Communal Performativity—A Seed for Change? The Solidarity of Thessaloniki's Social Movements in the Diverse Fights Against Neoliberalism

The debate on the financial crisis is at an impasse. Neoliberal austerity discourse is often positioned as an almost insurmountable barrier, its disciplinary power affecting even the most change‐oriented citizen‐initiatives existing today. Countering this, this paper highlights the transformative capacity of social movements in Thessaloniki. Drawing from Butler, Laclau and Mouffe, and Gibson‐Graham we develop the notion of “communal performativity” both as an academic and as a practical concept to understand and build trajectories of socio‐economic change. “Communal” denotes the drive of the movements’ participants to interconnect and (re)negotiate with a multiplicity of Others, curbing identity politics to articulate internal differences and Otherness. We see some hopeful signs of bridges being built towards shared trajectories of change that can be understood as different but concrete variations on the abstract counter‐narrative of “breaking with neoliberalism”. Some of these variations challenge, others diversify neoliberal discourses and practices.     

Areas of large enterprise and industrial districts in the development of post-war Italy: A preliminary survey

Our aim in this article is to lay some statistical and theoretical foundations for an understanding of Italian post-war economic growth, by devoting special attention to what has happened in the hundred different “Italies” that go to make up the mosaic of this country. We have concentrated our analysis on comparing “areas of large enterprise” with “industrial districts” through a distinction between district provinces (IDPs), large enterprise provinces (LEPs) and other provinces (OPs). We investigate manufacturing industry by means of in depth analyses of trends in employment and value added, as well as through breakdowns of export flows and income and prosperity levels. Since the end of World War II it appears that Italian economic growth has largely been formed by the constant, massive flow of exports of personal and household goods and light mechanically-engineered products, that a sizeable flow of exports is attributable to growth in the industrial districts, and that although the income gap between the different parts of the country has not been eliminated, growth by the industrial districts and the policy of industrialization in Southern Italy have together engineered a major territorial dispersion of both light and heavy industry. However, heavy industry and high-tech large Italian companies have found increasing difficulties and even lost many of the positions they once held. Our survey indicates that a policy for industrial development in Italy must take account of the weakness of the heavy industry sector along with the features and requirements of industrial districts.     

A Two‐Tiered Method for Identifying Trends in Media Framing of Policy Issues: The Case of the War on Terror

Research on media framing of policy issues has flourished. Yet the varied approaches to conceptualizing and operationalizing issue frames that make this literature rich also hinder its advancement. Here, we document the benefits of a two‐tiered method: the first level accounts for issue‐specific frames, while the second level tracks frames that generalize across issues. For this study, we draw on generalizable frames from prospect theory (loss vs. gain frames) and social identity theory (self‐referential vs. other‐referential frames). We discuss the theoretical merits of a two‐tiered approach, arguing that it should yield compound insights greater than the sum of its parts. Applying this method to newspaper coverage of the war on terror, we find a strong trend at the generalizable level: media framing of the war shifted over time from a predominant use of “fear” (self‐referential loss) frames to an increasing use of “charity” (other‐referential gain) frames. Our approach further reveals that the fear frames used in the lead‐up to the Iraq War were not driven by issue‐specific frames related to terrorism or weapons of mass destruction as we might have thought, but rather by frames related to the anticipated threats to U.S. troops. This study sharpens our understanding of how framing of the war evolved, but more broadly it suggests that a two‐tiered approach could be applied both within and across policy issues to advance our understanding of the framing process.     

Geographies of capital formation and rescaling: A historical‐geographical approach to the food desert problem

Although the “food desert” concept has captured the public imagination and spurred public policy efforts in many North American cities, the term has been critiqued by academics for being definitionally and methodologically vague, and for providing an incomplete picture of the complexity of food access. Rather than dismiss the study of urban, inner‐city food deserts, however, scholars can study disparities in retail food access through a historical, critical political economy lens to understand underserved retail landscapes as a product of capital formation and rescaling over time. The purpose of this article is to conduct such an analysis, using the case study of a low‐income community in Kingston, Ontario. Using historical research and qualitative interviews, the major finding of this analysis is that the physical accessibility of retail food appears to have declined over time in relation to the capitalization of the retail food sector. An imperfect relationship can be outlined over three phases of Canadian urban economic history to suggest that the food desert problem emerged largely in the transition from a decentralized, small‐scale, and neighbourhood‐embedded retail food industry to the scaled‐up, disembedded industry that now dominates the landscape. This industry‐level rescaling is contributing to a new urban politics of class and consumption through subtle, everyday activities such as food shopping.     

