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▪ Abstract  Politics has not always fared well in the political science literature on the cities, at least not in the United States. Since the mid-nineteenth century, a substantial literature has either decried or discounted the role of politics in urban governance. Much of the early literature, written before and just after the creation of the American Political Science Association in 1903, urged politics be banished and administration privileged as a way to remedy "one conspicuous failure of the United States … the government of cities." Subsequent literature reinstated politics—though some claimed elected officials were simply agents of special interests or upper-class elites. The prevailing view today is that political leadership is an important, independent factor in the governing equation, although it is arguable that of late national and state administrators have been empowered at the expense of local self-rule—thus approximating, albeit by different means, the system envisioned by early municipal reformers.

Although liberals too often forget it, the health of the liberal publicorder depends on our ability to constitute not only political institutions and limits on power, but appropriate patterns of social lifeand citizen character. Liberal character traits and political virtuesdo not, after all, come about "naturally" or by the deliverance of an "invisible hand." Even Adam Smith did not think that, as we will see below. Harry Eckstein gets closer to themark by suggesting that "stable governments…are the productof 'accidental' (extremely improbable) conjunctions of conditions which do sometimes, but rarely, occur in actual societies."

Die USA sind als liberaler Staat gegründet worden und gelten bis heute als Wegbereiter westlicher Werte. Mit der Regierung um Donald Trump übernahmen jedoch antiliberale Kräfte die Führung des Landes. Die Gründe hierfür sind vielschichtig, allerdings muss das Phänomen Trump als eine grundlegendere Verschiebung in der Politik verstanden werden – eine immanente Krise des Liberalismus'.

Die Vereinigten Staaten werden mittlerweile als defekte Demokratie klassifiziert. Dies sind Effekte, die ihren Ursprung in einer wachsenden Ungleichheit in der Einkommensverteilung und spezifischen Entwicklungen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt – insbesondere nach der Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise 2008 – haben. Dies führte dazu, dass sich viele Menschen in den USA nicht mehr ausreichend durch die politischen Eliten vertreten fühlen.

The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the integration of tax policy instruments into social policy reform in Canada during the 1990's and what that means in terms of the politics of redistribution and the prevention of poverty. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part takes a closer look at and will challenge the conventional classification of the Canadian welfare state as a liberal one (Esping-Andersen classification). The second part is focussed on the politics of welfare reform in Canada during the 1990's. Special attention will be given to the integration of tax policy instruments into social policy. The third part takes a more comparative look at the output side of the Canadian welfare state: how successful is the Canadian welfare state in the prevention of poverty and the redistribution of income? The extent to which the welfare state design in Canada has changed, as a result of the reforms analysed above, will be discussed in the concluding part of the paper. ; http://www.kanada-studien.org/publikationen/zks/

What have been consequences of the events of 1968? What were the counter-reactions? And beyond Europe, how did they play out in the United States? HåkanThörn, as guest editor of 'Ord&Bild', put these questions to Left researchers Jordan T. Camp, Margit Mayer and Don Mitchell for their global – and personal –perspectives. (published with the kind permission of Eurozine) ; https://www.eurozine.com/the-long-historical-struggles-over-the-geographies-of-our-lives/

Das Kapitel präsentiert die Eigenheiten US-amerikanischer Konflikttraditionen und sozialer Bewegungen im Kontext der spezifischen gesellschaftlichen und politischen Entwicklungsbedingungen der USA. Es fokussiert auf drei Bewegungszyklen der jüngeren Geschichte, um an Hand einzelner innerhalb dieser Zyklen beispielhafter Mobilisierungen die typischen Merkmale US-amerikanischer Protestbewegungen – ihre Akzeptanz als selbstverständlicher Teil der politischen Kultur, ihre Prägung durch das liberale Gleichheitsversprechen, aber auch ihre Verankerung in Traditionen kommunitärer Solidarität – zu verdeutlichen.

