Urban Struggles in Post-Socialist Societies

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OperatiOn:City 2008

the neOliberalFrOntline: UrbanStrUggleS inpOSt-SOCialiStSOCietieS[Zagreb, 04. 12. - 07. 12. 2008.]

COnFerenCe newSletter


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OperatiO

n:City

phOtOStreaM

2: The Neoliberal Frontline: Urban Struggles in Post-Socialist Societies, . . . . .

Minor and major

Setting the scope of con-ference on neoliberal-ism and Eastern Europewe have made a calcu-lated risk, starting on

rhetorical level. The methodolog-ical risk is evident in conjoiningtwo denominations signifyingthe least of all and the most of all.On the one hand, there is a signi-fier with almost inexhaustiblescope: neoliberalism - whichtoday denotes all there is frommeasures one must take to repairbroken windows in city districts,to everyday work stress, machina-tions of global high finances andthe aspects of the political inter-ventionism. On the other hand,Eastern Europe is the regionwhose proverbially assumed lackand deficiency makes any positivedetermination almostunattainable.

Minor and major, all or noth-ing. Does this rhetorical and logi-

cal convergence in fact make anotherwise improbable relation ofEastern Europe and neoliberalismviable, in as much as the broadestpossible scope of the signifyingrange of the term neoliberalismat some point implodes intomeaninglessness?

We are assuming that this isthe case and that convergence ofneoliberalism and Eastern Europeinto semantic indeterminationand analytical uselessness, dislo-cates the known models of inter-pretation and action.

As the prime example we havetaken city-space as a paradigm ofneoliberal strategies and the re-

sistance to them. This is not theonly way to question the neolib-eral practice, but we are takingthis stand this is probably thefastest and the most operativeway to summarize all the diver-gent strategies of neoliberalism.

While back in the days of mod-ernisation in the urban environ-ment some kind of fragile andprecarious balance has been at-tained between public and pri-vate interests - which was reflect-ed on spatial organization of thecities with creation of so calledpublic space neoliberal doctrinefor its proclaimed goal has chosento deregulate public city space

and to privatize it altogether.But, in comparison to usual in-terpretation of neoliberal globali-sation processes which find theimpact of globalisation on the lo-cal societies as a top-down action,

i.e. regarding them as the processdominated by transnational, glo-bal actors, the privatisation of thepublic city space could be seen,using here Saskia Sassens termi-nology, in the light of globalisa-tion as denationalisation. In otherwords, denationalisation markshere the phenomenon where thelocal societies themselves withtheir own measures and ways ofsocial regulation dissolve the clas-sical framework of nation state resulting in sort of bottom-upglobalisation. If globalisation isunderstood as the complex resultof both processes (the umbrellalike and subterranean one), theproblematic of public space showssimilar complex and vague fea-tures.

The public city space, that ker-nel of social development andmodernisation, today is limitedby processes of a top-down-glo-balisation and a bottom-up-dena-tionalisation, and determined by

still not sufficiently understoodrelationship between physicaland digital. The clear cut neoliber-al answer to this hybrid and am-biguous situation is the total pri-vatisation of the public space.

Neoliberalism compressedThe parameter of speed, urgen-

cy and operationality that wehave noted in relation to descrip-tion of neoliberalism is inscribedin the very neoliberal rhetoric,which additionally shows the ex-tent of permeability of the linesof resistance, witnessing thateven transgressive practices canwell become instruments in

achieving the social consensus.Operation:city, under whichmoniker this conference takesplace, makes this important dif-ferentiation: operation-city ver-sus intervention into the city. Op-erationality and operativity asopen, collective processes of re-flecting, decision-making andacting as opposed to random in-terventionism of expert drivenexclusivist politics.

The problem, and not onlymethodological one, which we areaware of, is that operativity ofwhich we speak of is not a deter-mination characterized by sole andunanimous mis-en-oeuvre of dif-

ferent desires and intentions, butthat we are following here an ar-ticulation of intertwined circle ofdemands that are not a prioripromising to come to a closure dur-ing their own operationalisation.

intrO

DUCtiOn

iMpreSSUMNewsletter editors Leonardo Kovaevi, Tomislav Medak, Petar Milat,

Marko SananinDesign Ruta

Print

Zagreb, December 2008.

OperatiOn:City 2008 www.operacijagrad.org

Organised by Alliance for the Centre for Independent Culture and Youth Multimedia Institute

Platforma 9,81 - Institute for Research in Architecture

BLOK - Local Base for Culture Refreshment

Clubture Network

Partners Analog

Community Center Mosor

Kontejner | bureau of contemporary art praxis

Right to the City Initiative

Project team Teodor Celakoski, Tomislav Domes,

Tomislav Medak, Petar Milat, Ana Plani, Marko Sananin, Sonja Soldo, Emina Vini,

Katarina Pavi

Donors Ministry of Culture of Republic of Croatia

City Office for Education, Culture and Sports

(City of Zagreb)

Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

European Cultural Foundation

Balkan Trust for Democracy

Petar MilatIntroduction

PH

OTO

BYAnaHuman

COntentS

02Petar Milat Introduction

04

Neil Smith New urbanism

06Jason Hackworth Challenging the neoliberal city

09Boris Buden God is back in town

12 Stefan Nowotny Filtered inclusion / Postsocietalism in the neoliberal ages

15 Boyan Manchev Few preliminary notes concerning theneutralisation of the city

by a contemporary Sofia flneur

18Artemy Magun

Ideas towards the postsocialist Left

19Keller Easterling The wrong story

22 Ines Weizman The destruction of participation and of housing in Leipzig-Grnau

25Doina Petrescu How to reclaim the common?

26 Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber (Urban Subjects US)

27 Thomas Campbell & Dmitry Vorobyev

Urban planning in contemporary Petersburg:Renovation, population, resistance

28Brian Holmes Mega-gentrification Limits of an urban paradigm

30 Who is whopetarMilat


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The operationality taken asnorm asks for responsible andconsequential, efficient andmeasured behaviour, but calls forludic, ignorant and stubborn ac-tions, as well. Taken as a norm oroperational stand it transversallycuts through professions, life-styles and social groups creating

a real political solidarity againstprivatisation and gentrification.

Neoliberalism,neoliberalisms?

How many neoliberalismsthere are today? This questiondoesnt concern only the defini-tion and taxonomy of neoliberaltypes, but it addresses the veryfoundation of what we call neo-liberalism. Neoliberalism, on the

one hand, seams as a well-estab-lished technical term, but it is es-

sentially pejorative, and there-fore polemic one. Talking aboutneoliberlisam, even if we want itor not, declares our views. But,other aspect of this term seems asmore characteristic and more im-portant: neoliberalism is a demar-cation of the places or processeswhere the systemic categories are

transferred and translated intogeo-spatial categories. We couldargue that neoliberalism, there-fore, is not solely an independentassembly of practices and con-cepts, nor a description of new

global order, but a phenomenonfor whose terminological designa-tion the spatial extension bares agreat importance, in the sameway as in geographical context,neoliberalism doesnt represent anew geopolitical intuition, but itis rather seen as a description ofnew spatial constellations definedby concrete measures.

All of this makes of neoliberal-ism something new: neoliberal-ism is a system-space and notion-space, and we cant dispense withit recalling classical matrix of ide-ology and world order.

We can answer the question ofhow many neoliberalisms there isi.e. the question of its unanimityand/or multiplicity, by analyzingthe extent of intersection be-

tween system and space.If we consider neoliberalism as

an uniform global narrative wheresystem and space are almost com-pletely overlapped, then we aretalking about the assemblage ofdifferent measures that haveeventually brought to dissolutionthe modern wellfare-state. Neo-liberalism, for example, incitescomplete liberation of the mar-ket, privatization of the publicgoods, and exclusively limitedstate-intervention into domain ofeconomy and trade.

This neoliberal model achievesits full affirmation in the begin-ning of 90s, with the new wave of

globalization. From this momenton, the neoliberal economicalmeasures are founded on alreadyuneven level of development ofworld regions and societies, mak-ing existing difference betweennations and regions all the moreprofound. The factual freedom ofgoods and capital circulation - asneoliberal peers are calling upon -doesnt lead to freedom of humancirculation. On the contrary, thedeclarative freedom of the choicefor many people has been dimin-ished to exploitative work thatdoesnt even provide for their ba-sic needs, even in the countries ofthe North (working-poor phe-

nomenon). For the elite, however,new way of managing the econo-my brings surplus profits, based inthe great extent on the extraordi-nary development of the informa-tion technologies that have con-

nected our globe into a tight net-work - or at least that part of theplanet that possesses and managesinformation currents.

Neoliberalism, described inthis way, creates the circumstanc-es where a few enjoy all the bene-fits of this rapid technological de-velopment, while great majorityof world population is destined tolive in a permanent poverty onthe margins of megalopolises.David Harvey equals this withthe processes of primary accumu-lation, calling neoliberal socialsetup accumulation by dispos-session.

