Special Issue: Municipalist Strategy in Crisis? Urban Studies 1–27 Ó Urban Studies Journal Limited 2023 Politicising proximity: Radical municipalism as a strategy in crisis Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/00420980231173825 journals.sagepub.com/home/usj Laura Roth Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain Bertie Russell Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain Matthew Thompson Cardiff University, UK Abstract As new municipalism comes of age, prefixes proliferate: from democratic and autonomist to post-growth and care municipalisms. How do all these variegations relate to each other and to the wider movement of which they claim a part? What does all this conceptual creativity amount to, epistemologically and politically? How can we distill the most salient lessons for the further development of theory and practice in the years ahead? This article is our attempt to answer such questions and to define more precisely the contours of this emerging field of praxis. First, we delineate within new municipalism the target of our analytical gaze –radical municipalism. Radical municipalism is not simply progressive policies happening in cities, and should not be conflated with pragmatic, entrepreneurial or state-centric perspectives. Rather, we argue it is a speculative hypothesis about how systemic transformation might be wrought through coordinated action at the urban or municipal scale, understood as a strategic entry-point for counter-hegemonic strug- gle. Key here is proximity and the politicisation and socialisation of proximate relations of encoun- ter and assembly. Second, we delve deeper into what we identify as four salient dimensions marking this terrain – economic reorganisation, democratisation of political decision-making, fem- inisation of politics, ecological transformation – as a multi-dimensional lens through which to introduce, and situate within the wider literature, the 15 articles that comprise this double special issue. Throughout these contributions to the theory and practice of municipalist strategy, the issue of crisis looms large: both historically, as an animating spur to action and opportunity for political intervention, and operationally, as a structuring condition and limiting factor of a strategy arguably in crisis itself. Finally, we reflect on the epistemological, methodological and political implications of pursuing radical municipalist strategies in the current conjuncture. Corresponding author: Matthew Thompson, Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), Cardiff University, sbarc|spark, Maindy Road, Cardiff CF24 4H, UK. Email: thompsonm19@cardiff.ac.uk 2 Urban Studies 00(0) Keywords citizen assembly, commons, ecological transformation, economic democracy, feminisation of poli- tics, new municipalism ᪈㾱 䲿⵰ᯠൠᯩ㠚⋫ѫѹⲴਁኅᡀ⟏ˈަࡽ㔰нᯝ໎࣐˖Ӿ≁ѫⲴǃ㠚⋫䇪Ⲵǃࡠਾ໎䮯Ⲵ ԕ৺‫ޣ‬ᘰⲴൠᯩ㠚⋫ѫѹна㘼䏣DŽᡰᴹ䘉Ӌਈփѻ䰤ˈԕ৺ᆳԜоަᡰ༠〠Ⲵᴤᒯ⌋ Ⲵ䘀ࣘѻ䰤ˈᴹ⵰ᘾṧⲴ㚄㌫઒˛Ӿ䇔䇶䇪઼᭯⋫ᆖᶕⴻˈᡰᴹ䘉Ӌᾲᘥࡋ᜿ࡠᓅ᜿ણ ⵰ӰѸ઒˛ᡁԜྲօ᡽㜭㧧ਆᴰ䟽㾱Ⲵ㓿傼ᮉ䇝ˈԕ‫ׯ‬൘ᵚᶕࠐᒤ䘋а↕ਁኅ⨶䇪઼ᇎ 䐥˛ᡁԜ䈅മ䙊䗷ᵜ᮷എㆄ䘉Ӌ䰞仈ˈᒦᴤ߶⺞ൠᇊѹ䘉њᯠ‫Ⲵޤ‬ᇎ䐥亶ฏⲴ䖞ᔃDŽ俆 ‫ˈݸ‬ᡁԜ൘ᯠൠᯩ㠚⋫ѫѹѝࡂᇊҶᡁԜⲴ࠶᷀ⴞḷ ◰䘋ൠᯩ㠚⋫ѫѹDŽ◰䘋ൠᯩ㠚⋫ ѫѹнਚᱟਁ⭏൘෾ᐲⲴ䘋↕᭯ㆆˈнᓄ䈕оᇎ⭘ѫѹǃ෾ᐲࡋъѫѹᡆഭᇦѝᗳⲴ㿲 ⛩␧Ѫа䈸DŽ⴨৽ˈᡁԜ䇔Ѫᆳᱟањᣅᵪᙗ‫ٷ‬䇮ˈᱟ‫ޣ‬Ҿྲօ䙊䗷෾ᐲᡆൠᯩቲ䶒Ⲵ ॿ䈳㹼ࣘᶕᇎ⧠㌫㔏ᙗ䖜ਈDŽᆳ㻛⨶䀓Ѫ৽䵨ᵳᯇҹⲴᡈ⮕࠷‫⛩ޕ‬DŽ䘉䟼Ⲵ‫ޣ‬䭞ᱟ䛫䘁 ᙗˈԕ৺⴨䙷઼䳶ՊⲴ䛫䘁‫ޣ‬㌫Ⲵ᭯⋫ॆ઼⽮ՊॆDŽަ⅑ˈᡁԜ᧒ウᡁԜ䇔Ѫ⭼ᇊҶ䘉 а亶ฏⲴഋњ䟽㾱ᯩ䶒 㓿⍾䟽㓴ǃ᭯⋫ߣㆆⲴ≁ѫॆǃ᭯⋫Ⲵྣᙗॆǃ⭏ᘱ䖜රˈ ሶ ަ֌Ѫཊ㔤Ⲵ㿶䀂ˈ䙊䗷ᆳԜᶕӻ㓽䘉аৼ㚄⢩࠺ѝᡰवਜ਼Ⲵ ㇷ᮷ㄐˈᒦሶަ㖞Ҿᴤ ᒯ⌋Ⲵ᮷⥞㛼Ჟѝ䘋㹼㘳ሏDŽᵜ᮷Ⲵ⹄ウѪൠᯩ㠚⋫ѫѹᡈ⮕Ⲵ⨶䇪઼ᇎ䐥‫ࠪڊ‬Ҷ䍑⥞ˈ ަѝডᵪ䰞仈ቔަ䟽㾱˖н㇑ᱟӾশਢⲴ㿶䀂ⴻˈ䘈ᱟӾ᫽֌кⴻˈ䜭ᖸ䟽㾱DŽӾশਢ Ⲵ㿶䀂ⴻˈᆳᱟ㹼ࣘⲴ઼ࣘ࣋᭯⋫ᒢ亴ⲴᵪՊˈӾ᫽֌кⴻˈᆳᱟᡈ⮕Ⲵ㔃ᶴᶑԦ઼䲀 ࡦഐ㍐ˈਟԕ䈤ˈᱟ‫ޣ‬Ҿডᵪᵜ䓛DŽᴰਾˈᡁԜ৽ᙍҶ൘ᖃࡽᖒ࣯лˈ䘭≲◰䘋ൠᯩ㠚 ⋫ѫѹᡈ⮕Ⲵ䇔䇶䇪ǃᯩ⌅䇪઼᭯⋫᜿ѹDŽ ‫ޣ‬䭞䇽 ‫≁ޜ‬བྷՊǃ‫ޜ‬ൠǃ⭏ᘱ䖜රǃ㓿⍾≁ѫǃ᭯⋫Ⲵྣᙗॆǃᯠൠᯩ㠚⋫ѫѹ Received April 2023; accepted April 2023 Introduction ‘degrowth’ (Vansintjan, 2018) and ‘post- growth’ (Schmid, 2023). With the publica- Writing almost a decade on from the first tion of this double special issue, we can add stirrings of new municipalism – its figure- many more: care municipalism (Kussy et al., head Barcelona en Comú was formed in mid- 2022), southern municipalism (Pinto et al., 2014 – this is an opportune moment to take 2022), peripheral municipalism (Toro and stock and reflect on the achievements of a Orozco, 2023), territorial municipalism movement only just beginning to come of (Arpini et al., 2022) and weak municipalism age. As municipalist praxis has proliferated, (Béal et al., 2023). All this typological crea- so too have descriptors and typologies, with tivity certainly suggests a vibrant, ‘pre-para- multiple municipalist monikers springing up digmatic’ scholarly field of empirical enquiry across this diverse field; prefixes range from trying to keep up with fast-moving, diversi- ‘new’ (Roth, 2019a, 2019b; Russell, 2019) fying experimentation on the ground (on and ‘democratic’ (Shelley, 2022) to ‘autono- pre-paradigmatic fields, see Nicholls, 2010). mist’, ‘platform’ and ‘managed’ (Thompson, However, there is also a danger, here, of too 2021b) to ‘pragmatic’ (Warner, 2023) and many concepts jostling for attention in a ‘entrepreneurial’ (Thompson et al., 2020) to congested marketplace, causing confusion Roth et al. 3 and obscuring what’s at stake. How do all In the second part, we delve deeper into these variants or variegations relate to each what we identify as four salient dimensions other – and to the wider movement of which marking this terrain – economic reorganisa- they claim a part? What does all this concep- tion, democratisation of political decision- tual creativity amount to, epistemologically making, feminisation of politics, ecological and politically? How can we distill the most transformation – a multi-dimensional lens salient lessons for the further development through which to introduce and situate the of theory and practice in the years ahead? 15 articles that comprise this double special This article is our attempt to answer issue. Finally, in the conclusion, we use the such questions and to define more precisely heuristic advanced in this article to assess the contours of this emerging field of radical municipalism’s contributions to praxis. It is structured into two parts. In transformative social change and reflect on the first part, we start by delineating within epistemological and methodological avenues so-called ‘new’ municipalism, as it is most drawn from critical urban studies for extend- commonly called, the target of our analyti- ing enquiry in future action and research. cal gaze here – that is, ‘radical’ municipal- ism. Rather than seeking to confuse with yet more categories, this is our attempt at What’s so radical about radical defining what, precisely, is radical about municipalism? municipalism, by way of dispelling com- New municipalism is a marker in time, con- mon confusions with merely progressive, noting an entirely novel reinvention, or more pragmatic, state-centric perspectives; a neces- continuous renewal, of a broad historical sary exercise, we feel, for introducing the trend, a theory and a praxis called municip- theme of this special issue – municipalist alism. Predominantly, this has meant draw- strategy – and uncovering the kernel of radi- ing on histories that have taken the local cal municipalism’s distinctive strategic level as the site for pushing towards a radica- approach to systemic change. Next, we bur- lised political, economic and social agenda. row into the radical core of this municipalist In the case of Spain, where the term has ‘hypothesis’ to identify the urban (and rural) most frequently been used, the prefix ‘new’ spatialities of municipalism and the necessa- is meant to distinguish recent experiments rily place-based relations of proximity, from a long municipalist tradition (Orduña encounter and assembly that animate its dis- Rebollo, 2005). In some places, new muni- tinctive politics. Third, we explore the signifi- cipalism – sometimes called ‘neo-municipal- cance of crisis for municipalist strategy; both ism’ (Mocca, 2021; Pirone, 2020) – is all too in terms of how crisis shapes municipalism easily misinterpreted as a rediscovery of as social movement(s) and how – especially 19th- and 20th-century municipal socialism in its electoral turn towards ‘occupying the (Leopold and McDonald, 2012) and interna- institutions’ of the local state – this is shaped tional municipalism (Clarke, 2012; Saunier, by the crisis conditions of capitalist state 2002) for the 21st century (e.g. Association machinery, and is arguably now a strategy for Public Service Excellence [APSE] , 2018; itself in crisis. Radical municipalism, we Centre for Local Economic Strategies argue, not only responds reactively to con- [CLES], 2019). junctural crises, but proactively exploits Some scholarly discussions of the recent crisis-laden historical moments as opportuni- global remunicipalisation phenomenon, for ties to strategically unsettle hegemonic settle- example, have pronounced this the return of ments; to place a wager on political futures. a ‘pragmatic municipalism’, apparently 4 Urban Studies 00(0) oblivious to the wider new municipalist of inter-city and transnational urban policy movement with which it shares its name and mayoral networks united by the belief (Warner, 2023). In practice, while attempts that ‘cities can save the planet’ (Angelo and at (re)municipalisation are frequent features Wachsmuth, 2020: 2212). This municipalist- of new municipalist movements (e.g. Angel, adjacent approach frames the city as the pri- 2021; Becker et al., 2015; Paul and Cumbers, vileged site of experimental solutions to – as 2023), this rescaling of the delivery of ser- well as the source of – ‘wicked problems’ vices remains a creature of the state, with (complex problems resisting simple technical perhaps just as much in common with the resolution), not least climate breakdown ‘new state capitalism’ (Alami et al., 2023; (Barnett, 2022). This constitutes the liberal- Peck, 2023) as with the new municipalism. capitalist flipside to radical municipalist At whatever scale we care to look, the state’s translocalism: likewise promoting inter- recently rediscovered interventionist role in urban cooperation, knowledge sharing and the proactive management of capitalism is a solidarity, but within a merely ‘progressive’, marker