Thinking about Europe en Comú
The document framed the relationship between the municipalist revolution and the reconstruction of Europe from below. It was created in preparation for the Barcelona en Comú plenary assembly of 1 June, 2016. Photo: Anna Shvets
The Spanish democracy revolutions
In Spain, where indignation is rife, four post-capitalist strategies are at work: Catalan independence, autonomous spaces, networked democracy, and radical municipalism.These strategies—distinct but with the potential to fuse together—could reshape the political landscape beyond recognition.
Rebel cities: the citizen platforms in power
The paper examines the successes, limitations and possibilities of citizen platforms after their first months in power in cities across Spain. Photo: Pixabay
Why we still love the Zapatistas
For Mexico, Latin America and the international left, what emerged from the Chiapan mist along with the Zapatistas was the specter of revolution with a capital R—something the Mexican autocracy of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the PRI, believed it had killed a long time…
Rebuilding the commons: a global network of rebel cities takes shape, part I
The global movements of 2011 reconfigured urban space as a new interface of collective action and policy creation. The new political narrative of cities is serving to counteract prevailing neoliberal narratives.More than a phrase, “the Cities of the Commons vs. global neoliberalism” could be understood…
The Kurds’ democratic experiment
In Rojava, after the authority of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad collapsed at the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011, the Kurds took advantage of the vacuum to set up a new form of self-government, which is being built from the ground up….
Casting shadows: Chokwe Lumumba and the struggle for racial justice and economic democracy in Jackson, MS
W.E.B Du Bois wrote these famous words in Black Reconstruction, linking America’s promise of democracy to the horrendous conditions for Black people in the South. Sadly, the State of Mississippi has long been a bellwether in this regard, from slavery and lynchings to Jim Crow,…
Spain’s electoral rebellion: welcome to the post-party political era, part I
Madrid, Barcelona and other major Spanish cities are now governed by independent citizen fronts called “confluences.” Ahora Madrid, Barcelona en Comú, Zaragoza en Común and La Marea Atlántica (A Coruña) are confluences weaved together by the M15-Indignados social ecosystem. Other political parties, like Podemos and…
A democratic devolution underway in Barcelona: Barcelona en Comú
This paper seeks to outline the changes that enabled the citizen platform Barcelona en Comú (Catalan for “Barcelona in Common”) to win the elections in Barcelona in 2015, a victory that signaled a rupture in the status quo of Spanish politics. Although the citizen platform…