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Poisoning the Well: Neoliberalism and the Contamination of Municipal Water in Walkerton, Ontario
Abstract
In May of 2000, thousands of residents of the town of Walkerton, Ontario became ill from drinking municipal water contaminated by Escherichia coli and Campylobacter jejuni bacteria. Seven people died, while many suffered debilitating injuries. A highly unusual and risk prone local hydrological regime, coupled with manure spreading on farms near municipal wells, and lax oversight by municipal water utility officials, were quickly blamed by Ontario government figures, including then premier Mike Harris. However, the scandal surrounding Walkerton's tragedy and a subsequent public inquiry into the incident also implicated neoliberal reforms of environmental governance introduced by Harris's government subsequent to its election in 1995. This paper examines the Walkerton incident as an important example of a “normal accident” of neoliberalism, one that can be expected from neoliberal environmental regulatory reforms arising from systematic irresponsibility in environmental governance. This irresponsibility is promulgated by an overarching hostility to any regulatory interference with free markets, as well as specific regulatory gaps that produce environmental risks. The paper also serves as a case study of the extent to which neoliberalism is constituted by environmental governance reform, and conversely, how environmental governance reform is reconfigured as part of the emergent neoliberal mode of social regulation.
... Two intersecting macropolitical processes converged in this period: On the one hand, it was a time when European accession processes accelerated, widely affecting Turkey's economic, ecological, and political development, with the AKP assuming preeminent power in state institutions. The result was a combination of policy prerogatives and priorities that can be described as "organized irresponsibility" (Prudham 2004). The chaos on the ground in relation to Thrace's municipal interaction with this acutely polluted and officially "dead" river illustrate the degree to which the abandonment of natural resources to environmental destruction are symptomatic of neoliberal urbanization in Turkey and how such policies have furthered the AKP's authoritarian control over urban populations and their ecology. ...
... The politics of nongovernance have been used as a central and local government strategy to contain popular unrest concerning water-related policies. This concept of nongovernance is inspired by Prudham's (2004) work on organized irresponsibility as an organizing principle of neoliberalism across different regulations, institutions, and among various other stakeholders within the privatized water sector. In examining the water pollution tragedy in the Walkerton, Ontario, water poisoning incident, 7 for example, Prudham (2004) argued that neoliberalism uses accidents and environmental catastrophes to seed organized irresponsibility into its regulatory systems, and thus to create chronic (not accidental) crisis through which nature is commodified (Prudham 2004;Harris 2013;Harris, Goldin, and Sneddon 2013;Ercan and O guz 2015). ...
... This concept of nongovernance is inspired by Prudham's (2004) work on organized irresponsibility as an organizing principle of neoliberalism across different regulations, institutions, and among various other stakeholders within the privatized water sector. In examining the water pollution tragedy in the Walkerton, Ontario, water poisoning incident, 7 for example, Prudham (2004) argued that neoliberalism uses accidents and environmental catastrophes to seed organized irresponsibility into its regulatory systems, and thus to create chronic (not accidental) crisis through which nature is commodified (Prudham 2004;Harris 2013;Harris, Goldin, and Sneddon 2013;Ercan and O guz 2015). I slightly modify the concept here as an integral part of what I term the politics of nongovernance regarding pollution of the Ergene River, which has a thirty-year history that the Turkish state has long acknowledged. ...
... Two intersecting macropolitical processes converged in this period: On the one hand, it was a time when European accession processes accelerated, widely affecting Turkey's economic, ecological, and political development, with the AKP assuming preeminent power in state institutions. The result was a combination of policy prerogatives and priorities that can be described as "organized irresponsibility" (Prudham 2004). The chaos on the ground in relation to Thrace's municipal interaction with this acutely polluted and officially "dead" river illustrate the degree to which the abandonment of natural resources to environmental destruction are symptomatic of neoliberal urbanization in Turkey and how such policies have furthered the AKP's authoritarian control over urban populations and their ecology. ...