of a conjunctural turning point away accommodative, technocratic frame that fails from previous iterations of neoliberalism to challenge the radical root of these and towards some sort of new state capital- problems. ism, whose rise, Peck (2023: 2)notes, ‘signals Radical municipalism, by contrast, seeks a significant geohistorical moment (maybe to make a clear break both with the state-led not a new ‘‘era’’ as such, but a notable inflec- municipalist imaginaries of the past and tion point for sure)’. At the local level, this present, and with the simplistic championing might translate into or at least accommodate of the ‘urbanising’ or ‘localising’ of policies. certain new municipalist approaches. Yet It points instead towards a more radical tra- these kinds of municipalism – pragmatic and dition devoted to constructing an alternative entrepreneurial, invested in managing local polity to that of the nested, hierarchical, economies in more-or-less progressive, patriarchal liberal-democratic capitalist though nonetheless state-capitalist, direc- state. This radical tradition is rooted in the tions – are decidedly not what we are looking communist – or, rather, ‘communalist’ at here, nor what this special issue is about. (Bookchin, 1987, 2015) – imaginary of the We can see the rise of the city as a politi- commune inspired by the Paris Commune. cal actor as another misguided example of Radical municipalism ultimately aims to new municipalism where radicality is absent. build alternative polities based on the com- The conventional approach to municipal mune to replace politics that reproduce the planning and policy innovation – promul- nation-state, patriarchal power structures gated by the likes of C40 Cities Climate and colonial capital accumulation. Leadership Group, Rockefeller Foundation’s Radical municipalism is thus not simply 100 Resilient Cities, the Global Covenant of ‘progressive policies happening in cities’ or Mayors and United Cities and Local economies that have been municipalised – Government, all plugged into philanthroca- conflated with this though it sometimes is pitalism and the global non-profit industrial (for a critique, see Thompson, 2021a). complex, and championing discourses and Rather, it is a particular orientation to, and methodologies such as ‘resilience’ and ‘design process of, transformative social change in thinking’ (Angelo and Wachsmuth, 2020; which the municipal scale is approached as Barnett, 2022) – is increasingly celebrated as the privileged ‘strategic entry point’ (Russell, best practice and enrolled in fast policy 2019: 991). First and foremost this is about model mobilisation in a growing assemblage ‘radical’ as opposed to merely ‘progressive’ Roth et al. 5 change – pursuing structural transformation relations are key to building power in poli- from the root, rather than incremental tics, economy and society. The strategy is reforms in accommodation with hegemony committed to interventions that more-or-less (for distinctions between radical and progres- work within present constraints but that sive, see Beveridge and Naumann, 2023; simultaneously create ‘transition pathways’ Thompson, 2023). Typically emphasising the (see Chatterton, 2016) to alternative futures. ‘prefigurative’ nature of radical transforma- This places radical municipalism very much tion – that is, ‘anticipating or representing in the realm of lived experience, everyday something that will happen in the future’ life, and the ‘urban everyday’ (Beveridge (Monticelli, 2022: 17) – radical municipalist and Koch, 2019) – a realm of daily rituals, interventions attempt to embody in present libidinal energies and private as well as col- practices, and condition the possibilities for, a lective desires. For Bookchin (1987, 2015), democratically envisioned future society. accessing this immediate, phenomenological They are – at least ideally – committed not level of human life is fundamental for muni- only to certain goals, policies, and concrete cipalist transformation, as the ‘hierarchical outputs but also to a specific way politics is mentality’ of capital, state and other forms done. These experimental practices typically of domination is embedded in society at a embody what Bookchin (1987, 2015), the the- ‘molecular’ level. The enduring allure of orist of libertarian municipalism and com- face-to-face, non-hierarchical, deliberative munalism, envisaged as ‘non-hierarchical dialogue in popular assemblies for the refor- forms’ that subvert ‘coercive hierarchies’ and mation of civic character and political sub- structures of domination, including: class jectivities through confrontation with the power (property-owners over property-less), desires and rationalities of others underpins state power (officials over citizens), patriarchy radical municipalism (Bookchin, 2015; (men over women), racial supremacy (white Roth, 2019b; Shelley, 2022); a school in the over black), gerontocracy (old over young), art and craft of collective self-government. imperialism (core over periphery) and anthro- Though important, the radical municipal- pocentrism (humans over non-human nature) ist hypothesis is more than the sum of prefi- (see Shelley, 2022). Prefiguration across these gurative politics. We find some commonality domains informs radical municipalist princi- here with Erik Olin Wright’s (2010) theorisa- ples, policies and practices, from the feminisa- tion of the interrelation between three tion of politics (Roth et al., 2020) to mechanisms of systemic change: ‘ruptural’ degrowth or postgrowth transitions (Schmid, (revolutionary struggle); ‘symbiotic’ (reform 2023; Vansintjan, 2018) to radical forms of of existing structures); and ‘interstitial’ (pre- democracy (Roth, 2019a; van Outryve figurative alterity in the interstices). In crude d’Ydewalle, 2019). terms, symbiotic and interstitial mechanisms The core of radical municipalist strategy, respectively reflect the two poles of radical then, is its ambition to transform citizen municipalism’s ‘dual power’ approach: tak- subjectivities and ideological ‘common ing (and transforming) existing state power sense’ through prefigurative experimentation by ‘occupying institutions’; and building alongside institutional innovation (Russell alternative counter-powers ‘in the shell of and Milburn, 2018). This entails shifting the old’, centred on the commune both the definition of power and its distribu- (Bookchin, 2015). As interstitial practices tion: from a top-down ‘power-over’ to a grow in strength and number, and as sym- bottom-up ‘power-with’ model (Roth et al., biotic reforms contribute to shifts in socio- 2020). Interdependence and everyday economic and political possibility, viable 6 Urban Studies 00(0) ruptural change may eventually be possible. constitutes transformative or radical change Radical municipalist experimentation with of social and institutional forms. How far new institutional forms or hacking existing can the capitalist state and liberal-bourgeois ones – blending symbiotic and interstitial law, for instance, be transformed from the approaches – has also produced some inter- inside or out – by developing creative, esting results. For instance, municipalist col- experimental and performative practices to lectives have often created citizen platforms ‘prefigure’ a new kind of state or law that use the form of the political party to (Cooper, 2017; Thorpe and Morgan, 2022, bring social movements into public institu- this issue)? tions (Monterde, 2019), combining the sym- There are many ‘boundary cases’ docu- biotic and interstitial in innovative ways that mented in this special issue – examples of can be adapted to the local circumstances municipalist praxis that fall short, in one and legal regulations. In the domain of the way or another, of their radical prefigurative commons, it has generated hybrids between or ruptural promise but which nonetheless existing state power and municipalist, com- cast light on the contours of the field, its munalist or ‘commonist’ counter-power: boundaries with adjacent practices, or on public-common partnerships (Russell et al., the barriers it needs to surmount in order to 2022a, this issue), commons-state institu- be successful (Joubert, 2022; Thorpe and tions (Bianchi, 2022, this issue) and a wider Morgan, 2022). Up against the definitions trajectory of ‘becoming-common of the pub- advanced here, most if not all of the cases in lic’ (Mendez et al., 2021). This is where this special issue – even of the most paradig- municipalist strategy intersects with the matic new municipalisms of Barcelona, commons and commoning as a movement Zagreb and Naples – struggle to live up to mobilised ‘in, against and beyond’ capital- this radicalism. This speaks to the limita- ism and the state (Chatterton and Pusey, tions of drawing such conceptual definitions 2020; Cumbers, 2015; Thompson, 2021b) – – intended merely as a heuristic to under- the in, against and beyond, here, somewhat stand ideal-typical topographies, geohistori- analogous to symbiotic, ruptural and inter- cal connections and political potentials – as stitial change, respectively. In contrast to much as to the difficulties and challenges more traditional forms of municipalism, we faced by municipalist struggles under severe view radical municipalism as harnessing crisis conditions. symbiotic action primarily to help achieve Paradoxically, perhaps, struggling to ‘live and protect interstitial, prefigurative change up to the radicalism’ is itself one of the in the here-and-now, with ruptural revolu- enduring features of radical municipalism. tion as its long-term horizon. Rather than a timeless or contextless theory, There is, no doubt, a need for greater the- one that seeks to stand resolutely in the face oretical and strategic clarity as to what this of all those who challenge it, the radical means in practice, recognising we are not municipalist hypothesis ought to be under- starting from a position of consensus stood as an intrinsically ‘open’ process. In amongst those working with the radical putting this hypothesis into