Engineering the Financialization of Urban Entrpreneurialism: The JESSICA Urban Development Initiative in the European Union

Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance‐dominated accumulation. We examine and contribute to theorizing the mechanisms through which urban governance is financialized, taking as a case study JESSICA, one of the European Union's initiatives to implement an ‘urban sensitive’ policy for sustainable and integrated development. Like other initiatives promoting financialization, JESSICA deploys the logic of finance to select and fund urban social initiatives and development projects on the basis of their potential return on investment (ROI). Understanding this process requires placing questions of political economy—how urban governance is shaped by the broader political‐economic context—with questions of governmentality—how stakeholders are enrolled in and come to take for granted new governance initiatives. Following the multi‐scalar institutional infrastructure is crucial to understanding how this works. Taking a relational multi‐scalar approach, we trace how changes at the supranational scale filter down to shape urban policy selection and performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we document how ROI calculations conflict with social welfare priorities. Contrasts between the trajectory of financialization of urban governance in the European Union and the United States demonstrate how this is geographically variegated, shaped by the broader context/conjuncture within which such financialization is embedded.     

The acerbity of the social: how to include the social in governmental risk assessments

This paper addresses the expansion of risk practices through a case study of a government led project in Sweden purposed to develop a method to include social events in mandatory risk practices. Social heterogeneity was to be transformed into straightforward causality in order to turn the social into a manageable object. In this regard, the project was quite successful. By inviting social scientists into the process, otherwise often marginalized within risk practice, causality and quantifiable risk factors could be established and the model became a rigorous and legitimate scientific model. Although experts were granted significant autonomy and became experts far beyond their own area of expertise, the success of the model lies rather in allowing experts authority within confined boundaries. Grand narratives and critical perspectives are disregarded as too abstract and if social scientists are to infuse aspects of social critique they must adapt to these circumstances: they must become instrumentalists.     

Doing Away with the Sovereign: Neoliberalism and the Promotion of Market Discipline in European Economic Governance

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a critical reading of market discipline and its limitations as a mechanism in European economic governance. Consistent with neoliberal beliefs about market-based governance, the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is premised on the functioning of the government bond market as a fiscal-policy discipliner. However, the operation of market discipline requires that neither governments nor their private creditors can rely on an authority to bail them out. It, therefore, precludes the kinds of intervention by Eurozone’s supranational institutions witnessed during the euro crisis. In the post-crisis context, efforts to strengthen market discipline continue to be frustrated by the growing reliance of financial institutions on government bond markets as well as the European Central Bank’s (ECB) active participation in those markets. Having undermined the credibility of the market as an autonomous and apolitical mechanism of discipline, European economic governance struggles to come to terms with the rise of a supranational ‘economic sovereign’ in the Eurozone.     

The Managerial Lineages of Neoliberalism

Managerialism is often depicted as a key practice of neoliberalism yet relatively little has been written by scholars of neoliberalism about the actual relationship between managerialism and neoliberalism. Usually subsumed under a functional reading of neoliberalism, managerialism has too often been understood simply as a means for neoliberal ends (i.e. to promote market rule or competition). This paper challenges this perspective on the grounds that it conflates practices that stem from two different historical lineages. As we show, managerial governance not only has a very different history than neoliberal theory, but it also rests on different principles. Its development can be traced back to the US defence sector in the 1950s and the pivotal role of the RAND Corporation. On the basis of this historical perspective, we argue for the need to analyse managerialism on its own terms and make the case for considering the rise of managerial science as a paradigmatic shift in governance. In doing so, we show how managerial governance represented a radical rupture from previous management practices and show how it profoundly reshaped how we have come to understand governance.     