But, if we regard the overlap-ping of system and space in a lesstotal way, we will face ourselveswith a story, or better, with limit-

less stories about neoliberalism,which are almost untranslatableand incomprehensible outsidethe context of its own emergence.

Croatian society, for example,experienced the effects of neolib-eral economy politics, with a de-lay, only in the recent years -mainly because of the war, andpartially because of the economi-cal transition (transformationand privatization) which is some-what similar to certain neoliberalpremises, but is isolated fromwider, global courses.

In this loose narrative, neolib-eralism is more an exception thanthe rule and it happens in strictly

defined spatial pockets. Neoliber-al practices parasitize here on al-ready existent infrastructures,and extra/surplus profit is createdby taking into account the differ-ential between various regionsand spaces.

Neoliberalism: it is simultane-ously a name for the new histori-cal phase of capitalism, and apractice difficult to define whichhas tendency to parasitize on al-ready established models, usingand deepening previously exist-ing differences.

Petar MilatIntroduction

PHOTO

BYRuta

PHOTO

BYRuta

Convergence of neoliberalism and Eastern Europe intosemantic indetermination and analytical uselessness

dislocates the known models of interpretation and action

Creating a real political solidarity againstprivatisation and gentrification

PHOTO

BYRuta


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is highly uneven and not neces-sarily universal, with the USorChinese state enjoying a quite dif-ferent fate from Malaysia orZim-babwe. For example, Mszros(2001) has argued that the ambi-tionof the US state seems to beits transformation into a global state, and the conduct of the bru-tal war on terrorismin realityawar for global hegemony (Smithforthcoming)seems to confirmthis analysis. Yet the sources ofincreased economic porosity atthenational scale are undeniable:communications and financial de-regulation have expanded the ge-ographical mobility of capital; un-precedented labor migrationshave distanced local economiesfrom automaticdependency onhome grown labor; national andlocal states (includingcity gov-ernments) have responded by of-fering carrots to capital whileap-plying the stick to labor and dis-mantling previous supports for

social reproduction; and finally,class and race-based struggleshavebroadly receded, giving localand national governments in-creasedleeway to abandon thatsector of the population sur-plused by both therestructuringof the economy and the gutting ofsocial services. Themass incarcer-ation of working-class and minor-ity populations, especiallyin theUS, is the national analogue ofthe emerging revanchistcity.Comparatively low levels ofstruggle were crucial in the v irtu-alnonresponse by government tothe Los Angeles uprisings after1992,which stand in dramatic

contrast to the ameliorativeifpaternalisticresponse after theuprisings of the 1960s.

Two mutually reinforcingshifts have consequently restruc-tured thefunctions and activeroles of cities. In the first place,systems of productionpreviouslyterritorialized at the (subnation-al) regional scalewere increasing-ly cut loose from their definitivenational context,resulting notjust in the waves of deindustriali-zation in the 1970sand 1980s butin wholesale regional restructur-ing and destructuringas part of areworking of established scale hi-erarchies. As a result,production

systems have been downscaled.The territorialization ofproduc-tion increasingly centers on ex-tended metropolitan centers,rather than on larger regions: themetropolitan scale again comes to

dominate the regional scale, rath-er than the other way round. Inplaceof the American Northeastor Midwest, the English Mid-lands, and theGerman Ruhr, forexampleclassic geographicalfruits of modernindustrial capi-talismwe have So Paulo andBangkok, Mexico Cityand Shang-hai, Mumbai and Seoul. Whereasthe traditional industrialregionswere the backbone of nationalcapitals in the nineteenth andmuch of the twentieth centuries,these new, huge urban economiesare increasingly the platforms of

global production. This rescalingofproduction toward the metro-politan scale is an expression ofglobalchange; at the same time, itlies at the heart of a newurbanism.

The corollary is also takingplace, as national states have in-creasinglymoved away from theliberal urban policies that domi-nated thecentral decades of the

twentieth century in the ad-vanced capitalisteconomies. Inthe US, President Fords refusal tobail out New YorkCity amidst adeep fiscal crisis (immortalized inthe famous Daily Newsheadline:Ford to City: Drop Dead), fol-lowed by the failure ofPresidentCarters attempted urban plan in1978, gave the first intimationofa national economy increasinglydelinked from and independentof its cities. The wholesale demiseof liberal urban policyfollowed infits and starts, working towardClintons cynical slashing ofthesocial welfare system in 1996. Ifthe effects are often more muted

and take myriad forms, the trajec-tory of change is similar in mostof the wealthiest economies, al-though Italythe transfer of somenational state power to the Euro-pean Union notwithstanding-maybe an exception.

The point here is not that thenational state is necessarily weak-enedor that the territoriality ofpolitical and economic power issomehowless potent. This argu-mentthat global power today re-sides in a networkof economicconnections rather than in anyparticular placeisembodied inthe influential treatment of Em-

pireby Hardt and Negri(2000),

but it is flawed by a certain necro-mancy with finance capital andablindness to the contradictions ofpower that comes with the neces-saryfixing of economic activitiesand political control in space. Cer-

tainly,specific functions and ac-tivities previously organized atthe national scaleare being dis-persed to other scales up anddown the scale hierarchy.At thesame time, however, nationalstates are reframing themselvesas purer, territorially rooted eco-nomic actors in and of the mar-ket,rather than external compli-ments to it. Social and economicrestructuring is simultaneouslythe restructuring of spatial scale,insofaras the fixation of scalescrystallizes the contours of socialpowerwho is empowered andwho contained, who wins andwho losesintoremade physicallandscapes (Brenner 1998; Smithand Dennis 1987;Swyngedouw1996, 1997).

Neoliberal urbanism is an inte-gral part of this wider rescaling offunctions, activities,and rela-tions. It comes with a considera-ble emphasis on the nexus ofpro-duction and finance capital at the

expense of questions of socialre-production. It is not that the or-ganization of social reproductionnolonger modulates the defini-tion of the urban scale but ratherthat itspower in doing so is sig-nificantly depleted. Public de-bates over suburbansprawl in Eu-rope and especially the US, in-tense campaigns inEurope pro-moting urban regeneration, andthe emerging environmentaljus-tice movements all suggest notonly that the crisis of socialrepro-duction is thoroughly territorial-ized but, conversely, that thepro-duction of urban space has alsocome to embody that crisis. A con-

nection exists between the pro-duction of the urban scale andtheefficient expansion of value, anda mis-scaled urbanism canseri-ously interfere with the accumu-lation of capital. The crisis of dailycommuting lies at the center ofthis crisis. I once surmised (Smith1990:137) that where the geo-graphical expansion of cities out-strippedtheir ability to get peo-ple from home to work and backagain, theresult was not just ur-ban chaos but a fragmentationand disequilibriumin the univer-salization of abstract labour thatwent to the heartof economic co-hesion. While this contradiction

between geographicalform andeconomic process no doubt en-dures, the evidence from citiesinmany parts of Asia, Africa, andLatin America presents a ratherdifferent picture. The daily com-

mute into So Paulo, for example,canbegin for many at 3:30 a.m.and take in excess of four hours ineachdirection. In Harare, Zimba-bwe, the average commutingtime fromblack townships on theurban periphery is also four hourseachway, leading to a workday inwhich workers are absent fromhome forsixteen hours and sleep-ing most of the rest. The econom-ic cost ofcommuting for thesesame workers has also expandeddramatically, inpart as a result ofthe privatization of transporta-tion at the behest ofthe WorldBank: commutes that consumedroughly 8% of weeklyincomes inthe early 1980s required between

22% and 45% by the mid1990s(Ramsamy 2001:375377).

Why is this happening? Manywell-meaning planners indict thelackof suitable infrastructure,and that is undeniably an issue.However, ifwe step back one lev-el of abstraction, there is a funda-mental geographicalcontradic-tion between the dramatically in-creased landvalues that accompa-ny the centralization of capital inthe core of thesemetropolisesand the marginal, exurban loca-tions where workers areforced tolive due to the pitiful wages onwhich that capital centralizationis built. Yet, extraordinarily, cha-

otic and arduous commuteshavenot yet led to an economic break-down; the impulses of economicproductionand, especially, theneed to have workers turn up attheworkplacehave taken prece-dence over any constraints ema-natingfrom the conditions of so-cial reproduction. The rigors of al-most unbearablecommutinghave not yet compromised eco-nomic production.Instead, theyhave elicited a desperate resil-ience and been absorbedamidstthe wider social breakdown thatKatz (forthcoming) callsdisinte-grating developments.