practice, there is municipalist hypothesis. Strategies differ, a certain inevitability of coming up against according to the local circumstances, and so limits, challenges, contradictions and fail- do the long-term goals – more or less radical, ures: of elected platforms becoming ‘institu- depending on the case. Across this plural ter- tionalised’, of participatory practices rain of transformation, there are debates running out of steam, or of autonomous and divergences over what, exactly, initiatives becoming isolated, ossified or co- Roth et al. 7 opted. Yet it is better to understand such The priority radical municipalism gives to failures (and successes) neither as verifica- towns and cities is not, then, derived from tion or refutation, but as political acts that some essential character of the built environ- enable a process of ‘collaborative theory ment. Rather, it is a result of the contradic- building’ (Russell, 2019); something akin to tory scalar urban processes that produce a giant collective action-research cycle. This these environments and which give rise to special issue is one contribution to such a ‘the paradox of social existence under con- cycle, an effort to keep the radical municip- temporary capitalism: [that] never [before] alist hypothesis moving forward through an have human beings been more social in their engagement with a broad set of practices existence, but more individualised, priva- and initiatives from substantially different tised, in the apprehension of their existence’ contexts. (Read, 2012: 120). While our lives are infi- nitely enmeshed with others, other places, other people, other ecologies, our experience The spatiality of radical municipalism of this enmeshment is predominantly anti- Running through all of this is the wager – social. The radical municipalist hypothesis apuesta, as used in the Spanish context works with the perspective that this enmesh- (Observatorio Metropolitano, 2014) – that ment is typically at its most intense within the best way to begin precipitating system- urban spaces, which act as the ‘hinges’, wide shifts is through towns and cities. ‘knots’ or ‘joints’ that mediate between However, taken at surface level this can be scales and levels, between structure and misleading. When groups such as agency, historical movements and conjunc- Observatorio Metropolitano identified the tural contingencies, global forces and local municipality as the place ‘we can make a particularities (see Goonewardena, 2018, for democracy worthy of the name a reality’, a Lefebvrean reading of the urban as media- this was premised on the proposition that tion; and Leitner et al., 2019, on a conjunc- ‘democracy is either a democracy of prox- tural analysis of the urban). imity, ‘‘among equals’’, or it lacks any basis From this perspective, the strategic- whatsoever’ (2014: 143, our translation). spatial proposition of radical municipalism Central to understanding the spatiality of is twofold. Firstly, although concerned with the radical municipalist hypothesis is recog- fomenting system-wide transformations, the nising that this starting point is not based wager is that the most productive entry on an erroneous claim that ‘the local scale points are where our (anti)social enmesh- is assumed to be inherently more demo- ment is at its most intense, and thus where cratic than other scales’ or ‘more sustain- the greatest latent potential exists for a able, just or culturally diverse’ – a becoming-social of this enmeshment. Radical perspective which Purcell (2006: 1921, 1924) municipalism is thus not defined primarily calls the ‘local trap’. Such a perspective can by a commitment to ‘local’ politics, but to a lead to claims that cities have some form of ‘politics of proximity’ (Subirats, 2016), one fundamentally progressive character or that is most often but not exclusively possi- ‘natural urban aptitude for piecemeal and ble within towns and cities. Secondly, radical episodic collaboration’ that renders them municipalist interventions – whatever their ‘likely building blocks for a viable global thematic or sectoral focus – are focused on order’ (Barber, 2013: 148); to a belief that both intensifying our proximity to other peo- ‘cities can save the planet’ (Angelo and ple, places, and ecologies, and on a becom- Wachsmuth, 2020). ing-social of these proximities. It is for this 8 Urban Studies 00(0) reason that an expansive understanding of Nonetheless, however small, peripheral or democracy runs so deeply through radical ‘rural’ are the urban sites for radical muni- municipalist agendas. cipalism, they are still in some way premised Two further observations arise from this upon the logic of proximity, encounter and reading of radical municipalism as a politics assembly – key formal characteristics of the of proximity. Firstly, it is perfectly plausible municipality, the polis and the commune, to have progressive and redistributive local and underlying dynamics of the urban. The government policy that has little to do with obvious practical implication here is the the radical municipalist wager, which speaks expansion of radical municipalism as a to the distinction between radical and the research agenda that looks beyond cities wider new municipalisms outlined above. (certainly beyond local governments); that This demands articulating with greater works outside of narrowly-defined disciplin- clarity the link between particular concrete ary boundaries. The radical municipalist interventions and their radical character. hypothesis does not share ‘the long- For example, building and improving access entrenched obsession among many urban to public housing is one of the essential glo- scholars with demarcating a neat boundary bal imperatives of our time, and local and between city and non-city spaces in a world regional governments often play a key role of increasingly generalised urbanisation and in this. While there are approaches to the rapidly imploding/exploding urban transfor- collective provision of housing that can be mations’ (Brenner, 2018: 574). This calls for understood as part of a radical municipalist a consideration of the strategic differences in wager (see Ferreri, 2021; Ferreri and Vidal, pursuing a radical municipalist politics 2022; Holm et al., 2022), there is not an across contexts, both in terms of the particu- inherent relationship with radical municipal- lar forms these interventions take, and what ism. The same can be said whatever the the- this means strategically with respect to iden- matic area or sector we focus on. Indeed, a tifying ‘productive entry points’ to wider sys- useful distinction might be made between a temic transformations. ‘municipal pragmatism’ which ‘centres on a specific ethos of engagement with the poli- cies and practices of local government’ Municipalist strategy in crisis? (Barnett et al., 2020: 507), and a radical If radical municipalism exists as a hypothesis, municipalist orientation where the policies then a key feature – and source – of its praxis and practices of local government are tan- is seeking to take advantage of conjunctural gential to the central focus. crises as opportunities for systemic change. Secondly, if the built environment of the Radical municipalism is a set of strategies, city is understood not as the essential sub- often born out of crisis conditions, which strata of a radical municipalist politics, then attempt to prise open and exploit the fissures, a radical municipalist agenda appears plau- fractures, fault lines, the state and market sible in ostensibly rural or peri-urban loca- failures, the weaknesses of patriarchal ways tions, although this will likely have different of organising, and the intersectional class strategic implications. As Subirats (2019): antagonisms and systemic contradictions that 168, our translation) suggests, ‘it is necessary these crises make patent and intensify. First, not to restrict oneself to the confines of what radical municipalist interventions are in some has traditionally been understood as ‘‘city’’, sense reactive ‘contestations’ to crises, made with its logic of local administration and possible by a conjunctural opening in poli- limited territorial and political space’. tics, which in the contemporary European Roth et al. 9 context is often traced back to the 2008 glo- conjunctural crises: of capitalist accumula- bal financial crash (Featherstone et al., tion and of social reproduction; of the state 2015). These are contestations to crises across and representative decision-making; of patri- multiple domains – from the ‘financial’ crisis archal rules of privilege and domination; of asset devaluations, escalating debts, mort- and of ecological and climate breakdown. In gage defaults and foreclosures and the this way, radical municipalism has a dialecti- ‘urban’ crisis of austerity, privatisations of cally generative relationship with crisis. the urban commons and accumulation-by- It is in this double-sense of crisis that we dispossession (Russell et al., 2022a, this originally conceived the theme of this special issue), through the ‘social reproduction’ crisis issue as Municipalist Strategy in Crisis? – cri- of care (Kussy et al., 2022, this issue), the sis understood as both shaping the historical ‘governability’ crisis of ‘the public’ (Bianchi, conditions for and, increasingly, the practi- 2022, this issue) or of urban regimes (Bua cal operations of radical municipalist strat- and Davies, 2022, this issue; Milan, 2022, this egy itself. In seeking, at least in some cases, issue; Sarnow and Tiedemann, 2022, this to ‘break the glass ceiling’ (Roth, 2019a) of issue) and the ‘political’ crises of representa- traditional social movement organising – tion and of ‘legitimation’, in which tradi- making the decisive move from ‘occupying tional social-democratic parties are in freefall the squares/streets’ towards ‘occupying/ and party politics in radical realignment building new institutions’, explicitly and visi- (Béal et al., 2023; van Outryve d’Ydewalle, bly challenging the state and capital (Blanco 2019, this issue) to the ‘ecological’ crises of et al., 2020) – radical municipalist strategy is climate breakdown, resource exhaustion, especially vulnerable to getting knocked and environmental pollution, and ecosystem bruised along the way, not least by hitting degradation (Sareen and Waagsaether, 2022, hard up against a hostile state machinery, this issue; Schmid, 2023). the limits of capital’s accommodation and a Radical municipalist struggles are in some deeply patriarchal culture. There is a sense sense just that: struggles – much like compa- in which radical municipalist strategy is fre- rable contestations that work in, against and quently crisis-riven, faltering at hurdles or beyond neoliberalism and austerity, capital falling down altogether when running and the state (Cumbers, 2015; Featherstone against intransigent partisan, capitalist and et al., 2015). But that is not all they are. patriarchal logics. Radical municipalism is not simply a knee- Several of the articles in this issue jerk reaction to protect against the intersec- describe this ‘crisis of municipalist strategy’ tional crises of ‘cannibal capitalism’ (Fraser, either explicitly (Bua and Davies, 2022) or 2022); rather, it is a positive vision and implicitly (Béal et al., 2023; Sarnow and proactive strategy – an apuesta, or specula- Tiedemann, 2022). Bua and Davies (2022) tive wager – to cohere a transformative recount a Galician activist’s metaphor of a movement driven by the fundamental princi- broken car representing the state machinery ple of expanding collective self-governance. that activists are attempting to re-engineer – As such, the four dimensions of radical weighed down by ‘loading the vehicle with municipalism that we identify and discuss in more luggage’ before sufficient progress is what follows – economic reorganisation; made with ‘fixing the engine’. This captures democratisation of political decision-mak- the problem of focusing too much on pro- ing; feminisation of politics; ecological trans- gressive policies – the luggage – to the detri- formation – can each be understood as ment of institutional transformation. The affirmative responses to correspondent inverse problem occurs in France, where, as 10 Urban Studies 00(0) documented by Béal et al. (2023), ‘weak’ radical municipalist discourse, but which municipalist citizen lists focus their energies loses altogether the specificity of the radical on instilling participatory procedures – a municipalist hypothesis. Indeed, it is already proceduralism denounced by some as ‘citi- a challenge to navigate through literature zen washing’ – at the expense of ‘reaching that harnesses the language of ‘new’ and working-class neighbourhoods’ or of con- ‘radical municipalism’, but where the focus structing a common ideological project of is more closely aligned to a municipal prag- distributive justice capable of building a matism (cf. Morley and Morgan, 2021; counter-hegemonic base. In Zagreb, muni- Purcell and Ward, 2022; Thompson et al., cipalist activists have become so bogged 2020). Those working with radical municip- down in unravelling and reversing the priva- alism as a research agenda must become tised, patronage-based, corrupted and clien- more attuned to these distinctions, and more telistic public procurement contracts of the clearly articulate the relationship between previous, right-populist administration – particular interventions and their radical while strenuously enforcing transparency, municipalist character. This challenge runs accountability, and due process by, for through all the papers included in this special instance, demonstratively not appointing issue and, as a pre-paradigmatic field, we their own people to key strategic positions in encourage the reader to engage critically. the state machinery, in paranoid pre-emptive To this end, we suggest four principal appeals to an inimical media – that they dimensions to the radical municipalist undermine their own capacity to follow hypothesis: economic reorganisation, demo- through on either participatory procedures cratisation of political decision-making, or policy promises (Milan, 2022; Sarnow feminisation of politics, and ecological trans- and Tiedemann, 2022). The crisis dynamics formation. These are not discrete fields, this produces between movement members either conceptually or in practice. Many of and vanguard officials weakens the connec- those working to re-embed and democratise tion between symbiotic and interstitial the economy are doing so through an explo- power and places further stress on those in ration of how we can ‘hack’ the legislative government, tightening the screw. and practical competencies of governmental actors. Many of those developing techno- political democratic interventions are doing The four dimensions of radical so informed by specific feminist critiques of municipalism existing institutions. Nominally ‘ecological’ In drawing the contours of a research agenda interventions find themselves rooted in on radical municipalism, we have main- understandings of how people develop col- tained a somewhat ambivalent position lective agency through distributed and more regarding the inclusion of progressive poli- formal political and economic arrangements. cies as a frame through which to undertake These different dimensions thus inherently radical municipalist research. In particular, overlap and infer one another, such that we wish to guard against the idea that the practical experiences can rarely be sorted radical municipalist hypothesis can be extra- into neat categories such as ‘economy’, polated through a sectoral or policy focus. ‘democracy’, ‘ecology’ or ‘feminism’, let This can all-too-easily result in the bundling alone more sectoral approaches such as together of a set of keywords – such as ‘cit- housing, food, water, mobility or energy. ies’, ‘housing’, ‘municipal’, ‘participation’ This is why we propose these four dimen- and ‘radical’ – in the linguistic wrapper of sions as a heuristic – a mental shortcut that Roth et al. 11 allows us to sketch out the contours of radi- starting point, invoking ideas of a cal municipalism – rather than a definitive ‘Polanyian countermovement’ and to posit statement about what a radical municipalist something akin to an ‘antagonistic economy’ politics always looks like. More specific sec- that ‘goes beyond building alternatives’ to toral interventions and policies, such as the also ‘make challenges’ (North et al., 2020: development of specific approaches to the 335) to hegemonic understandings of what democratic remunicipalisation of water and ‘the’ economy is and the policies and govern- energy, cooperative housing, or collective ance structures – within both the state and cultural spaces can therefore be read and enterprises – that reproduce it. As articu- evaluated through these four dimensions. lated by contributors to a recent edited col- For our current purpose, this heuristic lection published by Fearless Cities – the allows us to provide some clarity and fram- international network that arguably cata- ing to approaching a research agenda on lysed new municipalism (Russell, 2019) – this radical municipalism. The 15 contributions is an orientation that understands that ‘the to this special issue go some way to eluci- promises associated with perpetual economic dating these four dimensions, but they also growth (jobs for everybody, good money for illustrate some of the comparative blind- all, and general well-being) turn out to be a spots and oversights in critical radical fantasy’, that we must find ways to ‘transi- municipalist research to date. In what fol- tion. into a pluriverse of alternatives’, lows, we have attempted to address this whilst ‘rethinking ideas like ‘‘work’’ and through a brief engagement with other ‘‘prosperity’’, for instance, are good starting research, published predominately over the points to widen these conversations’ (in past five years, such that this paper sign- Miralles-de-Imperial, 2022: 98, 101). posts readers to the wider literature. Yet Numerous conceptual frames can be the relative lack of research in some of brought into conversation within this dimen- these dimensions – especially ecology and sion; more visibly the social and solidarity feminism – indicate that many critical per- economy (Eizaguirre Anglada, 2021; spectives and practices have still not perme- Thompson et al., 2022) the common(s) ated into academic debates; that the links (Bianchi et al., 2022), diverse or community between these dimensions and radical muni- economies (Gibson-Graham, 2006) and cipalist strategy are insufficiently devel- degrowth (Schmid, 2023; Vansintjan, 2018), oped. This is, admittedly, a shortcoming of along with certain interpretations of the this special issue as much as it is of wider foundational economy (Russell et al., 2022b) radical municipalist research. We hope for and community wealth building (Thompson, this heuristic and the special issue in general 2023) among others. Each of these concep- to act as a waymarker for future research. tual fields have their own internal diversities and debates, intersections and overlaps with one another, and are mobilised differently in Economic reorganisation different localities. Yet differences between To say that that radical municipalist theory these conceptual frames should not be over- and practice is concerned with economic stated. What matters is that organised com- reorganisation is to purposefully leave it munities are using whichever concepts they open to a breadth of heterodox economic find useful in cohering the practices of an perspectives and forms of action, while also antagonistic economy; not to pursue the cre- providing some clear orientation. To talk of ation of a ‘social’ economy that runs parallel re-organising the economy is a fruitful to the public and private sector (see Amin 12 Urban Studies 00(0) et al., 2002; Thompson et al., 2022 for cri- What some have referred to as a becom- tiques), but to further the relationship ing-common of the public, this entails ‘fight- between the interstitial, symbiotic and rup- ing