... The politics of nongovernance have been used as a central and local government strategy to contain popular unrest concerning water-related policies. This concept of nongovernance is inspired by Prudham's (2004) work on organized irresponsibility as an organizing principle of neoliberalism across different regulations, institutions, and among various other stakeholders within the privatized water sector. In examining the water pollution tragedy in the Walkerton, Ontario, water poisoning incident, 7 for example, Prudham (2004) argued that neoliberalism uses accidents and environmental catastrophes to seed organized irresponsibility into its regulatory systems, and thus to create chronic (not accidental) crisis through which nature is commodified (Prudham 2004;Harris 2013;Harris, Goldin, and Sneddon 2013;Ercan and O guz 2015). ...
... This concept of nongovernance is inspired by Prudham's (2004) work on organized irresponsibility as an organizing principle of neoliberalism across different regulations, institutions, and among various other stakeholders within the privatized water sector. In examining the water pollution tragedy in the Walkerton, Ontario, water poisoning incident, 7 for example, Prudham (2004) argued that neoliberalism uses accidents and environmental catastrophes to seed organized irresponsibility into its regulatory systems, and thus to create chronic (not accidental) crisis through which nature is commodified (Prudham 2004;Harris 2013;Harris, Goldin, and Sneddon 2013;Ercan and O guz 2015). I slightly modify the concept here as an integral part of what I term the politics of nongovernance regarding pollution of the Ergene River, which has a thirty-year history that the Turkish state has long acknowledged. ...
This article explores the neoliberal authoritarian transformation of Turkey’s water sector since 2000 by examining the policies surrounding the Ergene River, a dead river that runs through Turkey’s European province of Thrace. Within the context of the accelerating neoliberalization of water resources in Thrace for the benefit of the Istanbul region at the expense of severe environmental pollution, the result was a combination of authoritarian policy prerogatives and priorities that rest on organized irresponsibility and a politics of nongovernance regarding environmental protection. As this article demonstrates, contemporary authoritarian neoliberalism in Turkey has created gray zones of authority involving many public authorities with varying and sometimes overlapping mandates, within which blatant breaches of the law became akin to the metropolitan municipal governance of distant water resources. Key Words: Ergene River, metropolitan municipality regimes, neoliberal urbanization, river pollution, Thrace region, Turkey.
本文通过检视围绕着额尔古纳河这条流经土耳其位于欧洲的色雷斯州的死河之政策, 探讨土耳其水资源部门自2000年以来的新自由主义威权转变。在加速色雷斯的水资源新自由主义化以嘉惠伊斯坦堡区域、并以严重的环境污染为代价的脉络中, 该结果是以组织化的不负责任为基础的威权政策特权与优先权和有关环境保护的非治理政治之组合。如同本文所证实, 土耳其当代的威权新自由主义, 已创造出涉及诸多公共职权的灰色权力地带, 并有着各种且有时相互重叠的命令, 其中公然违反法律, 近乎成为大都会市政府有关远距水资源的治理。 关键词: 额尔古纳河, 大都会市政体制, 新自由主义城市化, 河流污染, 色雷斯区域, 土耳其。
Este artículo explora la transformación autoritaria neoliberal del sector del agua de Turquía a partir del 2000 examinando las políticas relacionadas con el Río Ergene, una corriente muerta que fluye a través de la provincia europea de Tracia, en Turquía. En el contexto de una acelerada neoliberalización de los recursos hídricos de Tracia para beneficio de la región de Estambul, a expensas de severa contaminación ambiental, el resultado fue una combinación de prerrogativas políticas autoritarias y prioridades que descansan sobre la irresponsabilidad organizada y una política de desgobierno en lo que concierne a la protección ambiental. Como se demuestra en este artículo, el neoliberalismo autoritario contemporáneo en Turquía ha creado zonas grises de autoridad que involucran a muchas autoridades públicas, con mandatos variados y a veces traslapados, dentro de los cuales las descaradas burlas a la ley se asemejan a la gobernanza municipal metropolitana aplicada a los distantes recursos del agua.
