Promises of the Political Insurgent Cities in a Post-Political Environment
Erik Swyngedouw | 2018 | ISBN: 0262038226 | English | 232 pages | PDF | 5 MB

The possibility of a new emancipatory and democratizing politics, explored through the lens of recent urban insurgencies.

In Promises of the Political, Erik Swyngedouw explores whether progressive and emancipatory politics is still possible in a post-political era. Activists and scholars have developed the concept of post-politicization to describe the process by which �the political� is replaced by techno-managerial governance. If the political domain has been systematically narrowed into a managerial apparatus in which consensual governance prevails, where can we find any possibility of a new democratic politics? Swyngedouw examines this question through the lens of recent urban insurgencies. In Zuccotti Park, Paternoster Square, Taksim Square, Tahrir Square, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, he argues, insurgents have gathered to choreograph new configurations of the democratic.