to recover, through collective self- tural mechanisms alluded to above (Wright, organisation, the decision-making spaces of 2010). those resources necessary to satisfy our fun- Nonetheless, certain recurring themes damental needs’ (Mendez et al., 2021: 8, our are particularly salient to the radical muni- translation). Here the common does not cipalist hypothesis of re-organising the refer to individualised economic arrange- economy. The first is a fundamentally fem- ments, but a political horizon in which the inist view of ‘the economy’ and what counts ‘sovereignty’ of the public shifts away from as economic activity, one that confronts the state organs and towards organised commu- narrowness of productivist economics and nities. This entails a diversity of experiments the ‘capitalocentrism’ of orthodox Marxist in which organised communities engage and neoclassical schools (Gibson-Graham, directly with state bodies (and municipal 2006), and calls for particular attention to bodies in particular) to guarantee the strategies that can collectively intervene (re)production of foundational goods, whilst and remodel collective social reproduction simultaneously looking to enhance and (Federici, 2020). This means those things expand social autonomy. This puts an which are ‘foundational’ to living well – emphasis on ‘the importance of legal innova- housing, food, mobility, education, water, tions in the development of mechanisms energy, care, and so on – are at the centre capable of recognising concrete experiences of an antagonistic economic strategy. In of communalization’ (Mendez et al., 2021: areas such as care, this specifically requires 9), and a prefigurative understanding of the ‘a transformation of the current division law as flexible, performative and reconfigur- between care and wealth, as well as between able for ends counter to the liberal-bourgeois the economic sphere and the reproductive capitalist nation-state (see Thorpe and one’ (Kussy et al., 2022: 14, this issue). The Morgan, 2022, this issue). intersection between the pressures of tour- A number of paradigmatic cases are ism and affordable housing, and the chal- emerging in this field. Bianchi (2022, this lenges in navigating such issues when faced issue) highlights the ongoing development of with entrenched regime interests, are a Barcelona’s Patrimoni Ciutadà (Citizen recurring theme (Bua and Davies, 2022, Assets) programme, exploring how it stems this issue). It also extends to areas such as from the possibility that ‘what is public (a the development of ‘counter logistics’ – new municipal asset) can become a common (citi- forms of popular supply chains and infra- zens’ asset)’ (Castro and Forne, 2021). The structures of production in sectors such as case of Can Battlo, a former factory site food. That such projects are ‘seeking ways brought under community management, is of problematizing what we understand as particularly emblematic here (Asara, 2019) public, a terrain where the State motorizes and demonstrative of ‘an alternative way to and finds allies in administering the com- understand the city and the relationships mons’ (Minuchin and Maino 2022: 19, this between citizens and institutions’ (Parés issue) reflects the radical municipalist focus et al., 2017: 190). In Naples, efforts to estab- on how a politics of the common can inter- lish the Acqua Bene Comune service similarly sect and remake our understanding of the demonstrate ‘the multiple configurations public (Bianchi, 2022, this issue; Russell et that common–state institutions can adopt’ al, 2022a, this issue). (Bianchi, 2022: 10, this issue). Work on Roth et al. 13 ‘public-common partnerships’ is explicitly through conflict, consensus and voting. theorised as a radical municipalist approach Technocrats and experts are kept at arms- in which ‘the expansion of democratic con- length from politics and made wholly trol of resources in the present simultane- accountable to the assembly; while delegates ously enhances our capacity to push for are mandated (and fully recallable) by the change that goes beyond the limits of what assembly to merely administer popular deci- is currently politically possible’ (Russell sions at ‘higher’ scales of confederated et al., 2022a: 20, this issue). This goes to the regional assemblies. The distinction between core of an antagonistic approach to re- politics proper and the ‘logistical’ operations embedding the economy, where ostensibly of ‘statecraft’ is central to Bookchin’s under- economic interventions are ‘a social gear of standing of libertarian municipalism – a sali- radical transformation that makes possible ent distinction which Minuchin and Maino the becoming-common of the public, and (2022, this issue) explore in relation to the subordination of the market to society’ logistics. (Mendez et al., 2021: 8–9, 24, our The commune effectively constitutes one translation). pole of the ‘dual power’ approach that defines certain strands of radical municipal- ist strategy. Building on Lenin’s original Democratisation of political decision- strategy of developing worker-controlled making soviets as a counter-power alongside com- Participation is arguably the empty grand munist party rule of the state as a transi- signifier of our age – increasingly mobilised tional stage to communism, municipalist alongside ‘sustainability’, ‘democracy’ and dual power seeks to develop prefiguratively ‘resilience’ by global mayoral networks and democratic institutions and practices, urban policy innovators (Barnett, 2022). centred on assemblies, as interstitial counter- Radical municipalism, by contrast, seeks not power to the nation-state, while also to enrol citizens in participatory processes attempting to take (local) state power itself, and technocratic consultation exercises through mobilising social movements as citi- (Baiocchi and Ganuza, 2017), but rather to zen lists and non-party platforms to contend institute new forms of decision-making and for election, leveraging local government cultivate new subjectivities that deepen resources, if successful, to support counter- democracy across all domains and levels of power (Bookchin, 2015). society. The cell-form of this real democrati- The question of how these theories of the sation is the popular assembly, although rad- assembly play out in practice, where demo- ical municipalism has embraced diverse cratic principles run up against the compro- institutional forms. In Bookchin’s (2015) mised realities of electoral representative thought, the institution of the assembly lies politics, is taken up by many of the contri- at the heart of the commune form that radi- butions to this special issue. They chart how, cal municipalists wager will supersede the in recent years, radical municipalists have capitalist nation-state. Based on a number of tried different ways of building political historical precedents – from the Athenian power from below: presenting activists as polis to the Paris Commune – the assembly candidates in local elections; supporting can- enables direct, face-to-face, deliberative dem- didates but remaining autonomous; creating ocratic decision-making in which desires and local assemblies completely autonomously decisions are shaped by confrontation with from the local state; advocating for the others’ preferences, and policies are decided transformation of local institutions towards 14 Urban Studies 00(0) participatory decision-making – amongst this issue) show to what extent a real regime many other proposals. One shared assump- change is possible. They analyse the cases of tion is that representative democracy based A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela and on the nation-state is in decay; that popular explain that (in addition to some conjunc- political power cannot be shared (or built) tural factors) both the resistance of the hege- within this framework and that national and monic regime (the administration and the regional political parties together with public existing political parties) and the expecta- officials (and through them all kinds of tions of the social movements generated a interest groups) remain the key obstacle to situation where the margin for manoeuvre really democratic decision-making. This hol- was severely restricted. The case of Naples low democracy is now facing a crisis of differs from Spain’s in that here social move- legitimacy. The citizen platforms created in ments have opted for staying neither inside 2014 in Spain were deeply impacted by the nor outside formal institutions. Pinto et al. no nos representan discourse of the 15M (2022, this issue) argue that radical municip- (Roth et al., 2019). In Naples, Zagreb or alism stile napoletano is not based on a pro- Belgrade, an anti-establishment sentiment cedural view of participatory democracy, was key to the justification of bringing but on a more political, conflictual model. power back to people (Milan, 2022, this Despite the apparent benefits of spontaneity issue; Pinto et al., 2022, this issue). The form – adapting to the local culture and avoiding of the local assembly where citizens partici- institutional sclerosis – the limitations of this pate directly and not through representatives approach are revealed as an incapacity to – strongly advocated by Bookchin (2015)– endure. was on the table in the French local elections Van Outryve d’Ydewalle (2023, this issue) of 2020 (Béal et al., 2023, this issue; van studies the case of Commercy to show yet Outryve d’Ydewalle, 2023, this issue), but another limitation of municipalism: when also more generally in the Fearless Cities focused overtly on procedures, the project network (Barcelona en Comú et al., 2019). can lose steam and fail electorally. Here, the Radical democracy has been the most salient distinctly Bookchinean strategy was to build element of radical municipalist experiments, an autonomous citizen assembly and then and it includes two principles: making run for elections. But with almost no policy democracy less representative and more par- content to discuss, the assembly weakened, ticipatory; and