... In many regions of Canada neoliberal reforms have led to the streamlining of environmental regulations and reductions in staff (Ilcan, 2009;Prudham, 2004;Young, 2008). Pared-down agencies are now struggling to keep pace with fast-growing and highly competitive industries, especially hydraulic fracturing with its complex, multi-site infrastructure spread over large geographical areas (Konschnik and Boling, 2014;Willow and Wylie, 2014;Entrekin et al., 2011). ...
... Scholars have highlighted the negative impact that neoliberalism has had on water governance and management (e.g. Smith, 2004;Prudham, 2004;Cohen, 2012). Our findings point to the challenges that have emerged as a consequence of cutbacks and the shift to industry selfreporting water-use data. ...
... Exceptions exist for local governments responsible for supplying drinking water or irrigation water; in such cases data may be collected based on metered use and to ensure drinking water quality standards are met. SeePrudham (2004) for a detailed discussion on the impact of neoliberalism on drinking water services in Canada. ...
Proposed and actual developments of hydraulic fracturing, as a high-volume water user, have proven
contentious in recent years. However, one point of agreement has emerged amongst all actors with regards to
water use and hydraulic fracturing: we need more data. This consensus fits with a longstanding reification of the
role of data in water governance, and yet we argue it hides a politically contested terrain. Based on a literature
review, an empirical Delphi study and a workshop with a diverse array of participants from across Canada, we
explore the data needs related to water governance and hydraulic fracturing. We then investigate three areas of
deficiency that point to a lack of trust and oversight as well as the exclusion of community and Indigenous
knowledge. We argue that in an era of neoliberal approaches to water governance, issues of trust, accountability
and transparency all link back to a diminished role for data management within existing water governance
arrangements. The challenge is that simply collecting more data will not help decision-makers navigate the
complexity of water governance. Our findings suggest a growing call by participants for greater engagement by
governments in data collection and knowledge management, new funding mechanisms for data collection and rethinking
how and what to monitor if including multiple ways of knowing and values.
... In synthesis with ecological modernity, corporate power is privileged at every stage (e.g., agenda setting, insider access, advertising and techniques of governmentality, and lobbying) (Dunlap & McCright 2010;Girard et al. 2010;Wood et al. 2010). Since corporate power operates in tandem with the State, neoliberal deregulation and governance persist in silencing environmental movements (Brock 2020;Monaghan & Walby 2017;Prudham 2004;Smandych & Kueneman 2010;Snider 2004). By discursively framing the defunding of environmental regulatory agencies as 'wasteful spending' and governmental 'red tape,' the State can depict environmentalism as an economic barrier against national security interests and utilize the discursive frames of the rhetoric of rectitude and pseudorationality (Campbell 2007;Hannigan 2009;Wood 2010). ...
... By discursively framing the defunding of environmental regulatory agencies as 'wasteful spending' and governmental 'red tape,' the State can depict environmentalism as an economic barrier against national security interests and utilize the discursive frames of the rhetoric of rectitude and pseudorationality (Campbell 2007;Hannigan 2009;Wood 2010). Capitalist economies rely on the exploitation and degradation of natural resources and are continuously deregulated due to competition rhetoric (see Campbell 2007;Johnson et al. 2016;Merino et al. 2010;Prudham 2004;Snider 2004;Smandych & Kueneman 2010;Wood et al. 2010;White 2002). ...
Green criminology is an emerging subfield that contains several frameworks that problematize the criminal justice system’s inability to address acts of commission and omission against the environment. Green criminologists inculcate the state-corporate nexus and the processes of capital accumulation (i.e., the treadmill of production) in the production of social harms; however, the current paradigm of reformism is antithetical to the implications of green criminology. This paper employs a renewed ecoanarchist framework to remonstrate against the reform of neoliberal capitalism or the State. I argue that reformist and vanguardist calls to action reify state power according to Lacan’s Master/Hysteric dialectic; therefore, anarchist theory and praxis are crucial to ameliorating the issues outlined by green criminologists.
... The source of the pathogens was identified as non-point source pollution (bacteria from manure) which washed into the town's water supply from a nearby farm (Salvadori et al. 2009). This was further compounded by the karst hydrogeology of the area which makes it easy for contaminated surface water to reach groundwater sources (Prudham 2004). The contamination was attributed to operational failures and lack of chlorination, and this resulted in about 2300 cases of illness and seven deaths (Salvadori et al. 2009;Schwartz and McConnell 2009)-a clear focusing event. ...
