The Redefinition and Co-Production of Public Services by Urban Movements. The Can Batlló Social Innovation in Barcelona


Abstract


A wealth of social innovations sprang up in recent years in Southern Europe in the bosom of urban movements to cover citizens´ needs from below. Reacting to the commodification of the neoliberal city and the increasing dismantling of the welfare state, they provide public services and interrelate in var-ious forms with state authorities. Drawing on the outstanding social innovation case of Can Batlló (CB) in the city of Barcelona, a 14-ha former factory including more than 30 different projects and involving more than 350 activists, this paper analyses how social movements are redefining "the public" in the articulation between institutionalization, public service co-production, disruptive repertoires of action, and autonomy. It argues that this multiplicity of strategies and the strength of the movement helped not only to avoid turning the CB social innovation into a neoliberal rollout strategy, but even to act as a safety cordon against austerity politics. Affecting the boundaries of the legal-institutional framework, and rejecting the conflation of "public goods" with "state goods", CB organizes public services provision and planning in a more democratic form, pressuring the government to deliver the promised public services, while reclaim-ing them as commons that activists contribute building and designing. CB´s movement dimension and rootedness in the neighbourhood ensure the prioritisation of public and neighbourhood concerns over short-term, particularistic, and organizational survival interests.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v12i2p539

Keywords: commons; Indignados; movement of the squares; public service; social innovation; State; ur-ban movements

References


Asara, V. (2016), “The Indignados as a socio-environmental movement. Framing the crisis and democracy”, Environmental Policy and Governance, 26(6):527-542.

Asara, V. (2019), “Untangling the radical imaginaries of the Indignados’ movement:

Commons, autonomy and ecologism”. Paper forthcoming in Environmental Politics.

Bakker, J., B. Denters, M.O. Vrielink and P. Klok (2012) Citizens´initiatives: how local governments fill their facilitative role. Local Government Studies 38(4):395-414.

Barcelona Municipality (2016), Pla d´Impuls de l´Economia Social i Solidària (2016-2019).

Bifulco, L. (2017), Social policies and public action, Abingdon: Routledge.

Blanco, I. and M. Léon (2017), Social innovation, reciprocity and contentious politics: Facing the socio-urban crisis in Ciutat Meridiana, Barcelona, Urban Studies 54(9):2172-2188.

Borzaga, C. and L. Fazzi (2014) Civil society, third sector, and healthcare: The case of social cooperatives in Italy, Social Science & Medicine (123):234-241.

Bosi, L., Zamponi, L. (2015), “Direct Social Actions and Economic Crises. The relation-ship between forms of action and socio-economic context in Italy”, PArtecipazione e Conflitto 8(2):367-391.

Brandsen, T., and V. Pestoff (2006), “Co-production, the third sector and the delivery of public services”, Public Management Review 8 (4):493-591.

Cabré, E. and A. André (2018), “La Borda: a case study on the implementation of coop-erative housing in Catalonia”, International Journal of Housing Policy 18(3):412-432.

Chin, J. (2009), The limits and potential of non-profit organizations in participatory planning, Journal of Urban Affairs 31(4):431-460.

Cruz, H., R. Martínez Moreno and I. Blanco (2017), “Crisis, urban segregation and social innovation in Catalonia”, PArtecipazione e Conflitto 10(1):221-245.

Cumbers, A. (2012), “Reclaiming public ownership. Making space for economic democracy”, London: Zed Books.

De Weerdt, J. and M. Garcia (2016), Housing crisis: The PAH movement in Barcelona and innovations in governance. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 31:471-493.

Della Porta, D., F. O´Connor, M. Portos and A. Subirats (2017), Social movements and referendums from below. Bristol:Policy Press.

Denters, B. (2016) Community self-organizations: potentials and pitfalls, In: J. Edelen-bos and I. van Meerkerk (eds), Critical reflections on interactive governance: self-organization and participation in public governance, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Evers, A., and B. Ewert (2015), “Social innovation for social cohesion”, in A. Nicholls, J. Simon and M. Gabriel” (eds.), New frontiers in social innovation research, Basing-stoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 107-127.

Forno, F., Graziano, P. (2014), “Sustainable Community Movement Organisations”, Journal of Consumer Culture, 14(2):139-157.

González, S., F. Moulaert and F. Martinelli (2010), “ALMOLIN: How to analyse social innovation at the local level?”, in F. Moulaert, F Martinelli, E. Swyngedouw and S. González (eds.), Can neighbourhood save the city?, London: Routledge, p. 49-67.

Guillén, A. and E. Pavolini (2017) Spain and Italy:Regaining the confidence and legitimacy to advance social policy, in P. Taylor-Gooby, B. Leruth and H.Chung (eds), After austerity: welfare state transformation in Europe after the great recession, Oxford University Press.

Hadjimichalis, C. (2013), “From streets and squares to radical political emancipation? Resistance and lessons from Athens during the crisis”, Human Geography, 6(2):116–36.