devolving power to the local and the candidates were left with little sup- level, where face-to-face interactions and the port. The very same problem is analysed immediate scale makes possible more hori- across four French cases by Béal et al. (2023, zontal decision-making mechanisms (Roth, this issue). Strong participatory agendas met 2019a). The aim is not, however, to paro- resistance from the political party system, chialise politics, but to create new networks which, although itself facing a strong crisis and confederations of municipalities where of legitimacy, nonetheless remained a for- power flows from below. midable force in structuring the political Although the Spanish recipe of uniting field. Milan (2022, this issue) describes the social movements in a confluencia, drafting a paths taken by municipalist activists in code of ethics to limit professionalisation, Belgrade and Zagreb, reflecting on the lim- deciding on a manifesto through open par- itations of their projects. Her focus is not so ticipation and running for elections, proved much on the how, but on the why of these very successful in electoral terms in 2014 decisions, in a political context marked by (Monterde, 2019), Bua and Davies (2022, authoritarian-populist trends. She argues Roth et al. 15 that local activists have been inspired by the important to avoid domination by informal radical municipalist experiences of other institutions) but rather on cultivating open, places and by the Yugoslavian self-managed honest and cooperative subjectivities based socialism of the recent past. on horizontal face-to-face interactions, dis- If these papers focus on the participatory positions to change, and trust (Roth et al., aspect of building counter-power, Thorpe 2020). and Morgan (2022, this issue) bring new What this means in practice is a more col- attention towards the expansion of local laborative and distributed form of leader- power vis à vis the state. By analysing the ship widely shared and conditioned by case of Sydney, they argue that though ‘pre- democratic dissensus. Feminisation of poli- figurative legality’ might not be radical, tics goes further than Hardt and Negri’s merely progressive, this nonetheless presents (2017: 18) inversion of traditional leadership a tool for reconfiguring the state form and – ‘strategy to the movements and tactics to redistributing its power. Slowly and progres- the leadership’ – to radically democratise sively, the boundary case of Sydney shows a even tactical decision-making. One approach possible pathway to radical municipalism, to this is the distinctively municipalist form deploying legal prefiguration alongside or in of the assembly, in which wholly-recallable the absence of more familiar tactics. delegates – not elected representatives – are mandated by popular decisions made by the assembly through deliberative and Feminisation of politics consensus-based decision-making (van The fact that the first female mayor of Outryve d’Ydewalle, 2019, 2023, this issue). Barcelona, Ada Colau, is one of the leading As Caren Tepp, of Ciudad Futura in figureheads of the new municipalist move- Rosario, Argentina, has remarked: ‘a leader ment worldwide reveals deep roots in femin- is not the coach of a football team. She’s ist theory and practice (Roth et al., 2020). more like a captain, who plays alongside the But feminising politics goes far beyond gen- others, who knows them and is there for der balance, as argued by Lovenduski (2005) them. She can make mistakes and be called in her famous essay. Municipalism’s ‘femini- into account like any other’ (Roth et al., sation’ – or ‘feministisation’ – of politics is 2020: 47). This rejects traditional masculinist concerned with a radically divergent form ‘boss’ politics in which a ‘strong man’ – and content of politics to the liberal- almost always a man – destroys his oppo- bourgeois representative processes of the nents, upholds hierarchies and centralises patriarchal, imperialist capitalist-nation- power through a deeply personalised and state. Feminisation begins with dispelling patronage-based politics. masculinist-capitalist ideology that power is Such an ingrained culture comes under allocated through competition, regulated close scrutiny by contributors to this special through confrontation, and maintained issue, not least Sarnow and Tiedemann’s through domination; rather, power is not a (2022) deconstruction of the masculinist zero-sum game but a generative force for state machineries in Barcelona and Zagreb, world-building and cooperation, and it is intersecting with corrupt, clientelistic, neo- necessarily a collective enterprise. This alter- liberal networks. They draw attention to the nate politics is based not on abstract proce- ‘masculinist grammars’ embedded in the duralism and due process codified in state through the patriarchal social relations juridical law and enforced by the state’s of capitalism, and evaluate the difficulties monopoly on violence (although structure is encountered by municipalist activists in 16 Urban Studies 00(0) rewriting these codes. Here, we find reso- example illustrates how a feminist ethics of nances with Joubert’s (2022, this issue) care infuses both the process of radical muni- account of the ‘prosaic’ practices navigated cipalist politics itself and the socio-economic by the radical-feminist ‘activist state work- policies and practices it advocates for. Much ers’ of the Greater London Council (GLC) of this endeavour is about ensuring gender of 1981–86. In some respects, the feminisa- equality in both the political domain – in tion of politics might come unstuck in electoral lists, board members, mandated upholding a prefigurative ethics to the detri- delegates – as well as in the wider spheres of ment of winning and maintaining power as production and social reproduction. conceived and instituted under national- Municipalist efforts in social reproduction state-capitalism; abandoning confrontation focus on accounting for and making visible even with hostile opponents may undermine tasks traditionally performed by women, strategic efficacy just as it prefigures an such as domestic labour in capitalism’s ‘hid- alternative. The historical example of the den abodes’ (Federici, 2020; Fraser, 2022; GLC, eventually outgunned by the masculi- Gibson-Graham, 2006), as well as improving nist repertoires and superior powers of labour conditions and instituting social jus- Margaret Thatcher, suggests the immense tice in the formal economic sectors of health strategic difficulties, scalar contradictions and social care. This is precisely what Kussy and irreconcilable trade-offs inherent in et al. (2022, this issue) document with respect attempting to ‘prefigure’ a different, more to Barcelona en Comú. Clearly, a formal feminist kind of local state within the rules righting of wrongs in quantitative terms is of the game set by the capitalist nation-state not enough: a wholescale ‘molecular’ trans- (Cooper, 2017; Joubert, 2022, this issue). formation of value and social relations The feminist principles of non-violence and (Bookchin, 2015) is required to materialise peaceful protest – alongside non-punitive the feminist imaginary of the ‘caring city’ – and collaborative forms of governance through what Kussy et al. (2022, this issue) within movements – may suffer a similar characterise as ‘care municipalism’, building fate, when up against deeply hostile and on Tronto’s theory of ‘caring democracy’ powerful capitalist and nationalist forces. and advancing notions of collective well- The case of Zagreb reveals how such mas- being, psychological support, mutual aid culinist grammars become inscribed in social and socio-ecological balance. policy and, in turn, the materialities and ima- ginaries of urban everyday life (Milan, 2022, this issue). Up until the municipalist plat- Ecological transformation form Zagreb je nasˇ won power in 2021, the One of the central theoretical inspirations city was ruled for over a decade by a for radical municipalism is Bookchin’s patriarchal-populist-authoritarian mayor, (1987, 2015) ‘social ecology’, founded on the Milan Bandić, who diverted public funds compelling intuition that human domination away from substantive socially-reproductive of non-human nature is dialectically capacities, notably childcare, towards sym- embroiled with our domination of each bolic ethno-nationalist projects such as war other – that the capitalist-colonial plunder monuments (Sarnow and Tiedemann, 2022, and degradation of ecologies is rooted, ulti- this issue). Since coming to power, Zagreb je mately, in hierarchical and dominating nasˇ activist state workers are trying to shift social relations in all their intersections. municipal policy in the other direction, to Bookchin’s related ideas for ‘libertarian support social reproduction and care. This municipalism’ suggest a radical new polity Roth et al. 17 based on democratically-confederated self- are merely progressive programmes often governing eco-socialist bio-regions, in which imitated and initiated the world over by local ecological systems such as watersheds and governments, whether municipalist or not. biomes are the basis for territorial organisa- What, then, makes radical municipalism tion, reconfigured in symbiotic relation with distinctive when it comes to urban sustain- environmental metabolisms. Food and water ability transitions? The discourses of and other foundational ecosystems are degrowth and post-growth – close relations important here. The ‘democratic confederal- of municipalism – might suggest an answer. ism’ of the autonomous region of Rojava is There is a ‘scalar gap’, argues Schmid (2023: an interesting materialisation of these ideas 2) ‘between the (envisioned) institutionalisa- (Knapp et al., 2016), as are the efforts to tion of post-growth’ – deemed to be the translate ideas of Latin American water national and international regulatory scales communities to territorially-grounded water – ‘and the spaces in which post-growth remunicipalisations in Catalunya (Planas transformations are