Frank Moulaert *
* KU Leuven, Belgium; APL, Newcastle University, UK; and MESHS, Lille, France
Brussels 21 December 2010 Outline
Problematising the dynamics of urban policy and collective action What is SINGOCOM? Theoretical background: urban regime theory, the regulation approach and cultural political economy A scalarly articulated sling-movement in European urban policy and collective action How to explain this sling-movement: discursive chains versus material factors in setting collective action in Antwerp – Multiscalarity as an escape route? What about other cities in the SINGOCOM project? Prospects for multi-level governance Problema sing the dynamics of urban policy and collec ve ac on
Over the last twenty years, a sling movement in spatial focus of European urban policy and collective action has occurred. While in the 1990s programmes such as Poverty III, the URBAN pilot projects, the Neighbourhood in Crisis programme, etc. gave a prominent role to the neighbourhood as the privileged scale at which urban strategies to combat social exclusion should be deployed, by the early 2000s the focus on this spatial scale had been challenged in both scientific and socio-political circles. The spatial focus of the policy sling moved to the city or even the urban region scale. However, nowadays, interest in the neighbourhood as an arena to elaborate social cohesion strategies has returned. But the modes on how to go ahead are far from clear.
How to explain this sling movement? And which factors could guarantee a more time-robust urban policy cum collective action? Salvation is sought in a multiscalar approach to urban governance. What is SINGOCOM ?
SINGOCOM is an EC/FP5 research project on Social Innovation and Governance in Local Communities. It examines how local (mainly neighbourhood level) socially innovative initiatives have interacted with the sociopolitical urban regimes in which they have ‘grown’ and what their impact on the development of the neighbourhood has been. The theoretical framework is largely built on the senior author’s own improvement of regulation theory (since late 1980s, in collaboration with IAD and SINGOCOM networks) to make it more feasible for local development and local development strategy analysis. The scalar dialectics have been improved on the basis of the junior author’s (post) doctoral research. The empirical work has also permitted to refine the theory. See Moulaert F. et al. (Eds.) (2010) Can neighbourhoods save the city? Community development and social innovation. Routledge. http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415485883/ Theore cal background: urban regime theory, regula on approach and cultural poli cal economy
Combining contributions from these three “theoretical families”, an urban regime and its dynamics can be characterized as follows:
- The Regulation Approach helps to identify the components of a local socio- economic system, its main actors, institutions, etc. It takes into account the relationships between the different spatial scales (example: local, regional, national, etc.) It is dynamic and explains changes of socioeconomic systems, etc.
- Urban regime theory helps to identify socio-political and socio-economic coalitions within urban socio-political regimes, their agendas, their strategies, etc.
- Cultural Political Economy looks at the role of cultural dynamics in social relations in general, political economic relations in particular. The role of identity-building processes, discourse, hegemonic and counter-hegemony building …. Theore cal background: urban regime theory, regula on approach and cultural poli cal economy: their strengths and weaknesses in urban regime analysis
Theory Strenghts Weaknesses Urban regime Identifying economic- « Scalarly lost » theory political power coalitions and Poor on discursive dimensions their agendas of regime transfomation Regulation theory Dialectics of accumulation Poor on analysing informal and regulation in urban accumulation strategies and regions non-state regulation Cultural Political Role of discursive powers Hard in recognising the limits Economy of discursive power – Taking discourse for ‘truth’ Relational Reconstruction of actor Tendency toward actant geography networks in space networks in ‘flat’ social spaces Scalar politics Stressing scale and power Underplaying role of local relations in networks agency? Integrated Area Identifying/explaining Care about ‘localism’ and Development socially innovative strategies/ ‘culture’ traps is needed (SINGOCOM) processes at local level Contribu ons/improvements from SINGOCOM to theore cal framework – as per preceding table a) SINGOCOM documents the complex socially innovative agencies of development and change in urban societies at the neighbourhood level. b) It examines the multiscalar dynamics of urban collective action and policy (‘for’ the urban communities – but which ones? And by whom and through initiatives at which scale?) c) It shows the intrinsically ethical and sociopolitical content of governance relations and agendas (e.g. reconquerring and collectively redefining public space) d) It stresses the demand of local communities for « reinstating » a regulatory state and a welfare state to support community-driven socially innovative initiatives. SINGOCOM shows how state-civil society-private sector collaboration within an interscalar spatial setting is essential for establishing a time and space- robust governance system supporting community-driven socially innovative initiatives. (A ‘resilient’ governance system, if we want to speak ‘à la mode’.) e) SINGOCOM stresses the ‘environmental’ as a new noneconomic sector of collective action. f) Path-dependency of socially innovative initiatives is clearly shown in this research. A scalarly ar culated sling-movement in European urban policy and collec ve ac on
One of the expected and confirmed findings of SINGOCOM is that the change in urban policy orientation at the EU level has had a significant impact on the potential impact of socially innovative initiatives at the local (say neighbourhood) level. The movement from ‘bottom-up’ integrated area development in the 1990s structural policy, the Urban Pilot Projects and Urban I over a more economic- physicalist approach in Urban II to a (once more) sectoral, city-wide and more top-down approach in the post Community Initiatives and post URBAN contemporary era, has left community-based initiatives somewhat orphaned. This return to a sectoral, city-wide and more top-down approach has created more space for local authorities to engage with market-geared, city-wide urban development strategies. (And, from the perspective of analysis, more space for ‘authentic’ regime theory when addressing growth coalition strategies.) However this ‘return’ sling movement does not mean that socially innovative creative initiatives are extradited. In fact they are often integrated into the ‘new’ urban regime, as we will illustrate for the Antwerp case. But the active role of the local scale has largely become disempowered. How to explain this sling-movement? Discursive chains versus material factors in the Antwerp case
Discursive selective moments (Hay, Sum, …) play an important role in the making and remaking of urban policy and urban collective action.