Considerable socio-political change has re-configured the discursive space once occupied by ' utopia'. Within the cultures of late capitalism and the organisational matrices of bio-political administration, that space is no longer animated by images of idealised states that are yet to come, or by a sense of simple failure in the production of those same states. Rather, it is overdetermined by a condition of differentiation in the representation of reality. The origins of that differentiation of representation appear to lie deep within the modernist project. In the Place of Utopia explores how that condition of representation might be animated anew by the discursive circuits through which modernity has come to operate, so as to enliven the ability of transformative ideas to lever change from within a range of organic crises current to the world system: the financialisation of global capitalism; the subsumption of worker subjectivities to the logic of capital; the broadening of the metabolic rift through industrial-capitalism. Central to this animation of transformative ideas is the relationship between language and the body. ; https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/35977

Was genau ist mit 'städtischen Bewegungen' gemeint und wie werden sie in der einschlägigen Forschung konzipiert? Ist der Analysegegenstand eine soziale Bewegung, die – mehr oder weniger zufällig – in Städten stattfindet, oder wird unterstellt, dass spezifische Eigenschaften von Städten eine besondere, eigene Art von Bewegungsaktivität hervorbringen? Während im ersten Fall die Stadt lediglich den (passiven) Austragungsort von politischen oder sozialen Kämpfen darstellt, in denen es um 'größere' als rein städtische oder lokale Anliegen geht, geht es im zweiten Fall um spezifisch städtische Problemlagen, stadträumliche Aspekte, oder das Recht auf Stadt; oder aber spezifisch urbane Merkmale wie bspw. zentrale Plätze, öffentliche Orte oder städtische Infrastrukturen gelten als auslösende Mobilisierungsfaktoren. In jüngeren Beiträgen dieser Richtung wird sogar argumentiert, dass im Gegensatz zu anderen Lokalitäten Städte per se mobilisierungserzeugend seien, und diese ihre bewegungsgenerierenden Fähigkeiten genauer beforscht werden sollten (Uitermark u. a.: 2012).

Der Aufsatz verfährt in drei Schritten: Zunächst stellt er die spezifische Konzeption von Neoliberalisierung vor, die im Zusammenhang städtischer Konflikte und Bewegungen produktiv erscheint, um im zweiten Schritt die Widersprüche und Implikationen der Neoliberalisierung für städtische Entwicklungen und Stadtpolitik auszuführen. Aus dieser Perspektive werden schließlich, drittens, einige aktuelle Konflikte und Kämpfe um die Neoliberalisierung der Stadt betrachtet und einige ihrer spezifischen Herausforderungen identifiziert, insbesondere die Gegensätze zwischen von der kreativen Stadt-Politik profitierenden Bewegungsakteuren und solchen, die stärker von repressiven und Austeritätsmaßnahmen betroffen sind. ; The article proceeds in three steps: First, it introduces the specific conception of neoliberalization, which seems productive in the context of urban conflicts and movements, in order to elaborate, in the second step, on contradictions and implications of neoliberalization for urban developments and politics. From this perspective, it finally considers some current conflicts and struggles around the neoliberalization of the city and identifies some of its specific challenges, in particular the contrasts between movement actors who profit from the creative urban politics and those who are affected more intensely by repressive and austerity measures.