... Moreover, it was later found that those who experienced acute gastroenteritis during the outbreak were at higher risk of developing hypertension, renal impairment, and cardiovascular disease (Clark et al. 2010). The water treatment plant operators did not have the proper training and were non-compliant with treatment, sampling, and monitoring procedures (Prudham 2004;Salvadori et al. 2009). However, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) was also held accountable for this outbreak since it was within their remit to ensure regulatory compliance: the inquiry which followed soon after (headed by Dennis O'Connor, associate chief justice of Ontario) concluded that the MOE was aware of the issues at the Walkerton utility and had taken no action against it (O'Connor 2002a). ...
The occurrence of major water contamination events across the world have been met with varying levels of policy responses. Arsenic—a priority water contaminant globally, occurring naturally in groundwater, causing adverse health effects—is widespread in Bangladesh. However, the policy response has been slow, and marked by ineffectiveness and a lack of accountability. We explore the delayed policy response to the arsenic crisis in Bangladesh through comparison with water contamination crises in other contexts, using the Multiple Streams Framework to compare policy processes. These included Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter in Walkerton, Canada; lead and Legionella in Flint, Michigan, USA; and chromium-6 contamination in Hinkley, California, USA. We find that, while water contamination issues are solvable, a range of complex conditions have to be met in order to reach a successful solution. These include aspects of the temporal nature of the event and the outcomes, the social and political context, the extent of the public or media attention regarding the crisis, the politics of visibility, and accountability and blame. In particular, contaminants with chronic health outcomes, and longer periods of subclinical disease, lead to smaller policy windows with less effective policy changes. Emerging evidence on health threats from drinking water contamination raise the risk of new crises and the need for new approaches to deliver policy change.
... Lemos and Agrawal (2006, 298) define environmental governance as "synonymous with interventions aiming at changes in environment-related incentives, knowledge, institutions, decision making, and behaviors" and is used "to refer to the set of regulatory processes, mechanisms and organizations through which political actors influence environmental actions and outcomes." In global environmental governance, neoliberalism is among the most pervasive ideological and political project to emerge in the post-World War II era (McCarthy and Prudham, 2004). As a governing mechanism, neoliberalism emphasizes a preference for market led initiatives (rather than government led), the decentralization and restructuring of the state, and the privatization of services. ...
... Neoliberal environmental governance reforms also influence debates on urban water resource management. Some of this scholarship has shown the geographically contingent outcomes of neoliberalism's "thin policies and hard outcomes" in the generation of environmental risks (Peck, 2001;Prudham, 2004); the challenges water poses for commodification and privatization (Bakker, 2010; the biopolitics of water development (Bakker, 2013); and discursive framings of hydro-development and drought to facilitate privatization of public water utilities (Bakker, 2003c;Kaika, 2003). Research has also shown how different forms of neoliberal "eco-governmentality" emerge through integrated water resource management ). ...
This dissertation focuses on the factors that shape how water resource managers shape the flow, or metabolism, of water through cities. Through a comparative and mixed-method approach drawing on archival research, key informant interviews, Q-methodology, and spatial analysis, this dissertation presents a framework for understanding the social and material factors that shape urban water flows. Focusing on Chicago and Los Angeles, the study concentrates on the methods and approaches water resource managers use to control volumes of water and achieve political goals. The results reveal the shortcomings of overly technical approaches to solve water resource problems, which are enmeshed within a spatially complex set of socio-political and historical processes. I also reveal the multiple ways water resource managers approach water challenges and come to particular ways of understanding solutions for them. I identify seven perspectives on stormwater governance: Market Skeptic, Hydro-managerial, Hydro-rationalist, Hydro-reformist, Hydro-pragmatist, Market Technocrat, Regulatory and Administrative Technocrat, Institutional Interventionist, Infrastructural Interventionist. It is shown that these viewpoints are shaped through multiple institutional and bureaucratic practices. Some viewpoints are geographically and idiosyncratically defined, while others transcend geographical and institutional specificity. Whether invoking stormwater as a “new” resource to achieve water quality and quantity goals, or negotiating the role of new technologies and financial mechanisms to control the flow of water, this dissertation reveals the commonalities across different ways of understanding water in order to offer more acceptable policies.