Appreciating the heterogeneity in the unity of Africa: A socio‐ecological perspective on Africa's geographies

The African continent is known by various metaphors and geographies, but for many there are also unknowns about the continent. Geopolitically, Africa is a continent that is considered remote—an economically emerging continent seen as entangled in persistent challenges of wars, political dictatorship, poverty, disease, and more recently migration. Given these predispositions it is typical to stereotype events, practice, and behaviour as “African.” There is, however, now recognition of the continent as emerging economic power house. But unpacking the diversity of Africa reveals a huge potential with respect to resource endowments, diversity of ecology, socio‐cultural economic advancement, politics, language, and demographics. Colonial history coupled with traditional Africa shaped the geopolitical boundaries that have added to the confusion about this massive and diverse continent. Intellectual discourses either amplify the differences due to specificities of geographical focus or generalizations such as the contested notion of “African.” However, using socio‐ecological lenses, Africa is unified by these very differences in addition to being a massive landmass with several big and small island states. Appreciating these differences is useful to understanding the observed patterns of social, economic, and political systems that unify the continent. This paper illustrates the notion of “African” to describe the heterogeneous nature of a “unified” continent. Some illustrative examples between Africa and other continents are used.     

South–South Cooperation and the Geographies of Latin America–Caribbean Integration and Development: A Socio‐Spatial Approach

Structured around the case of South–South cooperation in the construction of “complementary economic zones” among the member states of the ALBA‐TCP, Petrocaribe, CARICOM and MERCOSUR, this article argues for a socio‐spatial approach to the study of the Latin America–Caribbean integration and development. Two interrelated arguments are developed: first, in contrast to methodologically nationalist approaches, which typically view the regionalisms that are to form the complementary economic zones as ideologically separate, incompatible or conflicting projects, a socio‐spatial approach in conjunction with a South–South cooperation analytical lens explains their commonality and, subsequently, their interrelatedness and convergence. Second, while this South–South cooperation space is not per se non‐capitalist, a socio‐spatial analysis also facilitates “seeing” the production of a socialist “counter‐space” within this South–South cooperation structure.     

Oil and the House of Saud: Analysis of Saudi Arabian Oil Policy

This article analyzes the process of how the Government of Saudi Arabia determines oil policy. It focuses on oil production because it accepts that the Saudis are “price takers” rather than “price setters.” It applies economic and political explanations as determinants of how much oil is produced. Two periods of Saudi oil policy are compared—1987–1991 and 1997–2001—using open‐source data from various newspapers and newsletters. The article concludes that oil production in Saudi Arabia is, in large measure, a function of Saudi Arabian estimates of how its oil reserves may provide long‐term revenue and political stability at the risk of short‐term economic gains.     

Crisis,Continuity and Change: Neoliberalism,the Left and the Future of Capitalism

Abstract: This essay's point of departure is the coincident economic and environmental “crises” of our time. I locate both in the dynamics of capital accumulation on a world‐scale, drawing on the ideas of Marx, Karl Polanyi and James O’Connor. I ask whether the recent profusion of “crisis talk” in the public domain presents an opportunity for progressive new ideas to take hold now that “neoliberalism” has seemingly been de‐legitimated. My answer is that a “post‐neoliberal” future is probably a long way off. I make my case in two stages and at two geographical scales. First, I examine the British social formation as currently constituted and explain why even a leading neoliberal state is failing to reform its ways. Second, I then scale‐up from the domestic level to international affairs. I examine cross‐border emissions trading—arguably the policy tool for mitigating the very real prospects of significant climate change this century. The overall conclusion is this: even though the “first” and “second” contradictions of capital have manifested themselves together and at a global level, there are currently few prospects for systemic reform (never mind revolution) led by a new, twenty‐first century “red‐green” Left.     

The Anti‐Politics of Climate Finance: The Creation and Performativity of the Green Climate Fund

This paper is an empirical case study of the institutional design process of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from December 2011 to May 2014. Powerful countries, corporations and banks have favoured a deepening of neoliberal environmental governance, while civil society actors have argued over retaining movement concepts, won small representational victories, while participating in a process that has subjected them to a deepened practise of advanced liberal governance. The process has thus far produced “non‐outcomes” that fail to meet hopes that the GCF could provide a significant scaling up and paradigm shift in global climate finance. However, civil society engagement appears to be, somewhat inadvertently, exposing the “overflows”, limits and contradictions inherent in advanced liberal governance. The impasse created has prompted alternative governmentalities to emerge, not least of spectacle and (non‐)performativity, which may be generating an anti‐politics in environmental governance.     