Thus, the leading edge in the

combined restructuring of urbanscale and function does not lie inthe old cities of advanced capital-ism,where the disintegration oftraditional production-based re-gions andthe increasing disloca-

tion of social reproduction at theurban scale iscertainly painful,unlikely to pass unopposed, butalso partial. Rather,it lies in thelarge and rapidly expanding me-tropolises of Asia, LatinAmerica,and parts of Africa, where theKeynesian welfare state wasnev-er significantly installed, the de-finitive link between the city andsocial reproduction was neverparamount, and the fetter of oldforms,structures, and landscapesis much less strong. These metro-politaneconomies are becomingthe production hearths of a newglobalism.Unlike the suburbani-zation of the postwar years inNorth Americaand Europe, Oce-

ania, and Japan, the dramatic ur-ban expansion of theearly twen-ty-first century will be unambig-uously led by the expansionof so-cial production rather than repro-duction. In this respect, at least,Lefebvres announcement of anurban revolution redefining thecityand urban struggles in termsof social reproductionor indeedCastells definition of the urbanin terms of collective consump-tionwill fade into historicalmemory. If capitalism shiftedgears with theadvent of Keyne-sianism from a supply-side to ademand-side urbanization,asHarvey (1985:202, 209) once ob-

served, twenty-first-centuryur-banism potentially reverses thisshift.

This restructuring of scale andthe cautious re-empowerment oftheurban scaleGiulianis ambi-tion for a five-borough foreignpolicyrepresents just one threadof neoliberal urbanism. It dove-tails with themore culturally at-tuned assessment of political ge-ographer PeterTaylor (1995:58),who argues that [C]ities are re-placing states in theconstructionof social identities. Cities likeSo Paulo and Shanghai,Lagosand Bombay, are likely to chal-lenge the more traditional urban

centers, not just in size and densi-ty of economic activitytheyhavealready done thatbut pri-marily as leading incubators inthe globaleconomy, progenitorsof new urban form, process, and

Neil SmithNew urbanism

WhydontyouadresstheMayor

?

[workshopofculturalconfrontation]

WhydontyouadresstheMayor

?

[workshopofculturalconfrontation]

PHOT

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BYTomislavMedak

PHOT

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BYTomislavMedak

The scale of the modern city is therebycalibrated by something quite mundane: the

contradictory determinations of the geographicallimits of the daily commute of workers betweenhome and work


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tions, but also, more seriously toemphasize the lack of geographi-cal difference within the neolib-eral worldview. To Friedman, aswith many of his ideologicalbrethren, there was not much ofa difference between the social-ism of Eastern Europe, and hightaxes in the United States duringthe 1960s and 1970s. All forms ofcollectivization whether they beprogressive taxation, labor un-ions, public space, subsidizedhousing, socialist societies, orsimple planning proposals were,and continue to be, derided by ne-oliberal ideologues as enemies offreedom. It scarcely matterswhether these forms occur inYugoslavia in 1965 or the United

States in 2008in the neoliberalworldview, all forms of collectivi-zation are a road to serfdom, toborrow Hayeks (1944) famoustitle.

On the one hand, such a ridicu-lous premisethat all forms ofcollectivization can be treatedthe samemight be seen by pro-gressive scholars with a certainflippant joy, as it shouldbe easy todispel this notion with simple re-search and activism. But the factthat we are gathered at a confer-ence to lament the rise of urbanneoliberalism and contemplateways of reversing it suggests, ifnothing else that, despite its

transparently fallacious claims,neoliberalism and its proponentsare a force to be reckoned with,and that simply revealing thetruth as scholars and activists isnot enough. Neoliberalism, inthe words of Perry Anderson(2000) is nothing short of, themost successful ideology in thehistory of the world. It has trans-formed the developed and devel-oping world alike. It has affectedtrading relations between coun-tries, altered domestic policies invastly different societies, andtransformed basic notions ofcommon sense that are difficultto reverse. Its logiccentered on

the veneration of individuals andmarkets, and the vilification of allthat is social and collectivehaspermeated societies and contextsacross the globe. As with manysocial forces, its effects have been

particularly pronounced in cities.Within cities around the world, ithas been used as a logic to sellpublic goods, to privatize publicspace, to crack down on unions,and to destroy public housing. Itis sold to voters as a solutionbut rarely even comes close toachieving its putative goals. Moreoften than not, it leads ironicallyto an increasein the power of thestateexcept that rather than pro-viding public housing and wel-fare, states are providing prisoncells, more police officers andnew rules to crack down onundesirables.

So why has it been so difficultto contest? As an abstract set ofprinciples, it rarely enjoys wide-

spread public support, and it hasfailed to achieve stated goalsaround the world from Zagreb, toWashington, to Toronto. No easyanswers to this question exist,but I think that the crucial bur-den that we face as scholars andactivists is to continually rein-force the point that, despite itssuccesses in the policy realm, ne-oliberalism is not inevitable ornatural as its supporters oftencharacterize it. Neoliberalism isincredibly powerful, but it is notinevitable, natural, or even desir-able. It is a political philosophythat benefits a small class of peo-ple. Though it is a formidable po-

litical force, I do think that it canbe challenged. What follows is aseries of reflections on some stra-tegic positions that could be rein-forced by progressive scholars inthe battle against neoliberalism.The list is necessarily partialastarting point in a conversation,more than a definitive end point.

Contesting neoliberalismLet me start with a clarifica-

tion that may not go over thatwell in this audience, but whichneeds in any case to be said. Ithink that scholars play only one,fairly small, role in the contesta-tion of neoliberalism, or any so-

cial force for that matter. We can,and I believe should,challenge thenonsense that neoliberal politicaleconomists feed to the willing,unwilling, and ignorant press,and conversely support the clari-

identity. Noone seriously arguesthat the twenty-first century willsee a return toa world of city-statesbut it will see a recaptureof urban politicalprerogative v is--vis regions and nation-states.

Finally, the redefinition of thescale of the urban in terms of so-cialproduction rather than repro-duction in no way diminishes theimportanceof social reproduc-tion in the pursuit of urban life.Quite theopposite: struggles oversocial reproduction take on aheightened significancepreciselybecause of the dismantling ofstate responsibilities.However,state abstention in this area ismatched by heightened stateac-tivism in terms of social control.The transformation of New Yorkinto a revanchist city is not anisolated event, and the emer-gence ofmore authoritarian stateforms and practices is not diffi-cult to comprehendin the con-text of the rescaling of global and

local geographies.According toSwyngedouw (1997:138), the sub-stitution of market disciplineforthat of a hollowed-out welfarestate deliberately excludessignif-icant parts of the population, andthe fear of social resistancepro-vokes heightened state authori-tarianism. At the same time, the new urban work force increasing-ly comprises marginal and part-timeworkers who are not entire-ly integrated into shrinking sys-tems ofstate economic discipline,as well as immigrants whose cul-tural andpolitical networkspartof the means of social reproduc-tionalsoprovide alternative

norms of social practice, alterna-tive possibilities ofresistance.In summary, my point here is

not to argue that cities like NewYork, London, and Tokyo lackpower in the global hierarchy ofurbanplaces and high finance.The concentration of financialand othercommand functions inthese centers is undeniable. Rath-er, I am tryingto put that powerin context and, by questioningthe common assumptionthat thepower of financial capital is nec-essarily paramount, toquestionthe criteria according to whichcities come to be dubbed global.If there is any truth to the argu-

ment that so-called globalizationresults in the first place from theglobalization of production, thenourassessment of what consti-tutes a global city should presum-ably reflectthat claim.

haC

KwOr

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Jason HackworthChallenging the neoliberal city

JaSOn

Challengingthe neoliberal city

PublicSpaceBetweenCarsandPedestrians:

theCaseofKvaternikovSquareinZagreb

[roundtable]



[roundtable]

PHOT

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BYTomislavMedak

PH

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BYAnaHuman

Neoliberalism here,neoliberalism there,neoliberalism everywhere

Once when I was in Yugoslavia, Icalculated that the difference be-tween the degree of socialism inYugoslavia and in the UnitedStates at that time was, if mymemory is right, fourteen per-centage points. In the UnitedStates, the corporate income taxwas then 52 percent, and so the

government owned 52 percent ofevery enterprise. In Yugoslavia,the central government was tak-ing about 66 percent of the prof-its of the worker co-operatives. Milton Friedman, 1984, p. 16

ibegin with this obscurequote from one of the patri-

archs of modern neoliberal-ism, Milton Friedman, bothin wry attempt to legitimate

myselfa scholar of American cit-iesto a group that is primarily in-terested in post-socialist transi-

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Jones G. and Varley A.(1999) Thereconquest of the historic centre: Urbanconservationand gentrification inPuebla, Mexico. Environment andPlanning A 31:15471566

Katz C.(2001) Vagabond capitalism and thenecessity of social reproduction.Antipode33:708727

Katz C.(forthcoming) DisintegratingDevelopments: Global EconomicRestructuring andChildrens Everyday

Lives. Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press

Lefebvre H. (1971) La Rvolution Urbaine.Gallimard: Paris

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ty provided by progressive econo-mists and the progressive press.But that is far from enough. Thevery institutions that Friedmanand his ilk so reviledlabor un-ions, progressive state policies,socialism, cooperativeswerethemselves the result of years ofstruggle by affected parties.Scholars were a part of many ofthese stories, but they only mate-rialized when large numbers ofworkers, citizens, or students en-gaged in direct and electoral ac-tions to affect such changes.There is a role for progressivescholarship, but only if it is en-gaged with the reality that itneeds to be driven by and inspiredby on-the-ground activism.

