an example: ‘Don’t look to national politics for hope: you’ll find it thriving in local councils’ (Harris, 2019), ‘Why cities are on the front lines of the climate change fight’ (Roberts et al., 2018), ‘Tackling global problems? Look to cities, not countries’ (Muggah, 2017), and the list goes on. So what is it about cities that people now look at them to tackle global issues? Why do they sprout so much hope? While the world is struggling to cope with challenges such as climate change, inequality, the rise of populism, and migration, cities are increasingly taking matters into their own hands. They do so by connecting and creating networks, thereby increasing their relative power vis-a-vis other levels of governance (Muggah, 2017). Think of examples such as the famous C40 network that consists out of cities battling climate change (C40, 2019), the U20 network that enhances the role of cities in the G20 agenda (Urban20, 2019), and the sanctuary city network that is composed of cities that welcome refugees and thereby disobey national policies (Kopan, 2018). Although these networks all focus on specific issues, there is another network of which its main purpose seems to be the reconfiguration of the democratic system as a whole by further empowering cities to take on such issues: the Fearless Cities network. The Fearless Cities network was born during its first summit in June 2017, when more than 700 participants from all over the world came together in Barcelona to discuss bottom-up city politics. This event had a broad resonance and the Fearless City network quickly grew in scope and popularity after (Russell, 2019a). The network beliefs that the municipality is the most suitable level to improve democracy since it’s closest to the people and thereby more easily facilitates aspects such as political participation, transparency, and accountability. It allows a quicker and more active way of doing politics than the national level and can therefore provide an escape from the political deadlock that national governments too often find themselves in (Bookchin & Colau, 2019). While Barcelona is the absolute frontrunner, many other cities have followed its example, such as Naples, Bologna, Grenoble, and New York (Russell, 2019a; Ultratel, 2017). Although the network is growing rapidly and being ‘fearless’ is becoming a popular buzzword in the !4 world of urban movements and politics, a clear understanding of the Fearless Cities network is still up for grabs (Russell, 2019b; Balkind, 2016). There is only little understanding about the drivers of cities to join the Fearless Cities network. This also counts for Amsterdam. In its new coalition agreement, Amsterdam states that it will join the Fearless Cities network and organize a Fearless Cities summit in 2020. It even aims to become the frontrunner in the terrain of Fearless Cities (Coalitieakkoord Amsterdam, 2018; Gemeente Amsterdam, 2019a). This coalition agreement has sparked many critical reactions from more right-wing politicians. Also the Dutch prime minister Rutte has acclaimed to be unhappy with this leftist direction (Milikowski, 2018). Although the execution of these plans will result in profound changes to Amsterdam’s socio-political system, no academic research has been carried out to understand how the ideology of Fearless Cities could be positioned in Amsterdam and what its effects would be. This research aims to create a better understanding of the ideology of the Fearless Cities network and of how the Fearless Cities network can be related to or distinguished from other series of local governance pushes and existing theories about urban politics. Moreover, this research will explore how the concept of Fearless Cities is applied in Amsterdam. Amsterdam serves as an interesting case to study this, since it has different socio-economic characteristics than the movements ‘mothership’ Barcelona, which makes it interesting to discover whether the Fearless Cities ideology is context specific or if it has the potential to be applied to a diverse array of contexts worldwide. The research will be centered around the following research question: “What is new about the Fearless Cities network and to what extent is it’s ideology applicable to the socio-economic context of Amsterdam?” This thesis will begin with providing theoretical background and discussing urban theories and city networks that are closely aligned to the Fearless Cities network. This will be followed by the methodological section, where the research strategy and the research methods will be explained. The following chapter will go into an analysis of the ideology and structure of the Fearless Cities network, in order to understand how it can be differentiated from previous networks. Subsequently, the way in which the ideology is applied in Amsterdam will be analyzed, which serves to explore whether Amsterdam can become a Fearless City. The thesis will be finished with a discussion and conclusion. !5 Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework 2.1 The Fearless Cities network The Fearless Cities network was born in Barcelona. The pushing force behind the creation of the network was the political party ‘Barcelona en Comú’ (BComú), which is a social movement and citizen platform that came to office in 2015 and catapulted Barcelona’s current mayor: Ada Colau (Russell, 2019; Burgen, 2016). With BComú as its flagship, the network embraces the political structure that the platform has developed in Barcelona and aims to draw parallels in cities elsewhere. In order to understand the Fearless Cities network, it is therefore crucial to understand the origins and ideology of BComú as well (Russell, 2019). BComú was born out of a coalition of already established local leftist parties and the 15-M movement. It was created in 2014, and already won the 2015 municipal elections as the biggest political party. The party is constructed as a citizen platform, which entails that they avoid the traditional political party structure and allow every individual to participate in politics. It’s a philosophy of cooperation based on shared priorities and concrete goals, instead of getting trapped in the endless discussions between different political parties. BComú beliefs that a citizen platform should not be led by a political party, but instead should be developed from the social reality of the city and be led by its citizens. It argues that there can only be one citizen platform within a city and stresses the importance of an equal gender balance (Bieckmann, 2017). From the moment that BComú took office, it has sought connections with municipalist organizations from all over the world in order to exchange experiences and best practices. These organizations increasingly started to work together, which resulted in the creation of the Fearless Cities network (Bookchin & Colau, 2019). Being born from the political force BComú, the Fearless Cities network could be understood as a movement that aims to radically transform the way we do politics and perceive democracy by decentralizing power, stimulating citizens’ participation, and making politics more pragmatic and action-based. The movement uses three concepts to define itself: decentralized, diverse, and pragmatic. Although it is often referred to with terms such as Rebel Cities, Cities of Change, democratic confederalism, and communalism, it self-identifies as a municipalist movement (Bookchin & Colau, 2019). Municipalism can therefore be understood as the most important theoretical building block of the movement’s ideology and is one of the ideologies that will be further elaborated upon in the next chapter.

Load more