自由主义民主的解蔽与超越--基于艾伦·梅克森斯·伍德对麦克弗森的批判

伍德认为麦克弗森的自由主义民主理论没有方法论或理论可能性，没有正确揭示自由主义民主同资本主义之间的关系。资本主义并不能借助于自由主义民主获得永恒的生命力，自由主义民主也不能同资本主义一起走向胜利。自由主义民主是一种权利体系，兼具公共权威性和维持占有性关系的双重职能。自由主义民主和社会主义的融合只能依赖没有任何社会内容的空洞的形式主义。自由主义民主导致资本主义国家的自我封闭，制造了不可消除的内在矛盾，最终只能以革命的形式来超越自身的评价系统。国家的消亡只能在无阶级社会中实现，国家权力与公共权力之间具有明显的张力。伍德指出麦克弗森不主张暴力革命，而主张走改良主义道路，希望利用和平手段过渡到社会主义社会，因而麦克弗森不是马克思主义者，更多的是自由主义民主者。     

The Primacy of Space in Politics: Bargaining Rights,Freedom and Power in an İstanbul Neighborhood

This article explores and theorizes the ways in which urban space and political contestations are mapped onto each other. The ethnography illustrates the multifaceted transformations in a notoriously secularist neighborhood of ?stanbul, Te?vikiye, as it first turns into a high‐consumption locality in the post‐1980s, then into a high‐conflict urban space in the new millennium on the arrival of Muslim high‐spenders, particularly headscarved women. Aiming to fill the gap left by the absence of spatial analysis from political science and political sociology, I argue that the urban neighborhood becomes central for political contestation when both government and opposition fail to protect and secure liberties and rights. Now that devout Muslims are integrated into highly contested urban sites and share bourgeois lifestyles, ordinary people act in defense of their ‘sphere’ of freedom and privacy. This new territoriality is largely symptomatic of increasing fears of losing freedom, privacy and social status. This spatial defensiveness is reinforced by people's decreasing trust in, and increasing demands from, the state for the protection and security of their rights and liberties. My overarching argument is that exclusive attention to the bipolar clash between devout Muslims and secularists under the rubric of ‘neighborhood wars’ obscures multipolar conflicts around the discontents stemming from authoritarianism and democratization.     

Be Berlin! Governing the City through Freedom

In this article, I examine how contemporary Berlin is governed, with a particular focus on the production of urban space. My points of reference are the term ‘government’ (as employed by Foucault) and the field of governmentality studies (where it is applied empirically). Based on a critical discourse and dispositive analysis of the city's current urban development policy, I propose that urban governance in Berlin may be analysed through the lens of three central dispositives: the dispositive of governing through citizenship; the dispositive of the creative city; and the dispositive of the social city. I discuss the characteristics of these dispositives of urban governance, drawing on a number of examples taken from the discipline of urban space production in order to look specifically at the aims and objectives of governance, its subjects and the ways it manifests itself. In conclusion, I suggest that the new forms of governance based on empowerment and cooperation have by no means replaced disciplinary technologies of governance, but are rather embedded within them.     

文科大学生开设数学课程的探索

本文针对目前理工科高等学校开设文科高等数学的现状,讨论了面向文科大学生开设高等数学课程的重要性,指出开设文科高等数学是培养全面发展的新世纪人才的需要。并根据文科学生对高等数学认识上的突出问题,指出应该从教和学两个方面克服师生思想上的消极态度,再辅以相应的改革措施,以真正发挥文科高等数学的作用;最后从教学大纲的制订、教材的选取以及教学方法改革等方面提出了几点建议,以利于我校文科数学课程教学的开展。     

地方工科院校文科实践教学资源优势及其利用

地方工科院校的文科专业应充分把握自身的环境资源特征,依托工科背景,利用工科院校传统与文化积淀的优势,构建具有应用文科特色的实践教学体系。     

高校文科实验室建设现状与改进对策——以辽宁高校为例

综述了高校文科实验室发展的政策演进及价值判断,分析了辽宁省高校文科实验室建设的现状及存在的问题.从持续加强政府的政策保障与制度设计、建立健全社会力量参与高校文科实验室建设机制等四个方面,提出进一步推动辽宁省高校文科实验室建设的积极对策.