So what would such a role looklike? I dont pretend to have all ofthe answers, but I do think thatrecognizing this as a long battle ofideasrather than something thatcan simply be explained awaywith a single studyis crucial. In

the last decade of studying neo-liberalism in North American cit-ies, it has struck me that progres-sive scholars have already script-ed a convincing narrative that tiesthe movement to the usual sus-pectsReagan and Thatcher, theInternational Monetary Fund(IMF) and the Worldbank, andright-winged think tanks inWashington and London. ThoughI do not want to diminish thesenarratives in any way, I wouldlike to suggest that much of neo-liberalisms political success doesnot come from a fair comparisonwith other alternatives, asthough it was chosen by the

world electorate, or by a jury at atrial. Much of its success, I think,derives ironically in its ability tomorph and conform to otherpolit-ical movements that may or maynot have anything to do with neo-liberalism in an ideational sense.I think that it is crucial that wefocus our attention on revealingand exposing the neoliberalismthat hides behind centre-left gov-ernments, religion, and compli-cated financial institutions. Toexplain what I mean, I have sum-marized the contents of threeseparate research projects inwhich I am currently engaged,

and organized them into threestrategies for challenging neolib-eralism.

Decoupling neoliberalismNeoliberalism, in my view,

owes much of its current powerto its proponents ability to useother movements and ideologiesas political cover. If neoliberal-ism, as an abstract set of princi-ples, was placed on a ballot, itwould rarely receive majoritysupport. However, if as is oftenthe case, it is coupled or connect-ed to a different logicone thathas its own legitimacythe termsof such a political decision be-come more confusing. I thinkthat it is important that progres-sive scholars work to decoupleneoliberalism from the variousmovements its proponents use toconfuse, distort, and legitimateits manifestations. By decou-ple, I mean that we should aim toreveal and separate neoliberalism

from the other movements towhich it has been attached, andfrom which it gains some popularlegitimacy. Take the case of evan-gelical Christianity in the UnitedStates.

Evangelical Christians are anenormously powerful voting blocin the United States, with esti-mates as high as 41 percent of theadult population (Lindsay, 2007).Though there is no singular agen-da of the evangelical communityin the US, there are hundreds ofpowerful groups that organize itspolitical interests in a way over-states their actual populationcount (Wilcox and Larsen, 2006).

Often, though not always, the ar-chitecture of these political or-ganizations have been mobilizedto promote neoliberal ends. Thisis interesting at least to the ex-tent that religion has been usedhistorically to justify very non-neoliberal ideals like liberationtheology (Beaumont, 2008;Jamoul and Wills, 2008) and un-ion organizing (Sziarto, 2008).There is a contradiction, or atleast a set of principles that havebeen mobilized for diabolicallyopposite ends.

But the job of activists is muchmore than simply pointing out

this contradiction. Radical con-servatives have not only success-fully mobilized the institutionsof the Religious Right for neolib-eral purposes like lower taxes andderegulation; they have also man-aged to lend a sort of spiritualcredibility to neoliberalism by in-voking a literal divine inspiration.Within the evangelical Christianmovement, at least three logicshave been used to justify such aposition: 1) Dominionism; 2)Christian libertarianism; and 3)Prosperity Theology. Dominion-ism was a term first coined by thesociologist Sara Diamond (1995)referring to the principleamongst conservative evangeli-cals that secular laws and institu-tions must be replaced by reli-giously-inspired ones, particular-ly those that were inspired by col-lectivist ideals. Its proponentsdraw inspiration from the book ofGenesis (1:26; 1:28)where humandominion over the earth is jus-

tified. Its proponents have ex-tended this logic to argue thatChristians should seize controlover the institutions of sec ulargovernance for their own ends.Similarly, Christian libertarian-ism invokes the Bible to justify ananti-socialist outlook in life. Itargues that libertarian (or neolib-eral) principles can be justified byBible, namelyJohn 8:36, which in-vokes the language of freedomfor men. It is powerfully articu-lated by chief advisor to PresidentBush, Marvin Olasky, and is pro-moted by the think tank the Ac-ton Institute. Finally, prosperitytheology is a movement that of-

fers an ostensible vehicle towealth and the evaporation ofguilt for being wealthy. It drawson a number of biblical verses andis the organizing principle formany high profile televangelistsin the US, including Joel Osteenand TD Jakes. Though they havedifferent purposes, all of thesemovements lend credibility to ne-oliberalism by reinforcing itsagenda. Dominionism invokes di-vine inspiration for challengingthe secular state. Christian liber-tarianism invokes divine inspira-tion for abhorring socialism andthe welfare state. Prosperity the-ology deploys divine absolution

for accumulating capital. Eachdraws inspiration from the Bibleand, as such, invokes a legitimacythat is rooted in faith. This is dif-ficult to challenge in a rationalmanner, but it is worth decou-

pling from neoliberalism, as thelatter is able to absorb legitimacyfrom the invocation of religion.

Progressive scholars thus neednot only to point out the obviouscontradictions but to delve deep-er to challenge the sources of le-gitimacy that gives neoliberalismsome of its power. Once decou-pled from movements that give itpolitical cover or legitimacy, itcan be critiqued and perhapsmore successfully contested in itsown right. As the case of evangel-ical Christianity implies however,this might require progressivescholars to supplement their cur-rent focus on the usual suspect-

sthe IMF, Worldbank, Thatcher,and Reaganwith one that alsocritiques the role of ostensiblynon-neoliberal legitimators.

Destabilize neoliberalismNeoliberalism also derives a

great deal of power from the as-sumption that, in the words ofMargaret Thatcher, there is no al-ternative. Pro-neoliberal politi-cians have, for decades, been ableto frame neoliberalism as a mat-ter of necessity. Markets willcrash, jobs will be lost, peopleslives will be ruined unless we pri-vatize, lower taxes, and deregu-late. The Left has been slow, shy

or reluctant about counteringthis logic with plausible alterna-tives of its own. Su rely, a greatdeal of this has to do with thecomplexity of problems that areat stake, and no reasonable criticcould say that the Left simplyhas to come up with an alterna-tive of its ownas though wewere dealing with a refereed de-bate in which rational thoughtwould win the day. But while acomprehensive, progressive solu-tion to the various problems towhich neoliberal solutions arethrown, may be impractical with-out the think-tanks and ideo-logues that the Right enjoys, it is

far from impractical for the Leftto challenge the individualpremises upon which neoliberalsolutions are built. Unfortunate-ly, progressive scholars haveshown little interest in taking on

such battles.Take, for example, the aca-

demic literature on governmentfailures. Over the past thirtyyears or so a group of right-winged scholars has quietly de-veloped the concept of govern-ment failures as a counter to thenotion of market failures. Thenotion of market failures islinked to socialist and Keynesianskepticism of how markets hadinherent flaws which blockedtheir ability to provide goods andservices in an efficient or equita-ble manner. An enormous litera-ture of case studies, theoreticalstatements, and analyses emerged

in the mid-twentieth century todemonstrate and elaborate uponthis fact. This research was usedto justify government interven-tions to correct market failures.Right-winged political econo-mists and economists have, sincethe 1970s, tried to shift the atten-tion away from market failures toan ostensible analog, govern-ment failures. A large literaturehas emerged, mostly published inconservative journals and think-tank publications to bolster theclaim that governments are mate-rially inferior to markets at pro-viding a whole host of goods andservices. Such economists delib-

erately position their work as ajustification for market-based so-lutions, especially privatizationof public goods. Extending thislogic, this group of thinkers aimsto use government failures tojustify market solutions. This isa key premise in the larger neolib-eral argument, but very few pro-gressive economists, geographers,or political economists havespent time countering thispremise, or many of the othersupon which the movement ex-ists. This is unfortunate, as suchideas percolate into mainstreamthought unchallenged.