Die Replik auf die fünf Kommentare zu meinem Beitrag verdeutlicht zunächst den Theorierahmen, den ich zur Analyse urbaner sozialer Bewegungen im Kontext neoliberaler Stadtpolitik benutzt habe, weil dieser offensichtlich zu einigen Missverständnissen geführt hat. Diese theoretische Konzeption von Neoliberalisierung impliziert auch eine Vorstellung von dem Prozess, in dem das neoliberale Projekt überwunden werden könnte, die hier etwas genauer dargelegt wird. Sodann setzt sich die Replik mit der im Aufsatz selbst zu kurz gekommenen diskursiven Dimension der städtischen Proteste auseinander. Während der Aufsatz lediglich beispielhaft an einem (von vielen möglichen) Beispiel(en) von Konflikten und entsprechenden Widerständigkeiten aufgezeigt hat, inwiefern es produktiv sein kann, aktuelle Bewegungskonflikte im gesellschaftspolitischen Kontext (der neoliberalisierenden Stadt) zu verorten, verweist die Replik auf zwei neuere Forschungsrichtungen, die den medialen Vermittlungen weniger stark aufsitzen als bisherige Ansätze - und die sicherlich ausgebaut werden müssen, aber dem hier benutzten Theorieansatz in keiner Weise widersprechen. Der letzte Teil der Replik greift die Frage der Subjekte und Subjektivitäten der Bewegungsakteure, die in mehreren Kommentaren thematisiert wurde, und ihre Konsequenzen für den Brückenschlag zwischen 'klassischen' städtischen Bewegungen und sog. 'Urban Outcasts' bzw. 'Stimmlosen' auf. ; The reply to the five comments starts with a clarification of the theoretical framework I used to analyze urban social movements in the context of neoliberal urban politics, as this seems to have created some misunderstandings. This conception of neoliberalization includes a concept of the process in which the neoliberal project might be transcended, which is described in a bit more detail here. Next, the reply deals with the discursive dimension of urban protests as the article did not thematize this. While the article could deal with just one (of many possible) example(s) of conflicts and respective resistance, in order to show how contextualizing contemporary movement conflicts within urban politics may be productive, the reply points to two recent strands of research that do not depend on media selectivity as much as previous research frames -- and which certainly need to be extended, but which dovetail nicely with the theoretical framework used here. The final section of the reply takes up the issue of the subjects and subjectivities of the movement actors raised by various comments, and suggests their implications for building bridges between 'classic' urban movements and the so-called 'urban outcasts' seen as 'voiceless.'

The recent financial and economic crisis had its origins in the subprime mortgage collapse that wreaked havoc across urban America, with exploding foreclosure and eviction rates confronting municipalities with entirely new challenges. On top of these housing market and vacancy problems, the financial crisis has squeezed municipal budgets so that local politicians have themselves resorted to risky fiscal innovations as well as to increasingly severe cuts in public sector and social programs, aggravating poverty, homelessness and the decay of public urban infrastructures. While these developments occur unevenly across different types of cities and regions, and state measures to deal with the accelerating social problems have also varied, trends of instrumentalizing the 'budget crisis' for consolidating class power can be identified. With the assault on public sector unions launched by a number of states and cities, some disparate protest and resistance movements have begun to emerge.

While poverty has been growing and becoming manifest in new forms of segregation in US cities, welfare reform has been accompanied by intensified efforts to enhance social control of urban space. In parallel with the shrinkage of social services and the erosion of job security, the (public, private, and third sector) provision of services have exploded - with detrimental impacts on the fabric of urban democracy and citizen participation. By looking at developments in Los Angeles, this article analyzes the implementation of a new generation of "social cohesion" policies in US cities. Community development and empowerment programs as well as welfare-to-work programs involve non profits such as community-based organizations and development corporations in the implementation of these services, who are tasked with the activation of marginalized groups and neighborhoods, and with the provision of local security. Their practice has transformed the quality of urban participation: while invoking empowerment and cohesion, it has reduced participation to minor issues and restricted access to the relevant decision-making arenas.

The article outlines the domestic consequences of 9-11. It details the war on the homefront by describing steps taken in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, such as the passage and content of the USA Patriot Act, its consequences for immigrants as well as U.S. citizens, and the secrecy surrounding the detention of more than a thousand suspects in what looks like a massive campaign in racial profiling. It also looks at the congressional debate on how the government should intervene to support affected economic sectors and regulate airport security.

This article explores the possible future of unified Berlin against the backdrop of other advanced metropoles, particularly Los Angeles, using some of the findings of global city research as well as that of L.A. school to shed light on the incipient developments of greater Berlin: industrial restructuring, growing internationalization, de- and reconstruction of spatial configurations, and the intensifying economic and social polarization as trends which Berlin shares with other metropoles adjusting to globalization pressures, even though it does not play in the league of global cities.