Spain

Transforming Barcelona’s Urban Model? Limits and potentials for radical change under a radical left government

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GIF RGB 150 Pixels with BorderIsmael Blanco, Yunailis Salazar and Iolanda Bianchi report on findings from a second round of research in Barcelona carried out as part of the collaborative governance under austerity project, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of its Urban Transformations Network.

The multidimensional and multi-scalar crisis of 2008 has placed considerable strain on the so-called Barcelona model. As observed in the exploratory phase of our research, public-community and public-private collaboration have traditionally been fundamental characteristics of this model since the restoration of democracy. On the one hand, the City Council has promoted an active role for social and community organisations in policymaking through a myriad of formal mechanisms of citizen participation, different formulae of public-community collaboration and the community management of public facilities and spaces. On the other hand, the city’s model of governance has been complemented by different public-private partnerships for the joint management of public services, urban regeneration, tourism development, and the attraction of financial capital. These kind of collaborative arrangements have been heavily criticised for different reasons, including the tokenistic character of participatory mechanisms and the capture of key public policies by economic elites.

The exploratory phase of our research was developed in the first year of the Barcelona en Comú government, the citizen platform emerged from social movements that won the municipal elections in 2015. In that phase, we already detected a strong ambition of the new government to promote radical changes in power relations in the city. In the second phase, the key question has been the feasibility and the capacity of the new government to lead and to execute such changes in public-private and public-community relations.

In both phases of research, our respondents agreed that this is a different crisis from previous ones in the 80s and 90s in the sense that this is deemed a structural crisis with characteristics of an epochal change. In the words of one of the interviewees:

‘This crisis marks a before and after for many people, in their perception of the economic system in which we live and of the democratic system, the politics that we have lived. In the past, there had not been such emotional, ideological and almost psychological impact over the city’.

The crisis has generated three main types of political responses in the whole country, according to another respondent:

  • Separatism: a political response led by a complex and contradictory coalition between a plurality of social and political organisations in Catalonia claiming the ‘right to decide’ and the independence from the Spanish State.
  • Left radicalism: a multi-scalar and spatially variable coalition between old and new social and political subjects emerging from the anti-austerity mobilizations and the 15M movement and rooted in the municipal tradition of the alternative left.
  • Conservatism: a pro-establishment coalition between the big national parties (PP and PSOE) and Ciudadanos (a key piece to offset the emergence of Podemos).

Barcelona en Comú embodies the new, alternative radical left in the city of Barcelona. The increase in urban segregation, social inequalities and social exclusion as a result of the crisis and of austerity policies are amongst the main concerns of this political platform. Consequently, one the of the main measures taken in the first months of the Barcelona en Comú’s government has been an Emergency Plan focused on four main aspects: 1) Employment and Model of Production, 2) Basic Social Rights, 3) Public-Private Relations and 4) Regulation of the City Hall and of their members’ privileges. In this plan, the new government outlines the fundamental characteristics of a New Municipalism based on the notion of the commons as an alternative to urban neoliberalism. Citizens and social movements express high expectations on the possibilities of the new city government to reverse neoliberal policies, transforming public-private relations, and fostering the logics of the commons against the privatization and the commodification of the city.

Two factors favor the room of maneuver of the new government: first, the special powers granted by the Municipal Charter (which, for instance, allows the City Council of Barcelona to play an important role in policy fields like welfare and education); and, second, the good financial situation of the City Council, which has accumulated several surpluses despite the severity of the crisis. However, local government powers are significantly limited by different recentralisation measures adopted by the Spanish Government like the restriction to staff recruitment, as well as by the lack of key competencies in areas like tourism, employment, housing, refugees, energy and public procurement. As expressed in one of the interviews:

‘The tools are very tiny and the expectations are great. How can the City Council of a city that is globally located on the map of the relevant cities in the world, which attracts migratory flows, capital flows… how can it manage a power that it does not have? The City Council does not have the power of the city. It is a very small portion of power. In fact, even in the fight against the hardest forms of poverty, we have serious limitations. There are several elements that escape the capacity of the City Council’.

Another important factor to bear in mind when considering the limits of the new government is the lack of a wide majority in the City Council, which obliges it to reach political agreements with the opposition forces to pass such important measures as the municipal budgets. One year after the municipal elections, Barcelona and Comú reached an agreement with the Socialist Party (the party that ruled the city between 1979 and 2011) to enter the government with its 4 councillors, an agreement that generated strong contradictions between different segments of the radical left.

In spite of these limitations, the new government has implemented important measures to address the problem of mass tourism and its consequences for the quality of life for the city’s inhabitants, such as: a) the suspension of licenses to open public audience premises (pubs, restaurants, discotheques…) in the neighbourhoods with the largest number of tourists; the pass-by of the PEUAT (Special Tourist Accommodation Plan), which amongst other aspects, establishes a zero-growth policy of tourist accommodation and the re-balance of tourist accommodation all-across the city; the application of sanctions to the website Airbnb for offering illegal flats (close to 40% of its total offer in Barcelona), which are considered to have contributed – together with other causes – to the rise of rental prices and to processes of gentrification and touristification. In addition, and related to the housing problem, the City Council has imposed fines on the banks that maintain vacant dwellings after evictions.

