The Covid-19 crisis has made clear the disastrous effects of years of austerity, social security cuts, and public service privatisation. But it has also demonstrated that public services and the people who operate them are truly the foundation of healthy and resilient societies. As privatisation...

From the fourth to the seventh of December activists from all over the world are getting together in Amsterdam to kick-start the local municipalist movement. The event is a 4-day festival with speeches, debates, workshops, Q & A sessions and neighbourhood assemblies. Commons Network has...

Today, the politics of hate and xenophobia are the main threats to the values that the EU once espoused. We need to avert their spread and build societies that are fair, inclusive and diverse. The municipal movements in cities across Europe are already building networks...

A former coal mining town in the North of France, Loos-en-Gohelle shows how a town can free itself from fossil fuel dependence through democratic participation, beginning with the real needs of locals. Photo: Pawel Blazewicz

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,...

Cooperation Jackson’s food sovereignty program hopes to produce sufficient food to feed 25,000 mostly working class African-Americans. Along with the main farming operation, a coop grocery store, café, food truck and joint aquaponics and hydroponics installation that are in the works. This organization is encouraging...

Remunicipalisation, i.e. the taking back of privatised assets and services into public ownership at a local level, is growing. Over 1,400 cases have been implemented since the turn of the millennium, in more than 2,400 cities across 58 countries. The article depicts different cases of...

“Place-based civic tech”, citizen engagement technology codesigned by local government, civil society and global volunteers, constitutes a priced tool for the decentralization of power and decision-making. Together with certain offline practices, it fosters the politicization of civil society and renews the infrastructure of democracy. In...

INDEX 0. JUSTIFICATION 1. SITUATIONS COVERED BY THIS DOCUMENT 2. PREVENTION 3. CODE OF CONDUCT 3.1. OUR VALUES. WHAT IS OK. 3.2. WHAT IS NOT OK. EXAMPLES. 4. LINES OF ACTION IN THE EVENT OF SITUATIONS OF  VIOLENCE 0. JUSTIFICATION This document proposes two lines...

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...

One of the main goals of the “municipalities of change”, elected in 2015 in Spain, was to tackle the debt problem. Drawing on the experience of civil society, they sought to develop approaches such as “citizen audits”, but found themselves facing the power of finance....

The book examines what value, if any, the state has for the pursuit of progressive politics; and how it might need to be reimagined and remade to deliver transformative change. Photo: Peter Döpper