most actively practised and Martı́nez, 2020). and negotiated’ – that is, prefigurative prac- A key concept within social ecology is tices in everyday life. Municipalism, here, metabolism – connecting with recent scholar- can act as the hinge and play the role of ship in Marxist political ecology (Moore, mediator between community-led experi- 2015) – understood as the mediating infra- ments and systemic transformation, which structure through which matter from nature remain polarised in the degrowth literature. is converted into energy for societal organi- However, the only contributions to have sation and functioning. Such ideas are begin- explored synergies between municipalism ning to influence social movements related and degrowth are Schmid’s (2023) recent to municipalism, with a ‘right to metabolism’ assessment, building on Vansintjan’s (2018) articulated in the name of degrowth and sketch of a ‘degrowth municipalism’ (see ‘habitability’ (Savini, 2021). Indeed, radical also Thompson, 2021b). Degrowth is also a municipalist movements are deeply con- major oversight of this special issue – a gap scious of their power to reconfigure the we briefly address here. shape of human settlements in ecologically In reorienting urban metabolism away reparative ways. In this special issue, Sareen from capital’s ‘growth dependencies’, and Waagsaether (2022) evaluate municipal- degrowth radically expands the project for ist interventions in Barcelona and Madrid in urban sustainability transitions from the terms of urban transitions to sustainability – narrowly technical and low-carbon focus to bringing these two fields into conversation encompass the entire apparatus of capital- for the first time. They find a number of flag- ism, understood as a ‘world-ecological’ sys- ship policies – such as Barcelona en Comú’s tem (Moore, 2015) – not just mode of signature ‘Superblock’ masterplanning, cre- economic production – that ‘cannibalises’ its ating car-free green micro-neighbourhoods own ‘background conditions of possibility’, (see also Kussy et al., 2022, this issue), its including political, ecological, racial and remunicipalisation of energy services for social reproduction (Fraser, 2022). If it is the 100% localised renewable energy (Angel, expansionary, propulsive power of capital – 2021), and Ahora Madrid’s Low Emission embodied in interest-bearing finance and the Zone, including electric bus routes – all con- ‘mute compulsion’ to produce for profit, tributing towards addressing the challenge of enforced by fierce market competition transitioning to low-carbon sustainable (Mau, 2023) – that ultimately catalyses urban metabolisms. However, such policies unsustainable resource depletion, ecosystem 18 Urban Studies 00(0) degradation and climate breakdown, then Conclusions the solution lies not simply with transition- Through this article we have adopted the ing to zero-carbon urban infrastructures, idea of radical municipalism as an apuesta – but reorienting the entire socio-ecological- a critical hypothesis of systemic change. It is economic apparatus – our metabolism – a hypothesis grounded in a politics of prox- away from growth dependencies towards more circular, regenerative and reparative imity which can be approached through a systems. heuristic structured around four dimensions: First, this means socialising, localising economic reorganisation, democratisation of and reconfiguring the capitalist global supply political decision-making, feminisation of chains that enforce integration into unsus- politics, and ecological transformation. The tainable, exploitative and extractive wave of initiatives that flourished through petrochemical-fuelled planetary production – the 2010s will likely endure as an important for a ‘counter-logistics’, as Minuchin and reference point for this apuesta, even as Maino (2022, this issue) document in some begin to falter or fail politically. If the Rosario, Argentina, specifically for food. self-defined ciudades del cambio1 had not Second, it calls for re-engineering monetary, manifested themselves so successfully in the credit and financial flows away from inter- Spanish 2015 municipal elections, and if they est-bearing, debt-based capital, towards were not coordinated under the leadership alternative circuits based on social and ecolo- of Barcelona en Comú to organise the inter- gical value. Degrowthers and municipalists national Fearless Cities gathering in 2017, alike thus see great value in experimentation we would likely not be talking about the with alternative currencies, time banking, radical municipalist hypothesis today. mutual credit systems, LETS, and Universal However, just as the hypothesis neither Basic Income (UBI) as interstitial and sym- begins nor ends with electoral projects, so biotic transformations of money; indeed, we understand this apuesta is not the ‘prop- UBI experiments have been initiated at the erty’ of particular places, particular initia- city scale by various municipalists, such as in tives, or particular contexts. To speak of a Spain (Bua and Davies, 2022, this issue), city as radical municipalist leads us into all while UBI Labs are being set up to campaign kinds of contradictions, category errors, and for city pilots of UBI across the UK and dead-ends, and from a conceptual perspec- internationally by quasi-municipalist activists tive serves us poorly. Even referring to spe- (Thompson, 2022). Third, such reconfigura- cific initiatives (such as Zagreb je nasˇ, tions are rendered by Russell et al. (2022a: 8, Barcelona en Comú or Ciudad Futura) as this issue) as part of the ‘self-expanding cir- explicitly radical municipalist can be mislead- cuit of the commons’ – or, rather, ‘the com- ing; this is more useful as shorthand for mon’ (for this important distinction see political organising than it is in offering con- Bianchi, 2022, this issue) – which also ceptual clarity. Various efforts to map radi- includes innovations in labour organisation cal municipalism have routinely come up and land ownership, such as community land against these challenges, and many hours trusts and worker-owned cooperatives. The have been spent sweating over whether we municipalist wager, here: expanding circuits are talking about actors, processes, places, of the common can begin to decouple human policies, parties, or events.2 Ultimately, this metabolism from capitalist growth challenge rests on the fact that radical muni- dependencies. cipalism is not a characteristic but a political Roth et al. 19 proposition, a radical apuesta about how the contexts, regardless of differences in dis- world can be changed. course. A clear example here would be the There are a number of implications for parallels with the concept and practice of ‘ter- future intellectual work on this radical muni- ritory’, explored by Arpini et al. (2022) in this cipalist apuesta. First, we should not restrict issue for the distinctive strand of South ourselves to focusing on the geographical and American municipalism. Territory has been historical frames typically associated with defined as ‘space appropriated by a determi- new municipalism, something like 2014- nate social relation that produces and main- onwards in southern European (and espe- tains it through a form of power’ (Fernandes, cially Spanish) contexts. An apparent starting 2005: 27), and which Zibechi (2003: 26) iden- point for such research is the long-history of tified as ‘the most important distinguishing ‘municipal socialist’ projects, defined by feature of Latin American social movements’. Stromquist (2023) as the efforts by ‘workers The parallels with discussions about the poli- to make cities around the globe livable and tics of proximity are at their clearest when we democratic’. Yet the danger of a category read about ‘work within the territory pro- error looms large. We must ward against posed as the production of new values of soli- equating every effort at making a city ‘livable darity that reconstitute the interpersonal and democratic’ with a radical municipalist relationships and existential dimensions of politics, and instead look for the conceptual people’ and as ‘the production of a new soci- overlaps in experiences that do not ostensibly ety’ that ‘projects and affirms itself as ‘‘non- associate themselves with the language of rad- state sovereignty’’’ (Delamata, 2004: 48). ical municipalism. For example, Kohn (2003) Second, there is both scope and urgency and Davis (2018: 103) each trace the influ- for a deeper reflection on the temporalities ences of the ‘houses of the people’ – ‘authentic of radical municipalism as a theory of sys- proletarian cathedrals’ – built by movements temic transformation. As we deepen our the- across European municipalities in the wake of orisation of the relationship between the Paris Commune, offering an historical symbiotic, interstitial and ruptural change analysis of a proto-municipalist politics of (Wright, 2010), we also need to consider proximity, and early experiments in democra- what this means for radical municipalism as tising decision-making through new institu- a strategy that really can move beyond a tions. Extending our line of enquiry out from focus on comparatively local and delimited the definitional boundaries of radical muni- instances of change. What exactly are the cipalism to explore interconnected move- prospects for these different change pro- ments and experiments that are either cesses to feed into one another; how do we ongoing and adjacent to radical municipalism understand these as non-linear processes; or initiated prior to the new municipalist and what time horizon does that put us on wave – notably the 1994 Zapatista Uprising in a linear sense? If ‘there are decades where in Mexico (Starr et al., 2011) and the ongoing nothing happens, and there are weeks where Rojavan revolution in Syria (Knapp et al., decades happen’, as Lenin is famed to have 2016) – can help to address the Atlantic-cen- remarked, how can radical municipalists trism of the concept, helping us to think from strategically intervene across these contrast- the ‘global South-East’ (Robinson, 2016), ing temporalities? Time structures the differ- developing conceptual richness and identify- ent repertoires or moments of municipalist ing new points of solidarity along the way. praxis: from the non-linear, historically- Many of the concepts we are working with cyclical ‘messianic’ visionary time of rup- have a long history of development in other tural protest to the compressed and 20 Urban Studies 00(0) disciplining ‘bureaucratic’ temporalities of speculative and coordinated action – an symbiotic change, to the patient, rhythmic, implicitly conjunctural intervention taking generative time of prefigurative, interstitial risks to unsettle historical – and human – action in everyday life (see Knight and settlements. The question remains how Stewart, 2016). These temporalities override, conjunctural action-research with municip- collide or parallel one another in often con- alist movements might inform municipalist tradictory ways. Here, we see temporality strategy as action unfolds on the ground, and crisis returning to haunt radical muni- as conjunctural opportunities for hegemo- cipalist strategy. Is municipalist strategy nic intervention present themselves. capable of winning and holding power and Likewise, municipalist praxis has much to building counter-power in the current con- teach this critical strand of urban studies juncture? This question becomes all the now turning its attention to conjunctural- more pressing in the context of ecological ism as a politically-engaged method. crisis. Is there enough linear time to expand Fourth, just as conjunctural analysis is degrowth practices through municipalism’s being adopted to reframe inter-urban glo- patiently prefigurative and painstakingly bal-comparative research (Leitner and participatory processes before more authori- Sheppard, 2020), so too can it provide a tarian responses assert themselves? Can non- methodological framing, alongside more linear understandings of change help radical familiar comparative approaches in urban municipalist theory escape this bind? studies (Robinson, 2016), for the urgent task Third, a critical conjunctural analysis of comparing municipalist cases across dif- attuned to reading crisis – recently translated ference. Despite the boundary-pushing and from cultural studies into critical urban ‘binary-busting’ (Beveridge and Naumann, studies (Leitner et al., 2019) – represents a 2023) nature of radical municipalist theory, fruitful avenue for deepening municipalist the articles in this special issue tread fairly action-research. One thing these two familiar methodological ground, mostly pre- approaches – radical municipalism and con- senting a single case study of a contempo- juncturalism – share is a political and histor- rary experiment to illuminate different ical orientation to the present, both seeking, features of the field. Joubert’s (2022) is the as Leitner and Sheppard (2020: 495) charac- only case study of historical practice in this terise the latter, ‘to intervene in order to issue, a gap for future research to explore. A achieve progressive ends during moments of third of the papers, however, compare two conjunctural uncertainty, when hegemony is distinct cases – one compares four (Béal in question’. The shared approach to trans- et al., 2023) – to begin to tease out differ- formative social change is to exploit the fis- ences and generate new theory (Bianchi, sures and fractures in hegemonic settlements 2022; Bua and Davies, 2022; Milan, 2022; – to unravel their seams through political Sareen and Waagsaether, 2022; Sarnow and struggle by proactively intervening at criti- Tiedermann, 2022; Toro and Orozco, 2023). cal junctures and crisis-points; turning cri- Nonetheless, connections between cases sis into opportunity. That conjunctural remain relatively under-analysed in relation crises tend to crystallise at the urban, as a to the policy mobilities, assemblage and mediating scale – condensing in cities to mobile urbanism methodologies of urban become manifest and tangible in urban studies (Leitner et al., 2019) – a major over- everyday life – is one source of municipalist sight of this special issue, especially consider- struggle (Bayırbağ et al., 2017). Yet radical ing municipalism’s transnationalism and municipalism is not simply reaction; it is translocal movement-building. There is Roth et al. 21 further scope, too, to learn from – and con- processes within the green-left and building tribute to – a global urban-comparative cross-class coalitions and counter-hegemonic methodological approach for ‘genetic’ as visions (Béal et al., 2023); between green well as ‘generative’ comparison (Robinson, growth and degrowth (Sareen and 2016). Waagsaether, 2022), between urban central- Fifth, municipalist research is well-placed ity and peripheral urbanisation (Toro and to contribute to the debate over studying Orozco, 2023); between territory regulated as ‘ordinary’ rather than ‘global’ or paradig- state space and territory conceived as non- matic cities, by attending closely to small state self-government (Arpini et al., 2022); towns and cities and peripheral places ‘off between embodying the slow time of feminist the map’ of the usual suspects beloved of prefigurative practices and mastering the fast critical urban scholars (Beveridge and time of masculinist grammars, turned against Naumann, 2023). As a collective, we remain hostile forces (Sarnow and Tiedermann, guilty of platforming the global exemplars 2022); between dealing with the path- of Barcelona, Naples and Zagreb – each dependencies of history, utopian and dysto- appearing more than their fair share in this pian, and engaging in future-oriented move- special issue – although we tried our best to ment-building (Milan, 2022); between find unusual, understudied examples of overhauling the state machinery and lever- municipalist experimentation. The range of aging local government to deliver policy cases compiled here reflects the biases in the programmes (Bua and Davies, 2022); framing of our call for papers and the inter- between transforming the state form ests of municipalist researchers, as much as through rupture and prefiguring new state it does the why, where and how discourses forms through interstitial experimentation are generated and travel to shape the field of and symbiotic hacking (Joubert, 2022; practice itself – a geography still dominated Thorpe and Morgan, 2022); between recon- by South America and southern Europe, figuring capitalist supply chains and devel- with Africa, Asia and North America con- oping autonomous counter-logistics spicuously underrepresented and not repre- (Minuchin and Maino, 2022); between care sented here at all. as an economic sector for productivity and If radical municipalist strategy is to prove care as an ethics for reimagining the city truly capable of contending with the com- (Kussy et al., 2022). So it seems that just as pounding crises of the Capitalocene, the municipalists work to prise open the cracks deeply uneven geographical development of in capitalism, so too do fissures and fault municipalism desperately requires redress, in lines appear in radical municipalist strategy both theory and practice. But this is not the itself – a hypothesis just as challenged by only polarisation that hinders its political the intersectional contradictions of colonial potential. As the contributions to this special capitalism and the patriarchal nation-state issue demonstrate, divisions and contradic- as it is poised to sublate them. tions abound: between the public and the common (Bianchi, 2022; Russell et al., 2022); Acknowledgements between direct and representative democracy We would like to thank all of the contributing (van Outryve d’Ydewalle, 2022); between authors along with the editorial team at Urban spontaneous grassroots organisation and Studies, especially Ruth Harkin and Jon institutionalised structures (Pinto et al., Bannister, for their support and inspiration. 2022); between innovating participatory These papers were discussed during a regular 22 Urban Studies 00(0) seminar series on municipalism that took place ORCID iDs between 2021 and 2022, coordinated by Minim Bertie Russell https://orcid.org/0000-0001- Municipalist Observatory (minim-municipalis- 8307-6219 m.org). We are grateful to all the participants and Matthew Thompson https://orcid.org/0000- especially Sixtine Van Outryve d’Ydewalle and 0002-5691-4851 Simon Thorpe, who helped us organise these ses- sions. The special issue emerged from a set of ses- sions we co-organised at the RGS-IBG annual Notes conference in London in 2019 on Experimental 1. The Atlas del Cambio (http://ciudadesdelcam- Recipes for a Radical Municipalism. This paper is bio.org/) remains a useful resource that the result of our collective efforts as equal contri- attempted to catalogue specifically radical butors throughout the special issue editorial pro- municipalist policies, implemented between cess; all errors and oversights are ours alone. 2015 and 2019, in Spanish cities that defined themselves as ciudades del cambio – cities of change. Declaration of conflicting interests 2. These include the aforementioned Atlas del The authors declared no potential conflicts of Cambio (http://ciudadesdelcambio.org/), the interest with respect to the research, authorship, UrbanAlternatives map (https://urbanalter- and/or publication of this article. natives.org/), the Fearless City map (https:// fearlesscities.com/en/map), mapping done by the European Municipalist Network (https:// Funding municipalisteurope.org/mapping/), and the The authors disclosed receipt of the following Atlas of Utopias (https://transformativecitie- financial support for the research, authorship, s.org/atlas-of-utopias/) among others. and/or publication of this article: The special issue seminar series was funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) through a References small group project grant awarded in 2021. The Alami I, Whiteside H, Dixon AD, et al. 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