As part of a strategy of transformation of economic power relations, the City Council has developed a Social public procurement guide that promotes new social criteria for public procurement in areas such as: social rights (i.e. gender equality, universal accessibility and recruitment of workers with disabilities); workers’ rights (i.e. fair wages and stable workforce); the promotion of a new cooperative and social economic model; and social participation. Such policy aims at expanding the range of companies able to take part in public tendering processes, diminishing the competitive advantage of big companies and promoting “sustainable and inclusive growth”. One of the recent episodes reflecting the limits of local autonomy is the attempt of the local government to include an “anti-energy poverty clause” as part of the criteria for the allocation of the City Council’ services of energy and telecomunications, a clasue that has been suspended by the Tribunal for Public Procurement of Catalonia. Other on-going measures in this field include attemps to reverse processes of privatisation of public services initiated by the former conservative government of CiU (2011-2015) through the re-municipalisation of services such as water and nurseries.

Regarding public-community relationships, the local government expresses a strong commitment with the enhancement of direct citizen participation in policymaking. The new government of Barcelona en Comú has popularised the concept of (policy) coproduction, a key notion that reflects the will to outweigh the traditional approach to citizen participation  – deemed merely informative, consultative, bureaucratised, and tokenistic. Measures adopted in this field include a series of on-going reforms in existing participative rules, structures and processes and a new regulation for the community management of public facilities and spaces. Moreover, the new government places a strong emphasis on the notion of the commons as self-governing practices complementary to public institutions.

It is too early to reach conclusions on the impact of reforms promoted by the government of Barcelona en Comú, which has ruled the city by less than 2 years. The rigidities of local bureaucracy, the lack of a solid majority, the lack of powers in key policy areas, the global scope of the economic and financial flows, as well as the strong pressures by the mass media and the economic elites, amongst other factors, impose strong limits to the autonomy of local government and to its ability to promote radical changes. The incremental (and sometimes erratic) changes that this government is promoting in fields like tourism, housing and public procurement, among others, reflect an ambitious agenda of transformation of power relations with specific and tangible results in the city’s life. Beyond the city itself, the experience of Barcelona symbolises the will and the possibility of building a counter-hegemonic political project from the bottom, with strong potential impact at national and transnational level.

Dr Ismael Blanco is Lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Public Law and Research Fellow at the Institute of Government and Public Policy (IGOP) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)

Yunailis Salazar holds a Degree in Political Science by the Central University of Venezuela and a Masters Degree in Social Policy and Community Action from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is a Research Fellow at the IGOP, UAB.

Iolanda Bianchi is a PhD Student at the UAB and the Univeristy IUAV of Venice. Iolanda holds a MSc in Urban Regeneration from the University College of London. She is a Research Fellow at the IGOP, UAB.  

Spanish Elections 26J: The Challenges for Unidos Podemos

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In this blog post Juan Carlos Monedero, co-founder of Podemos and Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, reflects on the results of the Spanish elections on the 26th June, and their significance for the development of a counter-hegemonic politics. The blog was originally written in Spanish and translated by CURA’s Dr Mercè Cortina Oriol. The original version is copied at the bottom of the article.

The regime crisis identified in Spain since 2008 and the emergence of new political parties on both the right (Ciudadanos) and the left (Unidos Podemos) are a sign of a process that affects the entire European Union. The fight against the regime of 1978 (the year of the Spanish Constitution) that Unidos Podemos represents transcends the two poles that have  epitomized Spanish (and European) politics: on the one hand, those who want to change the postwar social contract taking the neoliberal precepts and the frame of adjustment and competitiveness (the right, the extreme right and, in a shameful fashion, the socialist international) and on the other, those who want to return to the situation prior to 2008. The original space for Podemos consists, beyond these poles, in finding an answer to the crisis of civilisation that the world is facing.

The inability of the neoliberal model in aggregating citizen demands while accomplishing the mandates of capitalist accumulation turns into a growing public disaffection, and a challenge to the authorization that the governments receive from elections. This inability is added to three inherent aspects of the neoliberal model: the rise of individualist values and the criticism of “the political”; the role of corruption, which acts in this deregulated model as a kind of lubricating system; and the supranational forms of management of global capitalism (which William I. Robinson has called the emerging transnational state). Institutional corruption exacerbates the idea of inequality and the distancing between citizens and political elites. The “transnational state”, agent of the logic of adjustments in the social state -the role that Troika is representing-, leads to a claim for greater national sovereignty. Hence the “natural” way out of the neoliberal crisis is some form of populism, that is, a challenge to the system of political representation and an appeal to the people as the constituent subject that demands the recovery of the social contract or the signing of a new one, more inclusive, one. That context explains in the EU the rise of the extreme right in many EU countries, the Brexit, as well as the 15-M movement in Spain or “Reclaim the Street” in Portugal. The difference is that in Spain, 15-M posed a story that appealed to the own diagnosis of the left –pointing at the political and economic elites as responsible of the crisis and set in motion processes that chased away xenophobia. This is where Podemos was born. And its electoral fate is closely linked to the management of that past.

