Marisol García

Multilevel Governance and Social Cohesion: Bringing Back Conflict in Citizenship Practices

This paper revisits the relevance of conflict in governance and citizenship practices in cities. Europe national urban policies were readjusted in terms of economic policies and state expenditures in the 1980s and then again and more severely after the 2008 financial and economic crisis. Policy discourses in urban policy have emphasised the beneficial consequences of social and political consensus in helping cities to restructure economically as part of ‘good governance’. At the same time, the paradigm of citizenship understood as a system of social and political inclusion based on economic redistribution and political participation has been substituted by one that has the objective to ensure social cohesion in societies. This substitution renounces the objectives concerning social justice, fails to face the tensions of increasing social inequalities and misses the contribution of social innovation and citizens’ practices that incorporate counter-hegemonic ideals as equally important to an effective multilevel governance. A bottom-link approach is suggested as a synthesis of the tension between top–down policies and bottom–up practices.

Citizenship practices and democratic governance: ‘Barcelona en Comú’ as an urban citizenship confluence promoting a new policy agenda

Abstract Spanish cities have suffered increasing social inequality after the 2008 economic crisis and austerity policies. However, harshening social conditions have also led to ‘acts of citizenship’. Against the background of Marshallian and Tocquevillean takes on citizenship and civil society this paper analyses the emergence of the political confluence that gained office in the municipal elections of May 2015 in Barcelona incorporating citizens’ organisations and advocacy groups. Barcelona en Comú claims a radical change in policy orientation with a renewed citizenship agenda. We argue that this is an example of urban citizenship that requires historical contextualisation. We see continuities and discontinuities between the current local governance model and agenda and the democratic local governance model established during the 1980s when civil society provided significant input. However, it is a challenge to implement an urban citizenship agenda in a globalised city with resources controlled elsewhere.

Housing and neighbourhood: basic needs, governance and social innovation: Changes, Challenges and Policy Implications for Europe in Times of Austerity

The financial crisis that began in 2008 has profoundly reorganised existing welfare state trajectories, affecting social services provision all over Europe (Martinelli, Chapter 1, in this volume). Earlier retrenchment of the State from public provision of social services and investment in public infrastructures had already modified these trajectories, also in countries not (or less) affected by the crisis. In this context, the provision of, and access to, housing is not an exception. This chapter focuses on initiatives and practices to meet needs in the area of housing and neighbourhood services that emerged from the restructuring of welfare systems and the recent, ongoing financial crisis. There is widespread agreement among contemporary scholars that housing and neighbourhoods are under particular stress as the logic of the market becomes increasingly pervasive and that the area of need has grown, affecting different social groups who are bearing the brunt of the crisis. Following Cassiers and Kesteloot (2012), there are four processes that have brought about the expansion of unmet social needs. First, there is globalisation, which directed investment toward the economic competitiveness of cities and territories in preference to the welfare of their citizens. Secondly, there is financialisation, the process of global expansion of credit, which has brought about increasing investment in real estate and an unprecedented rise in housing prices. These two processes have driven the transformation of low-cost housing areas into primary real estate developments and have induced the growth of speculative housing markets. The third process is flexibilisation of the labour market, which has led to unstable and unprotected work arrangements, temporary employment, involuntary part-time work and low-paid employment and thus to an