IFHP Summer School 2023 – Call for applications
21/03/2023
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31/03/2023
Conversation #52
Solidarism and the city: let a thousand publics bloom
by Nazem Tahvilzadeh
Södertörn University, Sweden
Swedish democracy is heading towards grimmer days. The political direction of the new conservative government of 2022, supported by the radical nationalist “Sweden democrats” sprung out of a neo-Nazi-party in the 1990’s, has a knife tip aimed towards migrants and multicultural society. Many fear that the main attack is against our egalitarian welfare model. What made this nationalist and conservative turn possible and what kind of forces are at play to counter its development?
Whilst we still much to learn, I would suggest that the conservative turn was made possible by a “moral panic” about multicultural Swedish society where a third of the citizens, and over 50 % in larger cities, bear some foreign background. As issues of “law and order” dominate public debates, right wing voices are arguing that the ills of society derive from migrants’ reluctance to “integrate”. Due to the vast public support of such stigmatizing arguments, racialized discourse is spilling over from right wing extremists to other political parties. Thus, we risk wandering down the same slippery slope as Denmark, where the social democrats are as critical of multiculturalism as right wing extremists, resulting in state sanctioned violations of fundamental human rights (Amnesty International, 2023).
As the social democrats still govern our major cities, the question becomes how new visions of solidarity could reinvigorate democratic governance? My concern in this piece is that scholars and practitioners of urban governance should expand their notion of deepening democracy more congruent with the idea of solidarism. As Robin Hambleton writes, the radical right threat to cities is the advent of increasingly authoritarian and unequal societies. However, Hambleton also writes that there are developments that can offer hope and encouragement as the pandemic has caused “a wonderful upsurge in human kindness”. I strongly agree.
In Sweden, democracy is crumbling but hope can be found in citizens’ sense of solidarism. Often concentrated in meeting venues and counter-publics, these real utopias of self-organized management of kindness should stand as inspiration. What if urban governors had the courage of letting a thousand publics bloom in the city? Allow me to convince.
The urban as a commonwealth
In “The death and life the urban commonwealth” political theorist Margaret Kohn argues that the idea of solidarism can help us appreciate the wealth of cities not only in market-based exchange values, but rather in its use values as a shared social property, or an urban commonwealth:
The urban commonwealth … helps us see the value in the interstices of the city, the “in-between” sites that nourish the lifeworld: streets that facilitate encounters and imagination, visual delights that can astound or comfort, institutional safety nets that can provide for the needy, and the libraries and parks that educate and entertain. (Kohn, 2016)
If privatized the city loses its values because fundamentally the value of the city is that it is a shared property, Kohn argues. To protect this crucial urban function under threat by neoliberal governance, urban governors can plan for what sociologist Eric Klinenberg calls “social infrastructures”: libraries, social and cultural centers, spaces for leisure activities such as swimming halls and sports-centers and other social hubs for congregation, play and collective reflection (Klinenberg, 2018). These public spaces are costly, but from a long horizon they make possible solidarism. If upscaled, they can aid the revitalization of democratic governance. So, do I have any evidence for this argument?
Counter-publics and the city: the peoples’ house movement
In my own research on citizens political participation, there are certain places I tend to end up in my pursuit for understanding how people experience and react to urban governance. These places are tangible facilities such as social centers, cultural centers, associational meeting venues, municipal libraries or art centers that stand open for the self-organized activities of local communities.
One example is the “peoples’ houses” (Folkets hus) which exist in 500 sites all over Sweden. These houses of people are managed in an associational model of co-operative ownership and offer primarily meeting venues. It could be associations that arrange cultural and popular education activities for children or the elderly, or Friday prayers of Muslim congregations, or weddings and birthday celebrations. To enable space for the local community, political capacity is needed, and often, these places have functions open for all.
These public centers originate in the peoples’ house movements of the end of 19th century. While usually slumbering in the second half of the 20th century, the peoples’ houses has been revitalized where the needs of de-commodified congregations is most pressing: stigmatized areas in urban peripheries.
The management of these facilities necessitates a networked mobilizing activity to find funding, which encourages social cohesion and collaborations with governments. Community workers often find their training, place, and purpose in such venues because of the complexity needed in the hand craft of enabling a common.