The general elections in December 2015 were the verification of the breakdown of bipartisanship in Spain. The traditional transfer of votes between the rightwing (PP) and leftwing (PSOE) hegemonic parties no longer worked, and a new force, Podemos, was just 300,000 votes far from the Socialists. On the right, the emergence of Ciudadanos remained in fourth place. It failed to meet electoral expectations and was thus not able to carry out the function it was born to – to serve as a crutch to the two main parties of the regime of 1978. The novelty of the elections resulted in an institutional consternation. The inability to form a government called for new elections in June 2016. The bulk of the political discourse of all parties in the campaign focused on blaming the other formations for the need for new elections. The PP presented itself as the party of order and the recovery of a peaceful past against the current uncertainties. The PSOE returned to a leftist discourse that it had left behind when it ruled the country and reformed Article 135 of the Constitution to prioritise debt repayment over social spending. All the electoral polls were indicating that PSOE would be overtaken by Unidos Podemos, the alliance between Podemos and Izquierda Unida (the latter had won in the December election a million votes and just two seats[1], which facilitated the alliance and a replacement of its general secretariat by a younger person). The prospect of overtaking the PSOE, led to a conservative electoral campaign, amicable with the Socialist Party and aimed at retaining those votes that, supposedly, Unidos Podemos would take from the PSOE. The result, however, was not as expected. A million votes were lost between December and June, far from overtaking the PSOE who ended celebrating not having been relegated to the third place, despite achieving the worst result in their history.

Why did Unidos Podemos lose one million votes? There are several reasons. With the December elections and the failure to form a government, the “novelty factor” withered for much of the electorate. Many decided to return to abstention. Another factor was the withdrawal of the support by some Izquierda Unida voters (we could talk about more than 300,000 voters that abstained or even went to the PSOE), who were angered because of a poorly explained alliance that placed their leader in an unattractive place (the fifth in Madrid’s electoral circumscription[2]).  The withdrawal of the support by these voters might also be explained by the memory of denigrations when unity between Podemos and Izquierda Unida was not possible in the December elections, as well as the ideological moderation of the alliance in an attempt to please the social-democratic voter.

This moderation in the discourse of Unidos Podemos even led Pablo Iglesias to state that Zapatero, PSOE’s President of the Spanish Government from 2004 to 2011, had been the best President of Spain’s democratic era, despite the 15-M being born in opposition to the policies of Zapatero. Iglesias also defined himself as a social democrat. This is a moderate definition even for PSOE members, who declare themselves socialist. Finally, the six elections held during the two years that Podemos has existed, have led to exhaustion. In a context of continuous elections, the representative, media-oriented and hierarchical side of the party have prevailed, while leaving aside the more deliberative and horizontal side represented by “the circles”[3]. That is to say, the side that is more closely linked to the desire for change that the 15-M forged.

The difficulties in forming a government after the June elections re-emphasised the failure of bipartisanship, but also made it clear that the alternative needs more time than that marked by a naive belief in a “Blitzkrieg” fuelled by a regime crisis. Unidos Podemos has not yet resolved its ideological corpus, its territorial or its internal organisation. As long as Unidos Podemos leaves these problems unresolved it is not likely to be seen as potentially governing force that can deliver an alternative vision for the country. Following two years of continuous elections, it’s time to take a pause to look inward and think about how it can be a new-fangled political formation that responds to contemporary challenges such as the degradation of employment, the environmental crisis, the aging of population, the growing wars, consequent migrations, rising violence as well as social anomie in general. The old parties are not offering solutions here that are not worryingly reminiscent of the decade of the thirties of the last century.

[1] The difference between seats and votes is explained by the proportional system that defines the Electoral Law in Spain. The system is based on the D’Hondt Method in combination with a plurinominal circumscription model. (TN).

[2] The electoral system in Spain is based on a closed list model for each electoral circumscription. In Spain there are 52 circumscriptions for the case of the General Elections. (TN)

[3] “The circles” are the name that took the grassroots organizations within Podemos. These organizations take the form of local assemblies. (TN)

Juan Carlos Monedero is co-founder of Podemos and Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. The blog was originally written in Spanish and translated by CURA’s Dr Mercè Cortina Oriol, with some help from Dr Adrian Bua. The original is copied in Spanish below.

La crisis de régimen que se identifica en España desde 2008, así como la irrupción de nuevas formaciones políticas tanto en la derecha -Ciudadanos- como en la izquierda -Unidos Podemos- son una señal de un proceso que afecta a toda la Unión Europea. La lucha que representa Unidos Podemos frente al régimen de 1978 (año de la Constitución) se coloca más allá de los dos polos que han resumido la política española (y europea): por un lado, los que quieren cambiar el contrato social de posguerra asumiendo los preceptos neoliberales y el marco de ajuste y competitividad (derecha, extrema derecha y, aunque de manera vergonzante, la internacional socialista) y por otro los que quieren regresar a la situación previa a 2008. El espacio original de Podemos consiste, más allá de estas impotencias, en encontrar una respuesta a la crisis de civilización que vive el mundo.