Deportation Discretion: Tiered Influence,Minority Threat,and “Secure Communities” Deportations

As deportations from the United States rose to unprecedented levels, a nationwide immigration enforcement program Secure Communities helped identify deportable noncitizens under arrest in county jails. Examining county‐level variation in deportation activity between 2008 and 2013, this paper contributes to immigration policy research by examining how county officials in some locations facilitated exceptionally restrictive deportation outcomes while others exercised the discretion to turn noncitizens over for deportation sparingly. Consistent with a hypothesized “tiered influence” relationship, but contrary to a “racial threat” hypothesis, Hispanic concentration predicts the highest levels of exercised discretion where Hispanic concentration is neither too small nor too large. Noncitizens under arrest seem to have benefited from above‐average Hispanic concentrations, except in counties where Hispanics exceed about 40 percent of the population.     

Neoliberal Reason and Its Forms: De‐Politicisation Through Economisation

This paper offers a historically contextualised intellectual history of the entangled development of three competing post‐war economic approaches, viz the Austrian, Chicago and post‐Walrasian schools, as three forms of neoliberalism. Taking our cue from Foucault's reading of neoliberalism as a mode of governmentality under which the social is organised through “economic incentives”, we engage with the recent discussions of neoliberal theory on three accounts: neoliberalism is read as an epistemic horizon including not only “pro‐” but also “post‐market” positions articulated by post‐Walrasian economists who claim that market failures necessitate the design of “incentive‐compatible” remedial mechanisms; the Austrian tradition is distinguished from the Chicago‐style pro‐marketism; and the implications of the differences among the three approaches on economic as well as socio‐political life are discussed. The paper maintains that all three approaches promote the de‐politicisation of the social through its economisation albeit by way of different theories and policies. © 2013 The Author. Antipode © 2013 Antipode Foundation Ltd.     

Creative shifts and directions

The availability and “readiness” of culture as a mode of governmental control makes cultural policy a matter of great importance in any contemporary society. This is true not only in liberal democracies with established arts councils or cultural policies, it is also proactively pursued by a technologically advanced yet illiberal regime like Singapore, eager to position itself as the global “Renaissance City” of the twenty‐first century. What this “renaissance” model entails remains highly cryptic, not least because cultural terms and political markers are often elusive, but also because the very concept of “cultural policy” shifts along with the political and economic tides in Singapore. Drawing on a rarely cited essay by Raymond Williams, this article offers an historical look at cultural policy in Singapore – from its first articulation in 1978 to its present standing under the rubric of “creative industries” (2002). It considers some of the problems encountered and the societal changes made to accommodate Singapore’s new creative direction, all for the sake of ensuring Singapore’s continued economic dynamism. This article contends that cultural policy in Singapore now involves extracting creative energies – and economies – out of each loosely termed “creative worker” by heralding the economic potential of the arts, media, culture and the creative sectors, but concomitantly marking boundaries of political exchange. In this regard, culture in Singapore has become more than ever a site for governmentality and control.     

CALIFORNIA IRREDENTA

Kevin Starr's Golden Dreams is the culmination to some forty years of scholarship on the unfolding theme of a “California Dream,” that imaginal component to the growth of the self‐identity and increasing international economic power of the most populous state in the American Union. Indeed, the period 1950–1963 that the book meticulously covers forms in many ways the most imposing manifestation of that Dream. This essay reviews the central features of Starr's account, particularly the infrastructural foundations in transportation, water supply, and higher education realized by a triumvirate of California governors, both Republican and Democrat, who regarded themselves as nonpartisan members of the “Party of California”; the expansion of California's major cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco; the characteristics of the Silent Generation and the culture of “cool Jazz” that dominated the period; as well as the rise of dissident elements among environmentalists, minorities, and Beats, that foretold the protest period of the 1960s. This essay then asks whether Starr has avoided the larger implications of his own narrative that California from this period on had become in most respects a putative nation‐state in its own right. From the global impact of its major media industry—Hollywood—to the continued advances of its economic clout throughout the rest of the century as at times the fifth largest economic entity in the world, California may need to be increasingly regarded as a world civilization in itself rather than as a regional civilization to which Starr's historical narrative has so far constricted it.     

Race and the Making of Southeast San Francisco: Towards a Theory of Race‐Class

San Francisco is engaged in a redevelopment project that could bring millions in investment and community benefits to a starved neighborhood—and yet the project is embedded in an urban development process that is displacing residents. In trying to unsettle these contradictions, this paper achieves two aims. First, I unearth a little known history of redevelopment activism that frames debate around the current project. Second, I use this history to argue for a reframing of the language of race. To wit: although the social construction of race and racism is well established, race is still deeply understood in everyday life as natural. This paper offers a theoretical fusing of race and class, “race‐class”, to help us think race through a vital constructionist lens. Race‐class makes present the economic dynamics of racial formation, and foregrounds that race is a core process of urban political economy. Race‐class works both “top‐down” and “ground‐up.” While it is a vehicle for capital's exploitation of people and place, race‐class also emerges as a mode of power for racialized working‐class residents.     