This logic percolates to the

mainstream press in a variety ofways. I just completed a study,for example, of the way that Hab-itat for Humanity, a worldwidehousing non-governmental or-ganization is framed in the main-

Jason HackworthChallenging the neoliberal city



[roundtable]



[roundtable]

PH

OTO

BYAnaHuman

PH

OTO

BYAnaHuman

All forms of collectivization whether they beprogressive taxation, labor unions, public

space, subsidized housing, socialist societies, orsimple planning proposals were, and continue tobe, derided by neoliberal ideologues as enemies offreedom

There is a role for progressive scholarship,but only if it is engaged with the reality that

it needs to be driven by and inspired by on-the-ground activism


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bUDen

Boris BudenGod is back in town

bOriS

God is back in town

MladenStilinovi

ForMarie-Antoinette68,2008.

[installation]

MladenStilinovi

ForMarie-Antoinette68,2008.

[installation]

PHOTO

BYBorisCvjetanovi

PHOT

O

BYTomislavMedak

The process of thepost-communist

transition has an

ambiguous characterand must be reconside-red in terms of itsregressive tendencies

w

hy there is so muchinterest in urbanspace? We are sokeen to reflect on itstransformations al-

though we know very well thatthey are only impacts and effectsof another transformations thathappen elsewhere, in politics, insociety or generally on the scenewe still call history? Why dontwe grasp them where they origi-nally happen instead of chasingthem around in the urban space?In the same context we are alsotalking about urban struggles.Arent these struggles in fact po-litical, social or historical strug-gles? Why then do we call themurban? If urban space is morethan a simple site of these strug-gles, can we think of some sort oftheir urban cause that transcends

their political, social or historicalmeaning?

There is no simple answer tothese questions. We are thereforebest advised to look for some con-crete case in which urban spacehas become an authentic site ofpolitical conflict, in which it is ar-ticulated as a texture of socialtransformation and saturatedwith historical time; a case inwhich urban space also appears asan ideological battlefield, onwhich we can deploy our analyti-cal concepts.

Fortunately, there is an artisticproject at the same time aproject of social and political crit-

icism that has already tackledthis problem. A group of archi-tects from Croatia calledplatfor-ma 9.81has been analyzing foryears the changes in urban spacetaking place during the process ofthe so- called post-communisttransition. We will focus on oneparticular part of their researchlabelled Crkva d.o.o.(Church Ltd.).It is dedicated to the role theCroatian Catholic Church has

played in this new urbandevelopment.

There are few reasons why thisproject suits well our analysis.First, it is clearly framed in histor-ical terms, namely within theevent called the democratic rev-olutions of 1989/90. Secondly itexplicitly addresses an importantsocial transformation that is asone of its consequences ascribedto this event a phenomenon wecan call desecularization ofmodern societies, or at least thecrisis of modern secularism. Fi-nally this phenomenon has politi-cal meaning or more precisely,implies and articulates a politicalconflict. For what is actuallydesecularization? Jrgen Hab-ermes, who explicitly attachesthis phenomenon to the histori-cal change of 1989/90, defines it

in political terms: since 1989/90religious traditions and religiouscommunities have gained in un-til then unexpected political im-portance.01

In fact, Habermas addresses acommon impression that we havebeen witnessing recently a world-wide renaissance of religious be-liefs, which has radically put inquestion the process of modernistsecularization. There are manystrong symptoms of this changewe are very aware of like for in-stance the so-called religious fun-damentalism and religiously mo-tivated terrorism, a renaissance ofreligious beliefs in the former

communist countries, or even inthe very centre of the Westerncapitalist world, in the UnitedStates, as well as a growing im-pact of religion on public life allover the world. In short, the as-sumption that we live in a secu-larized world is generally false.02Habermas calls this new histori-cal condition post-secular. In apost-secular society we must ad-just ourselves to the consistency(Fortbestehen) of religious com-munities in a continually secular-izing environment.03

This post-secular condition canbe conceived of as general histori-cal context ofplatformas Church

Ltd-project. Here we are invitedto challenge the phenomenon ofdesecularization precisely in theform of its urban consequences,the transformations of urbanspace that it has directly caused.

However, there is one particularelement in the project that makesit especially interesting. Thissmall abbreviation added to thenotion of church Ltd. It impliesan economical meaning of desec-ularization, a dimension, which isnormally excluded from the at-tempts of political mostly liber-al theory to deal with this phe-nomenon. Is this because the eco-nomic dimension cannot be sim-ply ignored if we are going to seri-ously reflect on transformationsin urban space? Probably, but it isprecisely this economic dimen-sion that evokes the originalmeaning of the notion of sec ular-

ization. Namely, its historicallyfirst meaning was a juridical one.It meant an enforced transfer ofownership over church proper-ties to the authority of secularstate. So has the phenomenon ofdesecularizationplatforma 9.81deals with precisely the reversemeaning of the original conceptof secularization, the passing ofpublic properties into the churchownership, or as it is also called,privatization, a key concept ofthe process of post-communisttransition.04

The architects fromplatforma9.81focused on the situation incity of Split, on the Croatian Adri-

atic coast, where the Church to-gether with the political repre-sentatives of the city includingthe city planners realized theproject called Spiritual Ring ofCity of Split, a plan to build 16new church buildings, mostly inthe new suburbs around the cen-tre of the city. The realization ofthe project started 1993 and it istoday almost completed. Howev-er, its origin lies in the politicalchange that happened 1990, theoverturn of communist rule inCroatia. Croatian CatholicChurch, which helped the nation-alistic movement led by Franjo

Tudjman to come to power, haspresented itself as both the lead-ing force of democratization andretroactively as the main victimof the communist past. As a con-sequence it has also claimed boththe right to exert influence notonly on political life in the coun-try but on all the spheres of sociallife, like education, public moral,or media, as well as the compen-sations for the loses it had suf-fered under the communist rule.One particular element of thiscompensation claim was the de-mand for permission to build newsacral buildings. Naturally theChurch got this permission with-

out any problems and the resultwas already mentioned projectSpiritual Ring of City of Split.

Let us put aside the concreteresults of this building campaign,i.e. the quality of the new build-ings and the new urbanity that ithas created, both subjected to thecritical analysis ofplatforma 9.81.Generally, the critique suggeststhat the whole building campaignhas in fact regressive effects. Itrolls back the former achieve-ments of modern urban develop-ment that had been realized un-der or to stay within todays he-gemonic ideology, despite of thecommunist rule.05

However, the key element oftheir analysis that has made thisinsight possible is the differencebetween private and publicor rather a historically, political-ly and theoretically specific un-derstanding of this difference. Inshort, it is not value free, i.e., itpresupposes a clear normativeclaim: public is, at least in thecase of urban space, better thanprivate. So is the process of his-torical regression presented andspacialy visualized as the expan-sion of the private space at thecost of public.

The difference between private andpublic cannot be conceived of in terms of a

clear-cut and stable boundary. We can think of thisdifference as being itself a sort of space the spaceof translation.

Croatian Catholic Church owing to itsproperties, annual income and investments

has become recently one of the leadingentrepreneurs in the country


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During the socialist period in the building were accommodated fewfaculties of the Split university, city library and the Art academy.

After the return the whole building is occupied by the Church andused for its offices, representative spaces and guest accommodation.

The property return enabled the Church to expand its facilities andto annex the large part of a park, which had been used before the col-lapse of communism by surrounding schools and faculties: Primaryschool, Normal school, Naval highschool, Faculty of natural sciencesand mathematics, Faculty of chemical technology only one relativelysmall part was used by The Seminary and Theological Faculty.

After the return the largest part of the playground now fenced belongs exclusively to The Seminary and Theological Faculty and isused at the rate of 40 seminarists per 10.000 square meters.

Let us take a look at few diagrams presented in the analysis:

1. An interpolation in the centre of the city, a monastery being re-constructed within an already defined urban space. The building hasexpanded at the cost of the square.

Monastery at Dobri Square

Another example: A new church built directly nearby Kauflandshopping mall. In Split people call this church Our Lady of Kaufland.The space for parking was taken from the already existent basketballplayground.

Ravne njive Our Lady of Kaufland parish church.

2. One form of post-communist privatization is the so-called proper-ty return. An originally private property, which had been nationalized,

that is to say, appropriated by the communist state after 1945, is nowafter the collapse of the communist rule returned to its primal owners.This has also happened to one part of the church property. The next di-agram shows one example of this phenomenon: The Bishops palace inthe centre of the city with a large park nearby before and after proper-ty return.