La incapacidad del modelo neoliberal de agregar demandas ciudadanas al tiempo que cumple con los mandatos de la acumulación capitalista se traduce, como es norma, en un crecimiento de la desafección ciudadana y una impugnación de la autorización para gobernar que reciben los gobiernos emanada de las elecciones. Esta incapacidad se suma a tres factores consustanciales al modelo: el auge de los valores Individualistas y la crítica a la “política”; el papel de la corrupción, que actúa en este modelo desrregulado como una suerte de lubricante del sistema; y las formas supranacionales de gestión del capitalismo global (lo que William I. Robinson ha llamado el emergente estado transnacional). La corrupción institucional exacerba la idea de desigualdad y el alejamiento de la ciudadanía respecto de las élites políticas. El “estado transnacional” agente de la lógica de los ajustes en el estado social -el papel que viene representando la Troika-, genera una reclamación de mayor soberanía nacional. De ahí que la salida “natural” a la crisis neoliberal sea alguna forma de populismo, esto es, una impugnación del sistema de representación política y una apelación al pueblo como sujeto constituyente que reclama la recuperación del contrato social o la firma de uno nuevo más inclusivo. Este marco es el que explica en la UE el auge de la extrema derecha o el Brexit, y también es el que da cuenta del movimiento 15-M en España o “Tomemos la calle” en Portugal. La diferencia estriba en que en España, el 15-M colocó un relato que apelaba al diagnóstico propio de la izquierda -culpaba a las élites políticas y económicas de la crisis- y puso en marcha procesos que ahuyentaron la xenofobia. De ahí es de donde nació Podemos. Y su suerte electoral está muy vinculada a la gestión que haga de ese pasado.

Las elecciones generales de diciembre de 2015 fueron la constatación de que el bipartidismo se había roto. El trasvase tradicional de votos entre el partido hegemónico de la derecha (PP) y el de la izquierda (PSOE) ya no funcionó y una nueva fuerza, Podemos, quedó apenas a 300.000 votos de los socialistas. Por la derecha, el surgimiento de Ciudadanos se quedó en una cuarta posición y lejos de las expectativas, por lo que no servía para lo que había nacido: servir de muleta a algunos de los dos grandes partidos del régimen de 1978. La novedad de las elecciones se tradujo en consternación Institucional. La incapacidad para formar gobierno convocó a nuevas elecciones en junio de 2016. El grueso del discurso político de todos los partidos en la campaña se centró en echar la culpa a las demás formaciones de la convocatoria de unas nuevas elecciones. El PP se ofrecía como el partido del orden y la recuperación de un pasado tranquilo frente a las incertidumbres. El PSOE regresaba al discurso izquierdista que abandonó cuando gobernó y reformó el artículo 135 de la Constitución para dar prioridad al pago de la deuda por encima del gasto social. Todas las encuestas señalaban el adelanto al PSOE por parte de Unidos Podemos (la alianza de Podemos e Izquierda Unida. Este último partido había obtenido en diciembre un millón de votos y solamente dos escaños, lo que facilitó la unión y un relevo en su secretaría general por una persona más joven), lo que llevó a una campaña electoral conservadora y amable con los socialistas dirigida a retener esos votos que, se suponía, se arrebataban al PSOE. El resultado, sin embargo, no fue el esperado, perdiendo respecto de las elecciones de diciembre un millón de votos y alejándose el “sorpasso” a los socialistas que, pese a obtener el peor resultado de su historia, celebraron como un triunfo no haber sido relegados al tercer puesto.

¿Por qué Unidos Podemos perdió un millón de votos? Las razones son varias. En las elecciones de diciembre se agotó para una parte del electorado el “factor novedad” de Podemos, que al no traducirse en gobierno decidieron regresar a la abstención. Fue importante la retirada de apoyo de una parte de los votantes de Izquierda Unida, enfadados por una alianza mal explicada que situaba a su líder en un lugar nada atractivo (el número cinco por Madrid). También influyó en estos sectores (podríamos hablar de más de 300.000 votos que se abstuvieron o votaron incluso al PSOE) la moderación ideológica a la búsqueda de contentar al votante socialdemócrata y la memoria de las descalificaciones cuando la unidad no fue posible en las elecciones de diciembre.

Esa moderación en el discurso de Unidos Podemos -Pablo Iglesias llegó a afirmar que Zapatero, del PSOE, había sido el mejor presidente de la democracia española, cuando el 15-M nació contra las políticas de Zapatero, o se definió como “socialdemócrata”, cuando esa definición es moderada incluso para los miembros del PSOE, que se definen como socialistas). Por último, seis elecciones en dos años -los de la existencia de Podemos- llevan al agotamiento, al tiempo que primaron la parte electoral, representativa, mediática y jerárquica del partido, que dejaba de lado la parte más deliberativo y horizontal que significan los círculos. Es decir, la más vinculada al deseo de cambio que marcó el 15-M.

Las dificultades para formar gobierno después de las elecciones de junio volvían a insistir en la quiebra del bipartidismo, pero también dejaban claro que la alternativa necesita más tiempo que el que marcaba una ingenua creencia en un Blitzkrieg alentado por la crisis del régimen. Unidos Podemos aún no ha resuelto ni su corpus ideológico ni su organización territorial ni su organización interna, y mientras que no cierre estos aspectos no parece probable que pueda ser vista como una fuerza de gobierno que porte una idea diferente de país.

Tras dos años de elección tras elección, le corresponde parar el balón, mirar hacia adentro y pensar cómo debe ser una formación política de nuevo cuño en el siglo XX que dé respuesta a la quiebra del mundo del trabajo, la crisis medioambiental, el envejecimiento de la población, las crecientes guerras y las consecuentes migraciones y aumento de la violencia y la anomia social. Aspectos para los que los viejos partidos no tienen solución que no recuerde inquietantemente a los años treinta del siglo pasado.