Some examples should show how discursive moments on the one hand lead their own life (affect ‘material’ factors such as investment decisions; grow away from ‘real development’) while on the other hand become very instrumental to regime change, coalition building, counter-hegemonic movements etc.
Scales can become core discursive themes (e.g. praise the urban region into heaven but with detriment to the neighbourhood). A’p 3: Urban regime change in Antwerp - sequel
Our analysis has revealed how Antwerp urban development policy has experienced a “full” sling movement from traditional physicalism (including social housing construction) in the 1970s, (back to) city- marketing oriented project development in the early 2000s. Let’s look briefly at the different stages.
As a reaction against the 1960s functionalist line of city sanitation, in the 1970s City Hall became preoccupied by the revalorisation of its historical centre. But after the merger of Antwerp municipalities in 1983 and under pressure from neighbourhood groups and community development professionals, urban policy began to focus on particular renewal (gentrification) areas of the 19th century belt. A’p 4: Urban regime changes in Antwerp …
This policy fitted the mainly small-scale but physicalist view of urban development in that period. It was strongly criticised by community development organizations, including the official RISO (Regional Institute for Community Building) and, from 1990 onwards, amidst growing awareness of urban fragmentation along political, social and economic lines, attention shifted to the most deprived areas in Antwerp, those particularly affected by the restructuring of the urban economy and its harbour.
Socially inspired by these organizations, and financially supported by European and regional funds, the local government pursued a social inclusion policy in specific neighbourhoods. A’p 5: Urban regime change in Antwerp ….
City Hall progressively adopted an “integrated” neighbourhood development and positive spatial discrimination approach, to the benefit of deprived neighbourhoods and groups, as prototyped by the then newly established civil society agent, the neighbourhood agency BOM. During this period most community development, neighbourhood and work provision organizations received increasing recognition by different sectors of urban society.
But confronted with negative socio-economic scores - or discourse about?- increasing public debt and growing dissatisfaction among a population cleverly manipulated by the extreme right, City Hall has favoured, especially from 2000 on, an “integral” urban policy focused mainly on real estate development and participation from the population city-wide represented by their district councils. Urban policy was scalarly refocused to ‘the city as a whole’, ‘the city region’. A’p 6: . Urban regime changes in Antwerp…
The priority list for each neighbourhood was established by each new District authority, as embodied in the new policy of devolution to the nine city districts. Increasingly, civil society organizations had to cope with the City’s “divide and rule” policy or with dis-curs-ive interventions aimed at discrediting them (early 2000s).
The advent of the new regional and federal City Funds which in Antwerp were managed by the autonomous municipal real-estate company VESPA and, later on, by the Strategic Cell in the city administration, has increased the influence of the “physicalist” and “new economy” approach – in a sense a return to the policy of the 1970s and early 1980s – and of the “safety and security obsession” by which the extreme right has kept the City Government hostage. A’p 7. Urban regime change in Antwerp…
The social dimension of City Hall’s urban policy of the late 1980s and the larger part of the 1990s has evaporated in favour of a market oriented growth policy for the city as a whole, meaning all its neighbourhoods - rich and poor. A social wellbeing model which in practice worked relatively well, lost the ‘discourse battle’ and had to give way to an economic welfare model (Antwerp City, 2000).