The visualization of these ur-ban respectively socio-political transformations is based onthree elements: two types ofspace, an original public space andan ecclesiastic space that in thegiven relation mutually exclud-ing opposition actually denotesprivate space; the third element isthe line of expansion of this ec-clesiastic/private space.

original public space,i.e.

spaces used by publicinstitutions

church, i.e.

spaces used exclusivelyby the church

line of expansion ofchurch property

This clearly evokes the way lib-

eral political theory deals withthe phenomenon of deseculariza-tion. It too uses similar conceptu-al tool a dividing line betweenprivate and public and in-terprets the process of deseculari-zation in terms of an expansion ofwhat we can provisionally callprivate cause. Concretely reli-gious communities increasinglyinsist on using religious argu-ments in public debates. Theygoal is to influence political deci-sions and so reshape the state interms of their own interests, orbetter, in the interest of their re-ligious beliefs. According to theclassical liberal theory this would

jeopardize neutral secular character of the state, which isthe political precondition of reli-gious tolerance and peaceful co-existence of citizens. Rawls in hisPolitical Liberalismfrom 1993 stilldraws a sharp distinction be-tween private and public reasons.Religious questions like the oneof which god we ought to worshipcounts as a private matter. How-ever, Rawls revised this argumentlater and included what he callsproviso, which allows for theexpression of religious argumentsin public debates so long as theycan be sooner or later translatedinto the language of public rea-

son.06

This implies that the differ-ence between private and pub-lic cannot be conceived of interms of a clear-cut and stableboundary. Moreover, we can


SanjaIvekovi

WhowereSistersBakovi?[intervention]

SanjaIvekovi


PHOTO

BY

AnaIvekovi-Martinis

PHOTO

BY

AnaIvekovi-Martinis


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think of this difference as beingitself a sort of space the space oftranslation. Whereas Rawls forcesonly religious citizens to trans-late their religiously based moralconvictions into secular moralterms, for Habermas is the trans-lation requirement a cooperativetask in which both sides mustparticipate. For him public andprivate are mutually translata-ble. However, he cuts the publicspace in two parts divided bywhat he calls institutionalthreshold, a threshold betweenan informal public sphere and thepublic sphere of parliaments,courts of justice, ministries, pub-lic administrations, etc. For Hab-ermas translation is required onlyon this threshold. One part ofpublic space, the so-called infor-mal public, must stay open forprivate reasons, that is, in princi-ple contaminated with private.

A similar dissolution of a clear-cut boundary between private

and public this time againstthe background of the capitalistmarket can be found in anotherdiagram ofplatformas project:

3. This is a peculiar mixture ofecclesiastic and secular, commer-cial facilities or more preciselythe merging of the space of reli-gious belief with business space,in short with the market. Ontheir own property the Churchhas namely incorporated com-mercial activities.

Here is the example of theFranciscan monastery of our Ladyof Health and the shopping mallMonestery:


SanjaIvekovi


SanjaIvekovi


PHOTO

BY

AnaIvekovi-Martinis

PHOTO

BY

AnaIvekovi-Martinis

If an institution of religious belief is publiclyalready recognized as a business group, a

capitalist entrepreneur, it should also be criticallyreflected as such

Here the visualization of thetransformation operates againwith two types of spaces, one ec-clesiastic, for which we are sup-posed to think of as private, andanother that comprises retail fa-cilities within the church com-plex. The relation between thesetwo spaces is different from thecases mentioned above. Here theecclesiastic space doesnt expandat the expense of public space. Onthe contrary, the space of com-mercial activities that is in theend a space of private business(but as a shopping mall it is also aform of public space) occupies thespace of religious belief. The redline here actually represents theline of expansion of private busi-ness, in other words, of capitalisteconomy.

In fact Croatian CatholicChurch owing to its properties,annual income and investmentshas become recently one of theleading entrepreneurs in the

country. Already at the end of2005 it was ranked among thefive richest business groups inCroatia. This phenomenon has al-so become increasingly visible inthe urban space. The authors ofthis analysis, the architects of

platforma 9.81,argue that the ba-sic interface of church as institu-tion with a city life gets more andmore commercial character.

On the other side, growing po-litical and economical power ofChurch hasnt been accompaniedwith a growing number of truebelievers. At the end of the build-ing campaign the new churches

were left empty or unfinished.After having realized this, the

church authorities started tobuild churches, which are fromthe very beginning planned anddesigned to include commercialor business facilities or to be rent-ed for such activities.

This simply means that eventhe Church itself doesnt antici-pate the existence of an authenticand exclusive space of belief. Inshort, even the professional be-lievers dont believe any more in apure belief. This is probably themost important feature of the re-awakened religious belief in post-communism it reappears only inits hybridized form, that is to say,irrevocably merged with otherspheres and contents of sociallife.

But precisely this fact makestoday the classical secular cri-tique of religion that is based on aclear differentiation between twospheres of social life, public and

ecclesiastic/private.The question is now: does this

distinction still make sense to-day? Why is Fine Art Academypublic but church offices and itsrepresentative spaces private?Why is Naval highschool or Facul-ty of natural sciences and mathe-matics public but Theological Fac-ulty private? Of course from ar-chitectural perspective the dis-tinction seems quite simple: pub-lic space is the one where one canfreely move in and stay withoutbeing excluded, like streets orparks that are typical public spac-es. This also includes buildingsthat are open to the public, that is

to say, freely accessible and thatare mostly state property, or as itwas the case in former Yugosla-via, the so-called social property.Clearly a fenced space of semi-nary and theological faculty isnot open to the public. But thespace of schools, universities andeven libraries, are they todaymore open to the public. Educa-tion too has become on all of itslevels a matter of private busi-ness, especially after the neo-lib-eral turn in economy and radicalchanges of all sorts of social lifethat this new form of late capital-ism has initiated? In fact an over-all privatization has long ago

opened its road to success and se-cured its ideological hegemonyand decisive support of politicalpower it enjoys today all over theglobe. Why then not to think ofinstitutionalized religion, or as in

our example, of Roman CatholicChurch in Croatia, as simply try-ing to catch up with this develop-ment? It is already an institutionof todays ideological hegemonyand enjoys almost the uncondi-tional support of political power.Moreover, it is already publiclyapproved as one of the richestbusiness groups in Croatia, re-spectively one of the leading en-trepreneurs in the country. Whythen to draw this red line withinits buildings supposed to differen-tiate an ecclesiastic from a com-mercial space and claim an un-natural infiltration of an alienspace of private business into aspace of allegedly pure belief? Ashopping mall is undoubtedly a

retail facility build and owned byprivate business although it is atthe same time a sort of publicspace but is the space of reli-gious belief something essential-ly different?

We must obviously stop ascrib-ing an essential quality to the re-ligious belief. Consequently thereis no space neither of privatenor of public character that orig-inally belongs to, emanates fromor authentically surrounds reli-gious belief as such. This meansthat we can also think of thisspace in terms of its socioeco-nomic meaning. A church or amonastery could be also per-

ceived as a site of productive la-bour or more precisely and moreadequately in the world whosematerial reproduction is increas-ingly based on the post-fordistmode of production as a site ofaffective or immaterial labour. Apastoral care is nothing morethan a service, like health care,child care, or, why not, like edu-cation, transportation, entertain-ment, etc. What characterizesthese and similar activities is thecentral role played by knowledge,communication, information andaffect.

It is from this angle that wemust reconsider the classical sec-

ularist critique of religion thatentirely relies on the doctrine ofseparate spheres from the nine-teenth century. At least due tothe feminist research the very as-sumption of stable boundaries be-

tween public and private has be-come obsolete. It is for this reasonthat the visual tools of this secu-larist critique of the post-commu-nist religious renaissance and itssocial consequences rather ob-scure than clarify this phenome-non. Typically for the bourgeoiscritique of religion and its ideo-logical function they make usblind for its economic meaning not in terms of an economicsphere understood as the materialbase of a religious superstructurebut in terms of a historic changein the mode of production thathas put in question the very ideaof economy as a separate sphereof social reproduction.

If an institution of religious

belief is publicly already recog-nized as a business group, a capi-talist entrepreneur, it should alsobe critically reflected as such. Inother words, one should neverjudge church by its religious cov-er. Yet such a critique still awaitsits visual tools.

01 See Jrgen Habermas, Religion inder ffentlichkeit. Kognitive Voraus-setzungen fr den ffentlichen Ver-nunftgebrauch religiser und skula-rer Brger, in: J. Habermas, ZwischenNaturalismus und Religion, Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp, 2005, S. 119-155.Here, p. 119.

02 Peter L. Berger, (ed.) The Deseculariza-

tion of the World: Resurgent Religionand World Politics, Ethics and PublicPolicy Center : Washington, 1999, p.15.

03 Jrgen habermas, Glauben und Wis-sen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,2001, p. 13.

04 The whole research project is calledSuperprivate.

05 This necessarily implies that the pro-cess of the post-communist transiti-on has an ambiguous character andmust be reconsidered in terms of itsregressive tendencies. In short, itcannot be simply identified with aprogressive linear development fromtotalitarianism to liberal democracy,as it is usually the case.