The Spanish Elections 26J: an incomplete transformation

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In this post, Ricard Gomà reflects on the implications of the Spanish general election held on June 26, 2016. Ricard is professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has also had a distinguished career in Spanish and Catalan politics. He is a member of  ‘Barcelona en ​​Comú’, ​​former municipal leader of ‘Iniciativa per Catalunya’ and was the Secretary of Social Welfare (2003-2007) and Deputy Mayor of Social Action and Citizenship (2007-2011) of the City Council of Barcelona. The post was originally written in Spanish and translated by CURA’s Adrian Bua.

The Spanish general elections of the 26th June (26 J) ended a cycle that began just over two years ago. The European elections of May 2014 heralded the political expression of a new era, which has now settled . The social movement that began in Spain on the 15th March 2011 (15M – also known as the “indignados”) forged a new dynamic that questioned establishment politics, its corruption and unjust ‘austericide’.  From where I am writing, in Catalonia, this converged with the mass mobilization in favour of the right for self-determination. But the movement moved beyond the area of such reactive forms of civic protest. The 2014 European elections marked the emergence of Podemos as a device that channelled the demands and the political culture, in the broadest sense, of 15M into our formal democratic institutions. The municipal elections of the 24th May 2015 marked another major breakthrough. In those elections, the alliance between social movements, civic platforms and political parties in favour of change broke through to gain governing majorities in Spain’s major cities – including Madrid and Barcelona. This was an unprecedented victory for transformative forces. For example, in Catalonia, Ada Colau, a prominent leader of the anti-eviction movement becomes mayor of the Capital, Barcelona, shortly followed by the formation of a nationalist majority in the regional parliament.

Following these developments, delivering the end of bipartisanship in Spain stood out at the next challenge for the new political forces. They delivered on this. The general election of the 20th December (20D) and (following the political stalemate and inability to form a government) its re-run on 26J, made bipartisanship history in Spain. It is notable that this has not occurred – as in the case of many other European Countries – because of the emergence of a xenophobic right wing populism. It is because the political vehicle for change, “Unidos Podemos” with regional confluences in Catalonia, Valencia, Baleares and Galicia, has achieved more than 5 million votes and 71 parliamentary representatives, almost on a par with the Socialist Party – something that was unthinkable only two years ago. The change of scenery is remarkable because it signifies a transition from the social to the political, from the fragmented to the convergent, and because of its progressive orientation, calling for more democracy and a more open society, as a strategy for renewal and response to the crisis. It is perhaps un unparalleled development, that may also still be full of fruit to bear.

However, the results of the 26J point to more immediate concerns which we should not ignore. On the one hand, the “Partido Popular” (PP – the Spanish conservatives that have governed since 2011, despite the direct implication of prominent local and national actors in major corruption scandals that have unravelled during this time), not only keeps winning elections, but has increased its share of the vote since 20D. Moreover, the expectations of Unidos Podemos and the regional confluences to surpass the PSOE were not met, and 1 million votes were lost between 20D and 26J. I will not try here to develop explanations, but will offer two reflections on the significance of the result, and one final thought.

First, the electoral result of 26J has negated the possibility to “take heaven by assault” (i.e. “tomar el cielo por as alto”) – a popular argument that identified a historic window of opportunity to take over political power through a political and electoral tsunami. Spanish bipartisanship remains in crisis, but it has not collapsed. Achieving 71 parliamentary seats is an important milestone, but they will have to deliver their potential within a steadier and decelerated political timeframe, that has more in common with a “drizzle” than a “tsunami”. It will have to weave complex social solidarities, and work within the existing institutional framework without losing the political culture that engendered it.

Second, 26J teaches us that the old political forces also have significant resources to draw on in the realm of emotional politics. At the end of the day, their appeal to fear beat the politics of hope. Fear of change and its uncertainties trumped the discomfort generated by corruption. ‘Unidos Podemos’ and its allies did not make substantive public policy alternatives the central focus of their campaign – perhaps because they thought this terrain was too complicated. And it might have been – the decision to base the campaign on the politics of emotions might have been the correct one, although it did not deliver victory. As such, the 71 seats and the aforementioned dynamics of social alliance building, should also develop substantive policy policy agenda. In this way, credibility can be established, and support won, as a viable alternative government that can deliver a concrete transformation in people’s lives, and overcome the immorality of injustice and the indecency of corruption.

Finally, the “new municipalism” made up of a network of cities for change, must continue to demonstrate that the transformation of everyday life in cities is possible. It will also have to strengthen its symbolic dimension as a spearhead of the yet to come – of ethics and humanity as the new grammar of politics. But it will face a hostile state that implies limits, and contextual obstacles to strategies for change.  Local governments should be aware of all this: of  the game of difficulties and potentialities; the need to establish popular support to confront state hostility; and to do what is necessary continue rebuilding basic rights and hopes for the future.

Ricard Gomà is the current Director of the Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies of Barcelona (IERMB). He is professor in Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and research fellow at the Institute for Government and Public Policy (IGOP). He was the Secretary of Social Welfare (2003-2007) and Deputy Mayor of Social Action and Citizenship (2007-2011) of the City Council of Barcelona, is a member of Barcelona en Comu and former municipal leader of ‘Iniciativa per Catalunya’.