... In response to the event, the Government of Canada called a public inquiry, led by the Honourable Dennis O'Connor, to identify the causes of this disaster [40], as well as to examine the broader issues surrounding drinking water safety in Ontario [41]. Research was later conducted following the outbreak to examine: the political [42][43][44], institutional [42][43][44], environmental [45], and socio-ecological [46] factors leading up to the event; social capital during the tragedy [30]; health implications for residents who became ill [38,47]; prevention strategies [48,49]; and lessons learned following the outbreak [39,50]. However, there have not been any long-term studies investigating longterm resiliency of the Walkerton community, and whether residents were collectively able to achieve or maintain resilience over time under non-crisis conditions. ...
... In response to the event, the Government of Canada called a public inquiry, led by the Honourable Dennis O'Connor, to identify the causes of this disaster [40], as well as to examine the broader issues surrounding drinking water safety in Ontario [41]. Research was later conducted following the outbreak to examine: the political [42][43][44], institutional [42][43][44], environmental [45], and socio-ecological [46] factors leading up to the event; social capital during the tragedy [30]; health implications for residents who became ill [38,47]; prevention strategies [48,49]; and lessons learned following the outbreak [39,50]. However, there have not been any long-term studies investigating longterm resiliency of the Walkerton community, and whether residents were collectively able to achieve or maintain resilience over time under non-crisis conditions. ...
The implications of a public health emergency on a community may be devastating and long-term. The severity of the implications depends on the gravity of the emergency and the capacity of individuals and communities to respond to and recover from its effects. However, the long-term implications of emergencies are often excluded from disaster management research making it difficult to determine whether communities are truly able to achieve and maintain resilience post-crisis. This interdisciplinary, qualitative study examined the impacts of the May 2000 Escherichia coli outbreak in Walkerton, Canada sixteen years post-outbreak on the present-day resilience status of the community. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with a purposeful sample of 29 Walkerton community members. The data were transcribed verbatim and coded using conventional content analysis to identify themes inductively. The study's findings reveal the importance of various elements of the social capital dimension in facilitating (i.e., capacity building, positive perspective) and hindering (i.e., ongoing health effects) the community's collective resilience status today both directly and indirectly. Some elements, including local economy, local government, rural community characteristics, preparedness, and reputation act as both facilitators and barriers to the social capital component of community resilience. The findings from this work are critical for designing preparedness and recovery programs for emergency situations, particularly in rural communities. They also suggest disaster management program plans and strategies for rural communities should encompass a proactive, long-term, community-centered approach integrating social capital.
... Outre la conférence de Dublin, l'intérêt grandissant pour la GIEBV en Ontario est également associé à la tragédie qui s'est produite à Walkerton en mai 2000. Lors de celle-ci, l'approvisionnement en eau potable de la petite communauté ontarienne a été contaminé par la bactérie E. coli et a causé la mort de sept personnes (Prudham, 2004). Publié suite à l'enquête sur l'incident, le Rapport de la Commission d'enquête sur Walkerton a souligné l'importance d'adopter « une stratégie de gestion de l'eau inclusive qui aborde tous les aspects de la gestion de l'eau au niveau des bassins ...
Dû à son contexte transfrontalier, interprovincial et intergouvernemental, la gestion du bassin versant de la rivière des Outaouais est confrontée à une myriade d’enjeux. Notre étude vise donc à comparer les modèles de gestion intégrée de l’eau par bassin versant de part et d’autre de la frontière entre l’Ontario et le Québec afin d’obtenir une meilleure compréhension de ces enjeux. Pour ce faire, nous avons réalisé des entretiens semi-dirigés auprès de huit directeurs généraux travaillant pour des organismes de gestion des bassins versants québécois et ontariens. De plus, nous avons également réalisé une analyse documentaire à partir de 27 documents de gestion émanant pour la plupart des différents organismes de gestion situés sur le bassin versant à l’étude.