The (Mis)Use of Disaster as Opportunity: Coerced Relocation from Celaque National Park,Honduras

Abstract: “Disaster capitalism” refers to political economic processes that take advantage of mass trauma to impose neoliberal capitalist economic policies, facilitating the redistribution of wealth and exacerbating socio‐economic divisions. Here the basic tenets of disaster capitalism are applied in another context: how natural disasters can be used to impose exclusionary protected area conservation principles with similar socio‐economic consequences and ecological ramifications. The post‐Hurricane Mitch relocation of resident populations from Celaque National Park, Honduras serves as a case study whereby a natural disaster, combined with the effects of neoliberal structural adjustment policies, created the opportunity to implement a universal model of exclusionary nature protection. The resultant displacement and increased semi‐proletarianization of the affected population effectively served the capitalist interests of international conservation and the agro‐export coffee industry and, contradictorily, worked against the proclaimed goals of nature preservation through exclusionary national park policies.     

Class,Citizenship and Regeneration: Glasgow and the Commonwealth Games 2014

Abstract: Through a focus on “consumer‐citizenship” this paper foregrounds the class practices inherent in urban regeneration. Using Glasgow's 2014 Commonwealth Games (CWGs) as an illustrative example of regeneration, it seeks to highlight the market‐led processes that underpin state interventions. The paper demonstrates how these processes are implemented to transform “problem people, and problem places” ( Damer 1989 , From Moorepark to “Wine Alley”) into sites of “active” consumption and “responsible” citizenship. Yet, access to this “consumer citizenship” is stratified. In doing so, we synthesise conceptual insights from the Marxist‐influenced gentrification literature and the Foucauldian‐inspired housing renewal literature. We forward this to initiate further academic debate and empirical enquiry on the specific issue of mega sporting events.     

U.S. Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: Balancing Values and Interests

The rapid and unpredictable changes in the Middle East collectively known as the “Arab Spring” are posing tremendous challenges to U.S. policy formation and action. This article will explore and evaluate evolving U.S. policy in the Middle East and its potential implications. There has always been a tension in American foreign policy between pursuing American “values” (foreign policy idealism) and protecting American “interests” (foreign policy realism). For decades, the United States has sought to “make the world safe for democracy,” while at the same time often supporting repressive, nondemocratic regimes because of national security or economic self‐interest. The tension between these two fundamentally distinct policy orientations has become even more pronounced as the United States tries to respond to the Arab Spring uprisings. Why did the United States actively support the rebels in Libya but not the protestors in Syria or Bahrain? Is there an emerging, coherent “Obama Doctrine” on intervention in Arab countries, or was Libya just a “one‐off” event? These are some of the questions that this article will attempt to answer.     

Is the Globalization Consensus Dead?

Abstract: The development economist Dani Rodrik recently declared that “the globalization consensus is dead”. The claim has momentus implications, because this consensus has steered economic policy around the world for the past quarter century. It emanates from the heartland of neoclassical economics, and defines the central tasks of the Washington‐based organizations which claim to speak for the world. This essay answers two main questions. First, is Rodrik's claim true, and by what measures of “consensus”? Second, to the extent that the consensus has substantially weakened, is the state returning to the heart of economic life, as Karl Polanyi might have predicted? The answers? First, the globalization consensus about desirable economic policy has weakened, though it is far from “dead”. Second, the western state is returning to the heart of economic life in response to the current global economic crisis, but will retreat soon after national economies recover—because unless the crisis becomes a second Great Depression, the norms of more free markets and more global economic integration will be politically challenged only at the margins. New rules of finance may be introduced, but with enough loopholes that by 2015 Wall Street and the City will operate in much the same way as in the recent pre‐crisis past.     

SOCIAL INJUSTICE AND INTER-NATIONALITY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE USSR

The deteriorating economic situation Kyrgyzstan provides an argument against the past selective development of republic economic profiles and for the need for a rational pricing system for raw materials and manufactured goods. The authors maintain that once realistic prices of Kyrgyzstan's products are established and republic authorities have the opportunity to make its production structure more rational, the republic could represent a net income donor to an all-Union budget. Thus, the paper provides a good synopsis of the concerns of the “weaker” republics in the currently more competitive situation evolving upon the weakening of central authority. translated by H. L. Haslett, Leamington Spa, UK, from: Territorial'naya organizatsiya obshchestva i problemy mezhnatsional'nykh otnosheniy: Materialy k IX s'yezdu Geograficheskogo Obshchestva SSSR. Leningrad: Geograficheskoye Obshchestvo SSSR, 1990, pp. 17-20.