Harvey, D. (2012), Rebel Cities. From the right to the city to the urban revolution. Lon-don: Verso Books.

Karaliotas, L. (2016), Staging Equality in Greek Squares: Hybrid Spaces of Political Sub-jectification. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(1): 54–69.

Kousis, M. (2017), “Alternative Forms of Resilience confronting hard economic times: A Southern perspective”, PArtecipazione e COnflitto 10(1):119-135.

Levine, C. and G. Fisher (1984), Citizenship and service delivery: The promise of copro-duction. Public Administration Review 44:178-189.

Lowndes, V., L. Pratchett and G. Stoker (2006), Local political participation: the impact of rules-in-use. Public Administration 84(3):539-561.

Martí-Costa, M. and M. Tomàs (2017), Urban governance in Spain: From democratic transition to austerity policies. Urban Studies 54(9):2107-2122.

Mény, Y. and V. Wright (1985), General Introduction. InY. Meny and V. Wright (eds), Centre-periphery relations in Western Europe, London: George Allen & Unwin.

Ostrom, E. (1996), Crossing the great divide: Coproduction, synergy, and development. World Development 24(6):1073-1087.

Martinelli, F. (2010), “Historical roots of social change: philosophies and movements” , in F. Moulaert, F Martinelli, E. Swyngedouw and S. González (eds.), Can neighbour-hood save the city?, London: Routledge, pp.17-48.

Martínez, M. (2014), “How Do Squatters Deal with the State? Legalization and Anoma-lous Institutionalization in Madrid”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Re-search, 38(2):646-74.

Martínez, M. and García, A. (2015), “Ocupar las plazas, liberar los edificios”, Acme 14(1):157–184.

Mayer, M. (2012), “The ´right to the city´ in urban movements”, In: N. Brenner, P. Marcuse and M. Mayer (eds.) Cities for people, not for profit, Abingdon:Routledge.

Membretti, A. (2010), “Social innovation in the wake of urban movements. The Centro Sociale Leoncavallo in Milan: a case of ´flexible institutionalization´”, in F. Moulaert, F Martinelli, E. Swyngedouw and S. González (eds.), Can neighbourhood save the city?, London: Routledge, pp. 68-80.

Mitlin, D. (2018), Beyond contention: urban social movements and their multiple ap-proaches to secure transformation. Environment & Urbanization 30(2):557-574.

Mitlin, D. (2008) With and beyond the state – Co-production as a route to political in-fluence, power and transformation for grassroots organizations. Environment & Ur-banization 20(2):339-360.

Moulaert, F. (2010), “Social innovation and community development: concepts, theo-ries and challenges”, in F. Moulaert, F Martinelli, E. Swyngedouw and S. González (eds.), Can neighbourhood save the city?, London: Routledge, pp. 4-16.

Parés, M., S. Ospina and J. Subirats (2017), Social innovation and democratic leader-ship. Communities and social change from below. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Percy, S. (1984) Citizen participation in the coproduction of urban services. Urban Af-fairs Quarterly 19(4):431-446.

Pestoff, V. (2009), A democratic architecture for the Welfare State. London: Routledge.

Pestoff, V., S. Osborne and T. Brandsen (2006), “Patterns of co-production in public services”, Public Management Review 8(4): 591-595.

Ritchie, J. and Lewis, J. (2003), Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers. London: Sage.

Swyngedouw, E. (2005), Governance innovation and the citizen: The Janus face of governance-beyond-the-State, Urban Studies 42(11):1991-2006.

Swyngedouw, E., and F. Moulaert. (2010), “Socially innovative projects, governance dynamics and urban change: between state and self-organization”, in F. Moulaert, F Martinelli, E. Swyngedouw and S. González (eds.), Can neighbourhood save the city?, London: Routledge, pp. 219-234.

Taylor-Gooby, P., B. Leruth and H.Chung (2017) After austerity: welfare state transfor-mation in Europe after the great recession, Oxford University Press.

Unger, R. M. (2015), “Conclusion: The task of the Social Innovation Movement”, in A. Nicholls, J. Simon and M. Gabriel” (eds.), New frontiers in social innovation re-search, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,233-251.

Varvarousis, A., V. Asara and B. Akbulut (2019), “Commons: the Social Outcomes of the movement of the squares”. Paper under review in Social Movement Studies.

Vicari Haddock, S., and F. Moulaert (2009), Rigenerare la cità. Pratiche di innovazione sociale nelle città europee, Il Mulino.

Vitale, T. (2009), “L´impatto istituzionale dell´innovazione sociale”, in S. Vicari Haddock and F. Moulaert (eds.), Rigenerare la città. Pratiche di innovazione sociale nelle città europee, Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 163-198.

Wolford, W. (2010), Participatory democracy by default: land reform, social move-ments and the state in Brazil. The Journal of Peasant Studies 37(1):91-109.

Zamponi, L. and L. Bosi (2018), “Politicizing solidarity in times of crisis: The politics of Alternative Action Organizations in Greece, Italy, and Spain”, American Behavioral Scientist 62(6):796-815.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.