Au niveau des organismes de gestion, nos résultats de recherche ont permis de constater que les offices de protection de la nature institués en Ontario endossent beaucoup plus de rôles et de responsabilités dans le processus de gestion de l’eau que les organismes de bassin versant au Québec. Les OPN opèrent d’ailleurs avec des budgets beaucoup plus élevés et avec de plus grandes équipes que les OBV. Ensuite, en ce qui a trait à leur structure de gouvernance, les OBV offrent des tables de concertation qui sont encadrées par les règles de fonctionnement du MELCC. Les OPN, pour leur part, forment des comités sectoriels sans structure prédéfinie. La participation du public au processus de gestion est donc un peu plus formalisée au Québec qu’en Ontario. Enfin, en ce qui concerne les enjeux de gestion, la taille impressionnante du bassin versant de la rivière des Outaouais nuit à une intégration optimale des acteurs. De plus, elle complexifie énormément la coordination des activités de gestion entre les différents acteurs et nuit à la création d’une vision commune. Les initiatives de protection de l’eau n’y sont donc pas harmonisées, mais plutôt sectorielles et fragmentées. Pour ces raisons plusieurs enjeux de conservation demeurent insolubles sur ce bassin.
Ce mémoire permet donc de contextualiser les enjeux de gestion de l’eau sur le bassin versant de la rivière des Outaouais et soulève du même coup certaines pistes de solution.
Mots clés : Gestion intégrée des ressources en eau, gouvernance, bassin versant, Rivière des Outaouais, participation, harmonisation, fragmentation, OBV, OPN.
... The critical review on 'market environmentalism' signifies the negative impacts of neo-liberal reform measures in terms of both environmental degradation and distributional implications in various forms of capital accumulation (Heynen et al., 2007;Mansfield, 2004;McCarthy & Prudham, 2004). This has acute implications in the context of water governance too (Allouche & Finger, 2001;Barlow & Clarke, 2003;Hukka & Katko, 2003;McDonald & Ruiters, 2005;Prudham, 2004). The market creates barriers for agents to have access to water; in this process, the poor are often excluded, as their purchasing power may not be adequate to afford the water with a price tag. ...
This chapter attempts to develop an alternative framework based on the human–nature nexus in order to comprehend the sustainable governance of water and water resources. Given the water system is complex in nature, the chapter first divides water resources into two categories such as (a) freshwater ecosystem and (b) marine ecosystem. Subsequently, it focuses on various case studies of governance failures in the context of Bangladesh—a developing country—under the two ecosystem categories. It has probed the problem of provisioning to describe the inequality in access to groundwater resources facilitated by the commodification process. The exploration into the wetland resource depletion has demonstrated the failure of governance under the conditions of institutional fragility and power politics. Moreover, the case of governance disputes over transboundary water has highlighted the political contestation over water rights. Finally, the challenges of governing marine (e.g., fisheries) resources sustainably have been examined considering the factors of institutional fragility and technological incapacity.
... Un caso recente di epidemia causato dalla scarsa qualità dell'acqua utilizzata a fini civili è quello verificatosi nel 2000 nella città di Walkerton in Ontario, dove più di 2,300 cittadini contrassero l'infezione da Escherichia coli. Ciò per una serie di fattori, tutti riconducibili alle scelte di stampo neoliberale nella governance ambientale portate avanti in Canada, come altrove, negli scorsi decenni (Prudham, 2004). ...
L’idea di economia fondamentale (foundational economy) è al centro di un programma di ricerca condotto da una rete aperta di studiosi europei. L’estensione del concetto è pienamente accessibile al senso comune: l’economia fondamentale è lo spazio economico nel quale sono prodotti e distribuiti i beni e i servizi essenziali per il benessere individuale e collettivo, che costituiscono l’infrastruttura della vita quotidiana, la base materiale della cittadinanza e della coesione sociale.