06 See John Rawls, The idea of publicreason revisited, The University ofChicago Law Review, 64(3), 765-807.


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when we speak aboutthe relations be-tween neoliberalismand postsocialist so-cieties, we are obvi-

ously dealing with two differentcategories, both of which requiresome investigation. The main ar-gument I will try to develop inthe following will focus on one ofthese categories, namely neolib-eralism. For precisely this rea-son, though, I want to first speakabout the second category, that ispostsocialist societies. What isit that we have the habit to callpostsocialist societies? The an-swer is temptingly simple: post-socialist societies are societiesthat have experienced what we

are equally used to call really ex-isting socialism. However, I havethe impression that there are atleast three problems inherent inthis kind of qualification. Let mebriefly try to sketch out thesethree problems:

First, and this is a conceptualargument, the term postsocial-ist, as it is most frequently used,implies that it is precisely thepast of one or the other reallyexisting socialism that confrontsboth the societies that have expe-rienced it and the societies thatdidnt experience it with the par-ticular phenomenon of either be-ing a postsocialist society or hav-

ing to deal with such societies.Thus the use of the category con-fuses the conceptual value of thepolitical term socialism withthe past appearance of the al-legedly real historical manifes-tation of this value. It is quite im-probable, though, that those who(still?) believe in the value of so-cialism will ever accept this kindof confusion. For they can be justas critical about really existingsocialism as their opponents,without however identifying so-cialism with really existing so-cialism. They may even go as faras maintaining that so-called re-ally existing socialism was in

fact no socialism at all, but rathera capitalism pure and simple.01For Gspr Mikls Tams for ex-ample, from whom I adopt thislatter expression, really existingsocialism was nothing else than

a specific form of capitalismwhich was based on the state ap-paratus rather than on markets inorder to leave behind the precapi-talistic, feudal elements charac-teristic for the countries wheresocialist revolutions actuallytook place. According to Tams,the reality of socialism itselfwas sort of postponed in thisprocess as the existing conditionsof access to the means of produc-tion (following the principle ofprivate ownership) were notthoroughly revolutionized, butinstead confided to a new politi-cal elite ideologically legitimat-ing and maintaining their inter-regnum between presocialismand real socialism. It is quite ob-

vious that the term postsocial-ism does not make sense in sucha perspective, since keeping tothe political-conceptual value ofsocialism here generates adifferent kind of historical per-ception, namely that socialism,instead of being realized and thenovercome (or defeated), somehowgot stuck inbetween its concretehistorical preconditions and thevery condition of its ownrealization.

Secondly, the term postsocial-ist societies usually refers to so-cieties in Eastern (Central East-ern, South Eastern) Europe andthus tends to geographically fix

the realities of both socialismand postsocialism. But whyshouldnt we relate the questionof postsocialist societies tocountries like China or Vietnam?Or, in a different sense, to Cambo-dia? Or, again in a different sense,to Ethopia or Mosambique? Or toplaces like Syria or Libya, or to thetransformation of Palestinian po-litical organisations in differentcountries? Or even to WesternEuropean societies, where theterm postsocialism could beused to indicate for instance anumber of transformations con-cerning both leftist politicalthought and forms of leftist polit-

ical organization? In each of thesecontexts, the term socialismwould certainly have to be treat-ed in a different way, and thesame goes for postsocialism. Togive just two examples, the politi-

cal construction of an interreg-num ideologically legitimated bythe perspective of a future realsocialism does not apply to acountry like Syria in the samesense as to the Soviet Union. Andit each case where a self-pro-claimed socialist regime actuallycame into power, we would haveto lead a quite different discus-sion about the question to whatextent it was a revolution and towhat extent it was a coup detatthat brought about the change.But what, then, is it that connectsa single term like socialismwith such a variety of politicalcontexts?

The third problem is perhapsmore connected to the conceptu-

al element society than to theelement postsocialist in theterm postsocialist society even though it might be useful tonot forget about the close prox-imity between the terms socie-ty and socialism. Once again Iwill address it in the form ofsome questions, namely: Whomdo we consider to be the membersof postsocialist societies?Croates? Serbs? Bosnians? Rus-sians? Lithuanians? Estonians? Orrather former Yougoslaves? Orformer citizens of the Soviet Un-ion? But what about Roma, for in-stance in Slovakia or in Romania?And what about Roma from Ro-

mania, who now live for examplein Naples or other Italian citiesand find themselves exposed toracist attacks (just as they havebeen exposed to racism in social-ist Romania and still are exposedto racism in postsocialist Roma-nia)? What I am trying to suggestby raising these questions is thatwhen we refer to societies whosemembers supposedly share a spe-cific historic experience, we riskto retrospectively construct asocial bond which defines whois part and in what sense ofthese societies. (I am saying thisas someone who has spent mostof his life as a member of the

Austrian society, a society inwhich so many people still havedifficulties to recognize the post-fascist andpost-Nazi character ofthis society, and in which somany people still seem to find it

unimaginable to consider Jewishexperiences to be Austrian expe-riences). So what we equally haveto keep in mind is the more orless subtle interrelations betweenthe retrospective and prospec-tive, retroactive and proactivecontructions of social bonds andboth the terms society andsocialism.

It is not my intention here toutter some painstaking critiqueof the notion of postsocialism even less so, as, in many respects,I would strongly consider myselfto be in a learning position whenit comes to postsocialist socie-ties. What I do indeed want tosuggest, though, is that what we(coming from both postsocial-

ist and non-postsocialist socie-ties) probably have to share ismore than just a common albeitmaybe incongruent experiencewith neoliberalism in the senseof neoliberal reforms, and thatthe term postsocialism is per-haps not particularly helpful inthis respect. When I am sayingmore, I dont mean to say morethan (just) neoliberalism, butrather more about neoliberal-ism: we have to share experienc-es that are not limited to the im-plementation or contestation ofneoliberal reforms within this orthat society, but that develop asense for how neoliberalism has

not only enteredthe plane of so-cial and political affairs, but in-deed redefinesthis plane.

What kind of experiences am Italking about? In my view, theystrongly relate to the three prob-lems linked with the term post-socialism that I have addressedabove. One part of these experi-ences is that neoliberal doctrinesusually present themselves as car-riers of a universalistprinciple, tobe applied onto different particu-lar situations. In that sense, thedenial of universalist claimslinked with socialism goes alongwith a similar denial of universal-ist claims linked with social de-

mocracy, the idea of the welfarestate, self-management, etc.; thatis, neoliberal doctrines particu-larize conflicting universalistideas or reinterprete them asparticular situations related to

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a specific past, onto which re-forms have to be adjusted. Anoth-er part of these experiences isthat neoliberal doctrines usuallypresent themselves as carriers ofaglobalprinciple, that is, as theanswer to the transformationsthat societies have to undergo inthe age of globalization in orderto be properly inscribed into theworld order. They thus block orat least develop a strong impacton alternative visions of global re-lations, and maybe even a termthat appears at first glance as neu-tral as the term postsocialismcould in this sense considered tobe a neoliberal term. Finally, athird part of these experiences isthat neoliberal doctrines usuallydo not only, in the wake of 1989,present themselves as carriers ofa postsocialist principle par excel-lence, but indeed as carriers ofwhat I will call apostsocietalprinciple.

It is this third principle, the

principle of postsocietalism, thatmy further reflections will dwellon. But let me first state that inmy view the three principles thatI have just outlined could alsoprovide a better understanding ofthe reasons why neoliberal doc-trines tend to perfectly go alongwith various discourses on cul-ture and cultural relations, orindeed with the culturalizationof social, economic and politicalissues. We could perhaps even saythat culturalistic discourses allowneoliberal doctrines to presentthemselves in the described way:to the extent that they draw upona more or less empty, or at least

very vaguely defined, universal-ism (for instance the oblique uni-versalism of culture matters, topick up a well-known formula bySamuel Huntington) in order toparticularize each and every his-torical-political situation (some-times with the telling exceptionof ones own situation); butequally to the extent that theypretend to offer a principle of glo-bal understanding, and that theypretend to offer a postsocietal

principle of conceiving humanconditions and human relations.

As far as the specific neoliberalversions of postsocietalism areconcerned, we may first think ofthe initial laboratories for theimplementation of neoliberal re-forms, namely of states in theSouth American cono sursuch asArgentina or especially Chile inthe 1970ies. Here again, we fre-quently encounter an explanato-ry pattern referring to social-ism, not yet in terms of postso-cialism but in those of antiso-cialism, when it comes to expli-cating the correlation betweenneoliberal agendas and the exten-sive political violence exerted bythe military juntas in these coun-tries. However, the sociologist Pe-ter Imbusch has proposed an ex-planation that goes beyond thesometimes perhaps overstrainedCold War perspective, when hestated that in view of strongforms of leftist opposition (by

trade unions, political parties,students, etc.) it was regardednecessary to tailor a new socioe-conomic basis02in order to effi-ciently launch neoliberal eco-nomic policies. And indeed, thedestruction of societal structures,and not only of individuals, canbe seen as one of the major ef-fects of the dictatorship in timesof the neoliberal miracle ofChile (Milton Friedman).