This post was originally written in Spanish and translated by Adrian Bua – the original article is copied below.

Las elecciones generales del pasado 26 de junio cierran en España un ciclo que se inició hace poco más de dos años, con las elecciones europeas de mayo de 2014. Ha sido el ciclo de expresión política del cambio de época. Y no se acaba nada, más bien se asientan las bases de lo nuevo. El 15M de 2011 se fraguó una corriente social de fondo que cuestionaba las viejas formas de hacer política, sus tramas de corrupción y su austericidio injusto. Aquí en Cataluña, esa corriente coexistía con la movilización masiva por el “derecho a decidir”.  El malestar social podía haberse estancado ahí, en la esfera de la denuncia ciudadana reactiva. Pero no se quedó en eso. Las elecciones europeas de 2014 marcan la irrupción de Podemos como dispositivo de canalización política de la cultura 15M, en sentido amplio. El gran avance se produce en las elecciones municipales del 24 de mayo de 2015. En esos comicios, las candidaturas de confluencia entre movimientos ciudadanos y actores políticos del cambio consigue ya no sólo irrumpir sinó ganar en las grandes ciudades, con Barcelona y Madrid a la cabeza. Lo emergente, el conjunto de las fuerzas transformadoras consigue una victoria electoral sin precedentes. En la capital catalana, una activista antideshaucios se convierte en alcaldesa. Poco despues, se configura una amplia mayoría soberanista en el Parlamento de Cataluña. Faltaba por producirse un cambio importante: el fin del bipartidismo en España.  Pues bien, tras el 20D y su réplica el pasado 26 de junio, el bipartidismo ya es historia. Y no porque haya emergido –como en muchos paises europeos- una derecha populista y xenófoba, sinó porque el vehículo político del cambio -la suma de la coalición Unidos Podemos con las confluencias territoriales en Cataluña, País Valenciano, Baleares y Galicia- ha conseguido más de 5 millones de votos y situar 71 diputad@s en el Congreso, casi a la par con el partido socialista, algo impensable hace sólo dos años. Es extraordinario el cambio de paisaje: lo es por haber transitado de lo social a lo político; de lo fragmentado a lo confluyente. Y lo es por su orientación progresista, de más democracia en una sociedad más abierta, como respuesta a la crisis y como orientación estratégica de un  tiempo nuevo. Es un escenario quizás sin parangón; quizás también cargado de potencialidades aún por desplegar.

Pero más allá de la mirada larga, las elecciones del 26 de junio nos proporcionan también otras señales que no deberíamos ignorar. Por una parte, el PP no sólo sigue ganando elecciones sinó que incrementa el nivel de voto en relación al 20D. Por otra parte, las expectativas de Unidos Podemos y las confluencias no sólo no se cumplen, sinó que se dejan un millón de votos por el camino en sólo 6 meses. No se trata ahora de proponer posibles explicaciones, peró sí aportar algunas reflexiones a partir de los resultados; dos en concreto. Y una consideración final.

En primer lugar, el resultado del 26J da por superada la tesis de la ventana de oportunidad histórica para intentar “tomar el cielo por asalto”, a partir de una lógica de tsunami político-electoral. El régimen bipartidista sale tocado, en plena crisis, pero no hay colapso. Los 71 escaños de las fuerzas del cambio son un hito y pueden dar para mucho, pero tendrán que desplegar su potencial en un esquema de tiempos políticos ralentizados: construyendo una dinámica más cercana a la “lluvia fina” que al “tsunami”, tejiendo complicidades sociales, y trabajando en el marco institucional sin perder los elementos culturales de la nueva política. En segundo lugar, el resultado del 26J nos enseña que en el terreno de las emociones,  las fuerzas de la vieja política tienen también recursos importantes que les permiten jugar y ganar. El recurso emocional al miedo ha ganado a la sonrisa, a la esperanza. El miedo al cambio, a sus incertidumbres, se ha impuesto al malestar que genera la corrupción. Unidos Podemos y las confluencias no plantearon una campaña en el campo programático, de los contenidos, de las alternativas de política pública. Pensaron que quizás ese era un tablero demasiado complicado. Tal vez lo era. Y tal vez la opción por disputar la batalla en la política emocional, en la política del relato como estrategia fuese acertada. En todo caso no ha sido ganadora. Y por tanto los 71 escaños –y las dinámicas de articulación social que antes mencionaba- deberan tejer también un terreno de política sustantiva: ganar credibilidad y apoyo como alternativa creible de gobierno, de transformación concreta de las condiciones de vida materiales de la gente, de superación viable de injusticias inmorales y corrupciones indecentes.

Finalmente, la red de ciudades por el cambio, el nuevo municipalismo, deberá seguir demostrando que la transformación  cotidiana de las ciudades es posible, y tendrá que fortalecer su dimensión simbólica, de punta de lanza de lo nuevo, de la ética y la humanidad como gramática de la política. Pero se enfrentará a un poder estatal hostil. Y eso plantea también límites. Plantea obstáculos de fondo a las estrategias del cambio. Los gobiernos locales deberán ser conscientes de todo ello: del juego de potencialidades y dificultades; de la necesidad de fortalecer complicidades ciudadanas para hacer frente a hostilidades estatales; de lo imprescindible de seguir reconstruyendo derechos básicos y esperanzas de futuro.