In questo volume, Il Collettivo per l’Economia Fondamentale – che sviluppa attività di ricerca e spazi di discussione in collaborazione con amministrazioni, enti intermedi, associazioni e gruppi di attori sociali che operano in maniera innovativa, dentro e fuori il Terzo Settore –, insiste sull’urgenza di sviluppare un progetto politico di ristrutturazione dell’economia fondamentale. Non soltanto per richiamare l’importanza dell’esercizio della voice, ma per ribadire che la dimensione politica è costitutiva dell’idea stessa di economia fondamentale.
Mettere a fuoco la dimensione politica dell’economia fondamentale aiuta a comprendere che la possibilità di accedere a beni e servizi fondamentali è un elemento costitutivo della cittadinanza, ma che, d’altro canto, questa possibilità dipende sempre dalle dinamiche del potere sociale e dalla dialettica politica.
Lo scopo di questo libro è di offrire a questo lavoro di costruzione e innovazione un supplemento di conoscenza relativo alle dinamiche che affliggono l’economia fondamentale, in particolare in Italia.
“Il nostro auspicio – scrivono i curatori – è che, a fronte di questo quadro di problemi più e meno recenti, si alimenti lo sforzo di costruire coalizioni di attori sociali, politici ed economici che si riconoscano attorno al progetto di un’economia fondamentale rinnovata, accessibile, in grado di sostenere il benessere di tutti.”
... A "New Minimalist Approach to Private Sector Development" was then developed (Altenburg and Drachenfels, 2006), grounded on the assumption that, with the exception of 11 Nestor Kirchner is the president who supported the renegotiations that led to the termination of the major contracts with multinational water companies very few purely public goods, services should be provided on commercial terms. In a way, such a programme of neoliberalism can be characterised as a new mode of social and ecological regulation, politically constructed as well as hegemonic (Peck and Tickell, 1992;Prudham, 2004). This was often criticised as a form of "new green imperialism" (Heynen et al., 2007), or "market environmentalism" (Bakker, 2004), of which the World Bank was the vanguard. ...
Private sector participation in water sector has raised significant interest in the academia,
engendering a numerous literature on one of the pillars of the Washington Consensus. A
particular attention has been given to the flagship concession of Buenos Aires, and countless articles were published on the controversies associated with this contract and its contentious termination. Yet, scant literature has been dedicated to the aftermath of such a process with the renationalisation of several water utilities in Argentina.
Based on the two case studies of Buenos Aires and the province of Santa Fe, this works
pursues a threefold objective.
Firstly, it tries to analyse the new management in term of continuities between the private
sector era and the current public model. This follows the hypothesis of a managerial turn
operated by the private sector and never questioned ever since; in other words, it is argued that the renationalised water companies have retained and integrated several aspects of the management installed during the private interlude.
Secondly, it analyses the performance of the new public companies, in the light of their claim for a paradigm shift towards the human right for water. An undeniable push has occurred in terms of expansion of the network, with the construction of massive infrastructure. More than a million of new consumers have thereby been integrated in the legal network. However, the maintenance and renovation suffer from significant deficiencies, which are threatening the economic and technical sustainability of such a model.
Finally, it critically explores the achievement of a pro-active policy towards the poor. Public participation and alternative construction systems are analysed in details through the example of the programme Agua Mas Trabajo. This programme offers an interesting alternative to eventually reach the long promised universal coverage of water and sanitation services.
... Ciri pokok neoliberalisme adalah pengurangan atau bahkan peniadaan campur tangan pemerintah dalam berbagai aspek, khususnya manajemen sumber daya alam dan pengelolaan lingkungan. Ada beberapa ciri neoliberalisme yang lain yaitu (McCarthy dan Prudham, 2004; dengan contoh yang dimodifikasi): ...
It is a textbook that can be used both by students, practitioners, and activists in the fields of natural resource management, especially those interested in the ideological debates behind natural resource management in a particular location or country.