However, we do not need toturn our eyes to particularly vio-lent forms of interference into so-cietal structures in order to graspthe negation of the societal thatis linked with neoliberalism.

There is indeed a sort of locusclassicus for this negation, whichcan be found in an interview thatMargaret Thatcher gave in Octo-ber 1987. It reads:

I think we have gone througha period when too many childrenand people have been given to un-derstand I have a problem, it isthe Governments job to copewith it! or I have a problem, Iwill go and get a grant to copewith it!, I am homeless, the Gov-

ernment must house me!, and sothey are casting their problemson society and who is society?There is no such thing! There areindividual men and women andthere are families and no govern-ment can do anything exceptthrough people and people lookto themselves first.03

According to a common analy-sis of this pronouncement, whatbecomes manifest in Thatchersnegation of society as such isspecifically the political will tocancel the class contract thathad been an important principleof social appeasement policies inthe post-World War II history ofthe United Kingdom.04However,one can ask oneself if Thatchersdenunciation does not in facttouch upon issues of a wider his-torical range. In order to approachthis question let me first point tothe easygoing way in whichThatcher seems to identify gov-ernment and society: people

are addressing the government,she says, because they want it tosolve this or that problem thatthey encounter; and now Thatch-er operates a remarkable shift as,in order to demonstrate the prob-lem with all these requests, shedoes not say but there is no gov-ernment, but rather arrives atsaying but there is no such thingas society (which she repeats lat-er on in the interview). How isthis shift performed? Of course Ihave left out an important link inThatchers argument, namelythat in-between she states that,precisely by addressing the gov-ernment in the described way,

people are casting their prob-lems on society. So let me do jus-tice to Margaret Thatcher: herpoint of view is of course that it isnot herself who identifies govern-ment and society; it is the way inwhich people are wronglyad-dressing the government whichidentifies government and socie-ty. Why? Because there is no soci-ety, and so, consequently, there isno possibility of an identificationof government and society.

Its the government, stupid,Thatcher implicitely says, butpeople dont seem to really un-derstand what a government is(or should be). Now there has

been much talk about neoliberalredefinitions of the tasks andfunctions of a government(linked with keywords such asthe slender state), which ofcourse correspond with an impor-

tant implication of Thatchersstatement. I dont want to followthis line of analysis here, howev-er. For when one tries to do jus-tice to Margaret Thatcher, oneshould probably at least clarifywhat kind of justice it is that isactually at stake within the con-flict in question. In order to do so,I will neither assume the positionof a legal opponent nor the posi-tion of a judge, because I neitherwant to quasi-metaphysically as-sert that there is indeed such athing as society (which would bethe logical counterpart to Thatch-

ers quasi-metaphysical denial ofsuch an assertion), nor do I claimto have the authority to decideupon this dispute. I will rather tryto adopt the position of, lets say,a critical journalist or analyst,who tries to understand what agiven conflict is all about and howit could ever emerge.

This might require, though, aspecific attention towards whatwe can call a history of thepresent. It is precisely this for-mula, first coined by MichelFoucault, that the French sociolo-gist Robert Castel has used to de-scribe his historical account ofwhat is well-known as the social

question. In his book Les mta-morphoses de la question sociale,05Castel tries to understand currentprocesses that are discussed un-der such names as precarizationagainst the background of thetransformations that Europeansocieties have undergone in the18th and 19th centuries. Accord-ing to him, this era was not onlymarked by the industrial revolu-tion, but also by a correspondingand equally important juridicalrevolution,06which consisted inthe implementation of a free ac-cess to the labour market (replac-ing for instance the guild system)and in the contractualization of

(wage) labour relations. However,as the structure of free labourcontracts soon turned out to befragile in that it specifically brangabout developments of massivepauperization, it gave rise to a so-

cial politics whose main chal-lenge was to cushion the effectsof the new labour system. This isin short where Castel locates thehistorical emergence of the so-cial question and, in a way, ofsociety as we know it:

The social question is a fun-damental aporia, in which a socie-ty experiences the enigma of itscohesion and seeks to conjure therisk of its fracture. It constitutes achallenge, which tests and callsinto question the capacity of a so-ciety (of that which, in politicalterms, is called a nation) to exist

as a collectivity linked by rela-tions of mutual dependency.07

From this angle, it is quite use-less to argue about the existenceor non-existence of such athing as society precisely be-cause society is not (and hasnever been) a thing, but ratherthe experience of its own aporiaor its own enigma. And asan ex-perience it is at the same time his-torically shaped, it is a historical

form, and this concerns not onlythe specific multiplicity of singu-lar experiences, but also theforms in which they are shared(or in which such sharing isblocked) and in which they are

publicly and politically represent-ed. I do not want to state, ofcourse, that there is no need to as-sume a sort of primordial sociali-ty in order to conceive of thespecific configuration that bearsthe name society (even thepostsocietal Margaret Thatcherassumes such a sociality, and si-multanously reduces it to fami-lies). But what is social is not nec-essarily societal. Whereas the firstnotion allows to envisage rela-tionality as such, the second onerefers to a representable totalityof social relations, even thoughthe aporia addressed by Castelmay always and inevitably re-

main inscribed in thisrepresentation.As far as the political form of

such representation is concerned,I think that Castel is quite right-fully evoking the name nation,

Stefan NowotnyFiltered inclusion / Postsocietalism in the neoliberal ages

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The term postsocialist societies usuallyrefers to societies in Eastern (Central

Eastern, South Eastern) Europe and thus tends togeographically fix the realities of both socialismand postsocialism. But why shouldnt we relatethe question of postsocialist societies to countries

like China or Vietnam?

We have to share experiences that are notlimited to the implementation or

contestation of neoliberal reforms within this or

that society, but that develop a sense for howneoliberalism has not only enteredthe plane ofsocial and political affairs, but indeed redefinesthisplane


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although I would for various rea-sons prefer the name nationstate. What his analysis offers,however, is something other thanthe, lets say, nationalist explana-tions of what a nation state is. Itis not necessarily related to mythsof heros and poets, nor to the nar-ratives of a national culture orthose which presume to docu-ment an original national lan-guage somewhere in the mists ofhistory. It is not even related tothe strange Enlightenment mythof an original social contractsupposed to constitute thethreshold between a state of na-ture and a state of sociality, civil-ity, politicality. However, it in-deed urges us to think of a con-tractual condition of modern so -cieties, but in very concreteterms: the terms of contractuallabour relations bringing aboutthe specific aporia which is con-stitutive for such an enigma associety, to the extent that they

are at once providing (more orless) free access to the labour mar-ket and challenging a societys

politicalcapability to be inclusivein a double sense in terms of in-cluding individual labour powerin the nation states productivityand in terms of including individ-uals into a legal constitution ofthat nation state by grantingthem civic and social rights, or in-deed civic rights associal rights.

Now the neoliberal withdraw-al from the governments taskof meeting the challenge of inclu-sion in the second sense, as im-plied in the quoted statement ofMargaret Thatchers, can be ana-

lyzed as a falling apart of thesetwo functions of inclusion, whichis certainly linked with the factthat nation states can no longerbe easily identified with stableterritories of economic produc-tivity. Castel, whose accounttends to focus on the albeit en-igmatic centre of societies, orrather, on the question of theirpossible cohesion, sociological-ly registers this falling apartmainly by referring to what hecalls the supernumeraries orthe disaffiliated,08that is tothose who are no longer providedwith civic rights associal rightsor whose status as citizens no

longer guarantees them social se-curity. And when doing so, I think

that Castel is rightfully avoidingthe term exclusion, pointing,among other arguments, to thejuridical dimension of this term.09Nevertheless the growing zoneof insecurity described by Castelcan equally implicate exclusion ina strict juridical sense, as becomesevident when we consider the sit-uations of migrants without pa-pers, that is, without access tocivic rights, whose inclusion intolabour markets allows for, as theFrench sociologist EmmanuelTerray10has called it, delocaliza-tions on the spot, that is, profit-maximizing strategies which are

precisely enabled by a presence ofthe (legally) absent, and hence by

the falling apart of economic andpolitical inclusion.

I would like to refer to thisphenomenon by proposing theterm filtered inclusion. Ofcourse both the devices of inclu-sion into a generalized labourmarket and into the nationhave known their specific filters,establishing gradations of work-ing capacity and incapacity towork, of qualification and non-qualification, of sameness andotherness, etc. Again the legaciesof these filters can be clearlytraced in current debates on mi-gration policies especially in

Western Europe: there is not one,but in fact two hegemonic posi-tions in these debates, one refer-ring to the filtering of immigra-tion according to criteria of qual-ification (with a view to the de-

mands of domestic labour mar-kets), and the other one referringto the filtering of immigration ac-cording to criteria which checkthe immigrants disposition tolingu

Urban Struggles in Post-Socialist Societies

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