Ricard Gomà es profesor de ciencias políticas en la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, miembro de Barcelona en Comú, ex líder municipal de ‘ Iniciativa per Catalunya ‘ en Barcelona, Secretario de Bienestar Social (2003-2007) y el vicealcalde de Acción Social y Ciudadanía (2007-2011 ) del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona.

Workshop: Resistance and Alternatives to Austerity

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Adam Fishwick and Heather Connolly report back on a workshop they convened for CURA on Resistance and Alternatives to Austerity.

On 18th May CURA hosted our one day workshop on ‘Resistance and Alternatives to Austerity’ engaging with a range of distinctive – and innovative – strategies that have emerged in Europe and Latin America that are challenging the dominant turn to austerity. Papers delivered during the panel sessions were grouped around three key themes on workplace occupations, migrant workers’ protest, and alternative ‘grassroots’ mobilisation. The day ended with keynote presentations from Lisa McKenzie and Phoebe Moore that illustrated the sheer range of opposition that the workshop presenters touched upon – from working class neighbourhoods in the UK to the tensions over technology in the workplace.

The panels generated lively debate from participants and speakers (some of which was broadcast on social media via #CURAresistance) with debates centring on the viability of bottom-up forms of resistance, on the role of institutional actors and the state, and the possibilities for developing new subjectivities and forms of agency.

In the first panel, David Bailey and Saori Shibata presented findings from their research in ‘low-resistance’ societies of the UK and Japan and argued that only with what they termed ‘militant refusal’ were austerity measures successfully challenged and reversed. Lucia Pradella discussed the centrality of new migrants in resistance within and against the traditional trade unions in the logistics sector in Italy – highlighting the dynamism of new actors in a sector crucial to global capitalism. Nick Kiersey, finally, drawing on his research into anti-austerity protests in Ireland challenged us to think about the possibilities of developing a ‘left governmentality’ in the ‘slow exit’ from neoliberalism and austerity.

In the second panel, Heather Connolly returned to the theme of migrant workers within and against traditional trade unions in France, presenting her research on the Sans Papiers movement in France and the innovative models of resistance it adopted. Adam Fishwick argued that, despite the return of a bleak period of austerity in Argentina, resistance could still be found in what Ana Dinerstein has termed the ‘concrete utopias’ in the country. Focusing on the recuperated factories, he showed how they offered a distinct alternative beyond the constraints of state. To close the panels, Stuart Price presented some of his findings of a workplace occupation in Spain, discussing tensions between the closing of space for protest and the potential/limitations of new, seemingly spontaneous forms of resistance.

Lisa McKenzie – alongside Stuart Price – brought a powerful visual component to the day, combining images collected in the course of her fieldwork and everyday life in Nottingham and London with ethnographic narratives on working class life under austerity. Her keynote presentation demonstrated the lived realities of austerity from navigating unemployment, to homelessness, to the pervasive class stigmatisation that, in her words, ‘does the work of the policies of austerity’. Running through her talk was a sense of the need to think concretely about the impacts of austerity in order to confront it – to engage directly with the lived, everyday impacts of the assault on the most marginalised and stigmatised communities and individuals. Closing her presentation, two resonant images of young working class men on top of the roof of an elite private school in Nottingham during the 2011 riots and a homeless man under a new luxury development in London neatly captured this sentiment.

Phoebe Moore took us in a different, but related, direction with a vision of the new workplace and the role of technology in reinforcing the lived conditions of austerity, but also in potentially offering ways to confront and resist in uniquely innovative ways. In her presentation, the new techniques in the measurement and management of working life – from worn technologies to new monitoring and surveillance devices – were shown to be a central component of the micro-level practices overseeing workplaces across a range of sectors. But her work also highlighted the means by which this key component of the new discipline of austerity can be confronted. Technology – as much as it represents a mechanism of control in the workplace – was also shown to provide mechanisms for overcoming that control. From the everyday challenging of its use in the workplace, to re-purposing it in practice, to the development of more organised forms of resistance, the potential for subversion was clear.

Overall, the presentations and discussions throughout the day made clear that if austerity is to proceed, it will not continue unchallenged. Drawing on research and expertise in a variety of settings and contexts, the speakers and participants offered a clear sense that the precarious, impoverished futures proposed and practiced by advocates of austerity are not the only future available. Moving forward, the plan from this workshop is to develop a published collection of the papers that consolidates these themes of resistance to the increasingly pervasive practices of resistance, with the aim of continuing collaboration in to resisting austerity.

Dr. Adam Fishwick is Lecturer in Urban Studies and Public Policy and Dr. Heather Connolly Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at De Montfort University, both are core members of CURA.

Regional Savings Banks and the Financial Crisis in Spain

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The sovereign debt crisis that put the Spanish socialist (PSOE) government under pressure to begin an austerity programme in May 2010  started two years earlier in a crisis of the financial system.  Whilst central government initially dismissed it as a transient banking liquidity crisis derived from the global interbank lending drought, it soon proved to be a crisis of solvency.  And it was largely cooked in the country’s not-for-profit regional financial institutions, the savings banks. In a pyrrhic victory, they almost overtook commercial banks –the dominant element of national capital— in being the lynchpin of the ‘Spanish model’, a macro-economic system based on deepening existing specializations in tourism, property development and construction as ‘competitive advantages’ adapted to the global economy.