Discourse battle: grand discourse of NUP, urban renewal, city marketing, creative entrepreneurial city, discrediting Civil Society organizations and social policy. However: revival of social movements challenging the mobility plan, transportation infrastructure, … Social movements are now more oriented toward urban region-wide struggles. (In this way they follow the scale- jumping of the leading public actors.) And the other SINGOCOM case studies ?
In general, the positive – enabling – role of EU programmes and funding (Anti-poverty, URBAN, etc.), especially in the 1990s, must be stressed. In many cases (BOM, AQS, Alentour, …) the availability of EU funds, beyond and above the established local, regional and national support and provisions, represented a crucial opportunity for empowering organizations and making them recognised actors in negotiations with local authorities. However, since the reorientation of Structural Policy things have changed.
Overall, our case studies are all struggling to remain innovative and, equally important, to survive. The current policy shifts occurring, at all government scales, towards narrowly defined economic and efficiency criteria, a reliance on real estate development for urban regeneration, the privatisation or externalisation of service provision, a re- conquest of public spaces by either private businesses or technocratic local governments are increasingly pushing civil society ‘change agents’ out of the social scene or forcing them to transform into mainstream social service or project managers. Moreover, the dwindling and erratic nature of funding is increasingly undermining innovative organizations, whose efforts in accomplishing alternative ways of responding to basic needs, changing social relations and empowering the excluded populations are diverted towards the task of fund-hunting and complying with spending requirements. Prospects for neighbourhood development within a mul scalar governance system
In this presentation we addressed two main questions: 1) How to explain this sling movement in urban regime and the role of socially innovative initiatives? 2) And which factors could guarantee a more time-robust urban policy cum collective action? Salvation is sought in a multi-scalar approach to urban governance.
Understanding now the role of supra-local governance scales in catalysing Social Innovation… … and having seen the often disastrous consequences of changes in policy and collective action at such scales… … we review pointers towards sustainable social innovation strategies, political changes and policy initiatives – at a variety of geographical scales, but especially the EU – that might enhance and strengthen the proliferation of such initiatives and their wider urban and societal impact. Prospects for neighbourhood development within a mul scalar governance system
But: we should keep in mind that socially innovative neighbourhood initiatives aim at achieving three interrelated objectives. The discussion of governance and policy issues has to be understood and explored in connection to these aims. Talking about governance we especially want to stress the third objective which is to contribute to change social relations and power structures within the community but also between local groups and external actors, especially to change the modalities of governance in the direction of more inclusive and democratic practices and the pursuit of multi-scalar political participation systems. Prospects for neighbourhood development within a mul scalar governance system
So, which pointers are we talking about?
The analysis supports the view that ‘higher scale’ (EU, national, regional, …) policy and financial support often have a leverage effect on generating and maintaining socially innovative dynamics in urban development. But it also shows that the innovative spark from the communities often gets lost in the maelstrom of top-down politics, swings in urban regimes and inflexible bureaucratic practice.
To let the innovative initiatives become socially effective requires sensitivity to local activist and civil society initiatives and their dynamics on the one hand and to the particular arrangement between state and market in which they operate on the other. Pointers (finally …)
On the side of socially innovative initiatives (P.M.): « Can neighbourhoods save the city? », Chapter 15.
On the side of public institutions and policy: (see table 15.2) Political inititiatives. Example: local empowerment and civil society insertion require (political) citizen rights. Effective state-civil society articulation necessitates the granting of European political citizenship rights to all local area residents. Policy initiatives: a) The fostering of collective contracts between civil society organizations and local, national, or EU policy framework. b) Focus on active socially innovative initiatives as pointers for support rather than traditional territorially focused policies. c) Establishing cross-scalar and inter-local networks of socially innovative initiatives across the European space. d) Providing points of direct access for civil society initiatives at the national and EU level. Funding initiatives. Example: The formation and direct funding of European networks of socially innovative initiatives. Bibliography
Christiaens, E., Moulaert, F., Bosmans, B. (2007) The end of social innovation in urban development strategies? The case of Antwerp and the neighbourhood development association 'BOM'. European Urban and Regional Studies, 14 (3), 238-251. Gibbs, D., Jonas, A. and While, A. (2002) Changing governance structures and the environment: economy – environment relations at the local and regional scales. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 4, 123–138. Moulaert, F., Martinelli, F., Gonzalez, S., Swyngedouw, E. (2007) Introduction: Social innovation and governance in European cities - Urban development between path dependency and radical innovation. European Urban and Regional Studies, 14 (3), 195-209. Moulaert, F., Martinelli, F., Swyngedouw, E. and Gonzalez, S. (2010) Can neighbourhoods save the city? London: Routledge. Parra, C. (2010) Sustainability and multi-level governance of territories classified as protected areas: the Morvan regional park case. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 53(4) pp. 491-509.