PIGS, from crisis to self-organisation
A country or a society in crisis is not a “time of opportunities“ as we often hear when stock markets are translated into real life. Crises are thrilling times of resistance, but also desperate moments of destruction. The term PIGS started to be used more…
Rebel cities, 1: “Marielle Franco presente!”
First of a series of articles on new municipalism, this piece focuses on the trajectory and work of Marielle Franco, a Brazilian feminist activist known for her defence of human rights and her struggle against the many threats posed to them in Rio de Janeiro….
Grenoble, France: Citizen participation in water utility delivers low tariffs for its poorest residents
Elected officials and environmental activists mobilised in Grenoble in the 1980s and 1990s to prove that corruption was involved in many deals, and set up an alternative, municipal entity to take back and run the water utility. Remunicipalisation took place in 2001, and opened the…
Libertarian municipalism & Murray Bookchin’s legacy
An interview with Debbie Bookchin to discuss how municipalist movements are implementing her father’s ideas and what the potential challenges are for libertarian municipalism. Photo: Pixabay
The mayors and the movements
In 2015, a wave of social movements lifted left-wing mayors to power in Spain. Their experience in office shows the importance of linking institutional power to bottom-up mobilization. Fearless Cities, a recent book produced by BenComú activists, has sought to draw wider lessons from these…
New municipalism: A video explainer
Stir to Action has worked in partnership with the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity at De Montfort University in Leicester to produce a new video resource for the municipalist movement. The video was inspired by CURA’s Municipal Socialism in the 21st Century event in…
Scaling out: Translocal solidarity and the new municipalism
The new municipalist agenda is shaping up worldwide. The requirement for successful municipalist experiences to exceed the local level and enter the regional or national agenda might jeopardize their existence, since it challenges the very bases of their conception. The notion of growth by “scaling…
Animal liberation from below: toward a radical interspecies municipalism
The political Left, especially in its anti-authoritarian strains, has a long history of supporting welfare and even rights for nonhuman animals. Anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Elisée Reclus were vegetarian and drew explicit links between violence against humans and other species. Similar views were…
The revolution will be ecologised: social change in the 21st century
The climate crisis today demands nothing less than a worldwide social and political transformation. Piecemeal reforms, technocratic schemes, and state-driven ‘climate resilience’ have proven not only ineffective at stymying the effects of climate change, but also utterly incapable of combating its underlying cause: a capitalist…