Forty-three out of forty-five savings banks, which had roughly made up half of the Spanish banking system, disappeared. The depth of their solvency problems, the policies implemented by central governments and the deterioration of the economy did away with them. After a complex programme of mergers, savings banks were transformed into commercial banks in 2012. Many were later nationalized and sold cheap to centre banks—effectively reinforcing centripetal flows of capital and resorting to strategies of accumulation by dispossession.

Many savings banks had evolved from being not-for-profit, regional and public-administration-funding into de-territorialising and financialising institutions competing for a larger share of the market. Savings banks were mutual financial institutions set up via foundational funds and managed by boards of stakeholders –founders, local authorities, savers and employees. With their duties to foster savings, develop the economy of their locality and carry out social works, they became anchor institutions in their cities/regions of origin. But since the liberalisation of the Spanish economy, and the deepening of financial market integration during the 1990s, they underwent a prolonged weakening of their regulatory boundaries –‘freeing’ their banking activities and undoing their territorial-boundedness—which encouraged many (particularly the riskier ones with less liquidity) to participate in securitization and high leverage practices (via money-markets) characteristic of financial centres.

The framework established by the Maastricht Treaty and monetary union brought about strong purchasing power that saw major Spanish commercial banks expanding internationally. And it also brought a lowering of (the very high) interest rates and a price war at home. In Catalonia this was markedly felt when the largest of its savings banks (and largest in the EU) La Caixa switched its rates to the Euribor in 2004. La Caixa had a strong pull effect on other savings banks and, in a more competitive market, they saw profit margins squeezed and found they needed to increase their investment volume (for which deposits were now not enough) just to maintain their levels of profit.

Securitization and wholesale markets provided savings banks with a massive volume of resources. The Land Act of 1998 (which made vast amounts of land available for construction) together with changes to securitization laws; lower interest rates; higher investment needs and the traditional pattern of channelling resources to sheltered sectors of the economy by Spanish banks (such as  construction) helped build an ‘urban development tsunami’. This tsunami was built with the mass influx of EU capitals invested in Spanish mortgage-backed securities and other property assets of which savings banks were keen originators.

This liquidity surge was used in lending investments that fed the bubble. Credit to finance construction reached 60% of total credit. Lending practices worsened as savings banks bought construction companies and began selling flats and mortgages via real estate agents working on commission for them. They expanded outside their own city-regions losing their clients’ trust and information advantage characteristic of their proximity banking. Moreover, lending policies rooted in savings banks’ traditional function of providing financial inclusion became predatory when, in their competition for new clients, savings banks targeted the influx of low-income urban migrant communities, as happened in Barcelona. So-called ‘dinghy’ loans –the Catalan version of US ninja loans—became Spain’s own toxic assets.

Regional financial spaces in Spain were connected to EU and global financial markets. Without this link it is difficult to understand how the housing bubble and the crisis began and unfolded.  The financial crisis soon became a general economic crisis triggering mass unemployment and shortage of credit. But, whilst the banking system was restructured and propped up by centre government and an EU/IMF bailout in 2012 (which came with strict austerity conditionality) the weight of the crisis burden was shifted onto the population.

The distribution of the initial impact of the financial debacle was uneven. Cities were badly affected but in some regions there was a marked urban-rural continuum.  Thus, the metropolitan area of Barcelona was ground zero for evictions with 59.030 cases (trailed only by Madrid with 52.276 cases). In the north-western region of Galicia the mis-selling of preference shares to unwitting savers was widespread. Regions and local authorities account for about 50% of public spending and they are responsible for delivery of most services. But real estate taxation is the architrave of their fiscal system (together with cash transfers). Without recourse to one of their traditional sources of financing, their fiscal woes  worsened following the bust and budget cuts and many had to resort eventually to the strict conditionality of the regional liquidity mechanism set up by central government to face their debt. Many also had to pick up the tab for the spending formerly financed via social works.

An archipelago of citizen interventions scattered throughout Spain demonstrated the depth of popular discontent and made up for the neglect of public authorities in dealing with the social wreckage. Citizen-led groups emerged to advocate for the interests of the masses of people in precarious housing situations as well as for those affected by the collapse of preference shares in financial institutions such as BANKIA. These groups pushed local authorities to achieve solutions. These ‘civic platforms’ also fed into broader social movements such as the indignados, and the formation of the new political party Podemos.

So far, they have already had a political impact in the victory of citizen political platforms in the 2014 municipal elections in Madrid and Barcelona, among other urban spaces. Newcomer parties Ciudadanos (centre-right) and Podemos (left) are widely expected to end Spain’s bipartisan political system in the coming general elections on the 20th of December. But it remains to be seen what they will do to transform the financial system. So far, whilst Podemos proposes an ambitious programme of democratization of the economy (including public banking, non-recourse mortgages and managed personal bankruptcy, financial transparency and taxation), Ciudadanos barely mentions finance in its economic measures.

Dr Paula Portas-Perez is visiting research fellow at the department of politics and international relations at Cardiff University. This post is based on Paula’s article ‘Plain vanilla banking? The financialization of Spanish regional savings banks’, which is forthcoming in ‘Regional Science, Regional Studies’.