I argue that the idea of solidarism, when endangered or diminishing in state governance, comes to life in these spaces of democracy. Community based social workers are ingenious. The peoples’ houses I visit concentrate the self-organized upsurge of care and kindness that the state is dependent on when managing crisis. For example, the psychiatry care department of the Stockholm region has funded a long-term project for the mental wellbeing of young people initiated by local activists at a peoples’ house in northern Stockholm. This social work was initiated voluntarily by young people to make sense of and deal with mental stress through mutual activities. The care unit for mental wellbeing identified this long-term partnership with community workers as a more efficient strategy to prevent mental illness, compared to the circumscribed capacities that overloaded public care departments currently have.
The potential of such self-organized and collaborative activities however far exceeds their actual functions. What if urban governors could recognize that the infrastructure of counter-publics is just as vital for the city as roads, commercial centers, and public transport? What if policymakers had the courage to invest in these infrastructures of human kindness that could help cities manage problems more equally and efficiently? By encouraging solidarism in the grass-roots, perhaps political democracy could be reinvigorated with kindness and care again. I welcome your comments.
References:
Amnesty International (2023). Amnesty International Report 2022/2023: the state of the world's human rights. Human Rights in Denmark. London: Amnesty International Klinenberg, E. (2018). Palaces for the People: how social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life. New York: Crown Kohn, M. (2016). The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth. New York: Oxford University Press
Attention and fear are surfacing in the urban studies debate about the rise of right-wing, individualistic and xenophobic policy orientations across European cities, as shown in this interesting piece by Nazem Tahvilzadeh about Sweden, and in other reflections posted in this series. Unfortunately, examples in Europe abound. In Italy for instance the national government recently warned Mayors against fully recognizing the rights of children from same-sex marriages.
This trend sounds alarming, and specifically so in European cities, long seen as places of robust municipal welfare and protection of civil rights; thus, the need to imagine approaches and strategies to counter the trend. Tavilzadeh suggests that possible countering strategies lie in strengthening the role of civil society and of forms of solidarity among citizens, widely diffused at local level across European countries, and on the rise after the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is certainly a promising starting point, though we should not forget that the foundations of European multicultural and diverse societies lie in the constitutional rights granted to all citizens, as well as in deeply entrenched welfare policy regimes at different scales, that have ensured the development and flourishing of European cities, in addition to very active and lively local civil society actors.
Thus, we may ask ourselves what is the role that solidarity networks, mutualism and civil society agency can play in protecting and fostering multicultural, inclusive, and diverse societies, and to what extent should this role become prominent, even in times of emergency and distress? There is possibly a trap in replacing the welfare state with civil society agency, already visible in many European local contexts. A possible way out may be to explore the design and experimentation of forms of exchange and interface between civil society agency and local state actors: how can public actors learn from the hundred flowers blooming? How can these practices become a school of democracy and citizenship, reaching beyond the realm of civil society itself?
I concur with Professor Pacchi’s insightful warnings. The thwarting decentralization of previous state responsibilities surely can disempower civil society associations and citizens. To clarify, should political actors who wish to combat post-democratization mainly rely on state policymaking and administration, or should they strive to also empower civil-society actors work of solidarism?
I see a risk that savvy politicians put too much faith on the tools of state policymaking and forget to renew relations with and inspiration from civil society. Explorations in collaborations with new counter publics could definitively be a suitable strategy, but also to provide for public infrastructures that stimulate the emergence of such publics.
A fascinating piece by Nazem Tahvilzadeh, arguing that solidarism in civil society can provide some sort of counter-weight to a radicalising nativist right in Sweden and elsewhere. Given the references to the role of “urban governors”, I am wondering if this means that local parties are not so heavily implicated in the retreat to nativism as their national counterparts?
I guess the question is whether there are urban governors or local state actors in Sweden’s towns and cities, who seek to defend an egalitarian version of multiculturalism, and are likely to make a positive contribution in supporting infrastructures of human kindness?
As Professor Davies correctly assumes, a fact behind my argument is the political gap between national and urban government in Sweden as the major cities are currently run by coalitions of social democrats, green environmentalists, and left socialists. Defense of egalitarian multiculturalism is stronger in urban politics, and it is also here that governments tend to seek new relationships with civil society actors.
Despite this, my concern is that city governments underestimate the importance of these infrastructures of human kindness disregard the wishes voiced by vibrant segments of civil society. Defensive in mind set, progressive policy makers risk advance austerity governance and lean back on convenient and authoritative managerial models instead.