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...

For people living in cities during the lockdown, space was a major concern, both in and outside the home. The pandemic has reconfigured the way we use and think about urban space. Will it be sufficient for a fairer, healthier city to emerge? Paola Hernández...

The emergence of the new municipalist agenda coincides with the decline of labor unions. Unless they are incorporated, the working class will not be fully present in the definition and implementation of a new, radical political agenda. In order to become the essential part of...

Rather than essentialising cities as inherently progressive or democratic, the municipal is instead becoming framed as a “strategic front” for developing a transformative politics of scale. Given this critical awareness, this nascent movement demonstrates how local loyalties can be mobilised as part of a progressive...

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,...

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 growing momentum of local democratic initiatives seizing institutional power at a city level has great potential to address national and transnational political problems. In 2017 Barcelona hosted the Fearless Cities Summit, an international gathering which took important first steps in linking the new experiments...

The emergence of radical municipalist experiences across the world is challenging  the hegemonic liberal vision that has dominated global politics hitherto. By incorporating a global vision to the municipal approach, the new movement, articulated around the Fearless Cities conference that took place in Barcelona in...

The attitudes of racism and xenophobia, which have fueled the virulent rise of fascism today in places like the United States, must be combated by a radical humanism that celebrates ethnic, cultural and spiritual diversity. With communalism we might remake the world upon humanity’s potential...

After apartheid, Cape Town remained a city of islands: social, cultural and economic divisions are the rule. This has long undermined city-wide collective organizing and solidarity. The severe COVID19 lockdown and the goverment response aggravated the situation for many inhabitants. But an unprecedented community-led response...

In cities across the world social movements are collectively fighting back against the complex causes and corrosive outcomes of neoliberal capitalism. These ‘Fearless Cities’ are highlighted in the Transnational Institute’s Atlas of Utopias. Much of their thinking is based on the concept of radical municipalism,...

Fatih Macoglu, from the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), took over as mayor of the central district of Tunceli this month after victory in March 31 local elections, which saw President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party lose control of the capital Ankara and Turkey’s...