Rethinking community organising
The term “community organising” has become such a part of the modern political landscape on the left that it is easy to forget that it has a relatively recent history and a specific origin. Indeed, it has come to encompass all manner of movement-building and…
How radical municipalism can go beyond the local
While today’s crises require action on a big scale, fighting for local democracy is the best chance to address them. Given that capitalism works at scale, radical municipalism requires collaboration at higher level to be successful. Gatherings as the Fearless Cities Summit in New York…
The “Preston Model” and the modern politics municipal socialism
The local elections in 2018 showed some advances in the modification of the once-called ‘the oldest and toughest plutocracy in the world’, but the mixed results underscored the difficulty of mobilisation around a stale and sterile managerialist model of local government, as embodied in all…
Organizing beyond organizations: Good news stories from Spain and Taiwan
Social movements in Spain and Taiwan are experiencing new developments in organizing strategy and digital technology that are helping them overcome the fundamental limitations of traditional organizations. Photo: Dainis Graveris
What’s it like for a social movement to take control of a city?
We can chart a new path forward by grounding that vision in the lessons learned from past struggles and an understanding of how hierarchy is the shared root of oppression. But this can all feel a bit intangible without clear examples. To get an idea of what…
Barcelona en Comú: The municipalist movement to seize the institutions
An understanding of Spain’s 15M movement’s mutation into what has been termed an “institutional takeover”. Focusing in particular on the potential ties and limitations of municipal politics, discussing the open possibilities of “Radical Municipalism” in changing political power relations in the city. It will also…
How to navigate the disorientation of a seismic world
Even as revolutionary new technologies appear—with the potential to free our lives from drudgery and connect us to one another in ways we had never imagined possible—our undemocratic economy has deployed them as tools of disruption. Dreams of a post-scarcity technological future darken into one…
An atlas of real utopias?
In 2017, the Transnational Institute launched Transformative Cities, an opportunity for progressive local governments, municipalist coalitions, social movements and civil society organizations to popularize and share their experiences of building solutions to our planet’s systemic economic, social, political and ecological crises. The Atlas of Utopia,…
Ciudad futura: reimagining the left in Argentina
Founded in 2005, Ciudad Futura formed in response to increased land speculation by developers on the impoverished outskirts of the city of Rosario. In recent years, it has grown into a province-wide movement in Santa Fe characterized by its local community initiatives in the areas…