... Conventional wisdom suggests that to retain consumers and strengthen loyalty, corporations voluntarily respond to their demands for change (voice); if change is not forthcoming, consumers can shift to other brands that align with their values (exit). Scholars have extensively critiqued the neoliberal environmentalism underlying these assumptions for privileging the established industrial order, encouraging greenwashing, and failing to address ongoing environmental harms (McCarthy and Prudham 2004, Prudham 2004, Ciplet and Roberts 2017, Dunlap and Sullivan 2020, Stoner 2021. As Gay Hawkins (2001) describes, campaigns such as those urging consumers to reject plastic bags produce an ethical subjectivity that places responsibility for the management of plastic waste on the individual. ...
The logic of neoliberal environmentalism, which pervades global environmental governance, assumes that consumers’ pro-environmental behavior and choices drive change through the market. The issue of plastic pollution has emerged as a major global environmental challenge in the last decade, and it has not been immune to neoliberal logics. Actors within the plastic industry have long attempted to deflect regulatory attention and public scrutiny by placing responsibility for recycling and appropriate disposal onto consumers. Despite these efforts, plastic control discourses have been gaining ground. In this article, through the case study of India, I argue that stakeholder responses to these discourses and to plastic control policies are affected by the internal dynamics of the plastic sector. Moreover, as a result of these inter-sectoral dynamics, anticipatory changes in the market can be driven by anti-plastic discourses.
... Conventional wisdom suggests that to retain consumers and strengthen loyalty, corporations voluntarily respond to their demands for change (voice); if change is not forthcoming, consumers can shift to other brands that align with their values (exit). Scholars have extensively critiqued the neoliberal environmentalism underlying these assumptions for privileging the established industrial order, encouraging greenwashing, and failing to address ongoing environmental harms (McCarthy and Prudham 2004, Prudham 2004, Ciplet and Roberts 2017, Dunlap and Sullivan 2020, Stoner 2021. As Gay Hawkins (2001) describes, campaigns such as those urging consumers to reject plastic bags produce an ethical subjectivity that places responsibility for the management of plastic waste on the individual. ...
... Neoliberalism is the spectre that haunts governments around the globe. From urban water privatisation in Bolivia (Spronk 2007) to the collection of television tax in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Delic 2016), from land conversion in Guyana's gold fields (Canterbury 1977) to timber production in south-eastern Mexico (Klepeis and Vance 2009), from workforce policy in New Zealand (Marcetic 2017;Perry 2007) to welfare consumerism in Denmark (Anderson 2019), from the contamination of water in Ontario (Prudham 2004) to the undermining of municipal unionism in San Francisco and Toronto (Travis 2017;Fanelli 2014)the roots of pernicious public policy can most often be sourced to the worldwide proliferation of neoliberalism. ...
... The next major legislative change was a result of the election in 1995 of a populist 'Progressive Conservative' majority Ontario government promising to reduce the size of government, and cut taxes and regulations in what they described as a 'common-sense revolution' [97,98]. In 1997, this government passed a major revision to the DCA of 1989 to explicitly exclude services not considered essential for new development, including cultural and entertainment facilities, tourism-related facilities, parkland acquisition, hospitals, waste management services, and administrative headquarters [96] (p. ...
Sustainability transitions research has emerged as one of the most influential approaches to conceptualizing the potential and practice of transformative system change to avoid climate catastrophe. Evolving from work on socio-technical systems via Geels’ multi-level perspective (MLP), this conceptual framework has contributed to understanding how complex systems in the contemporary world can be transformed. This paper contributes to the sustainability transitions literature in three main ways. First, the paper develops a conceptual framework focused on the urban property systems which regulate and support urban property, infrastructure and governance that are historically produced, are densely institutionalized, and through which public norms of property and governance are deeply embedded in and continually inscribed in urban space. Second, the paper suggests that urban property systems are continually and vigorously contested and demonstrate different modes of institutional change than those recognized by the existing sustainability transitions literature. Third, the paper illustrates the approach with a case study of the contested governance of property development in Toronto, Ontario, long one of the fastest growing cities in North America. The Toronto case suggests that institutions embedded in urban property systems are consequential and deserve more attention by those concerned with low-carbon transitions.
... Neoliberalism is the spectre that haunts governments around the globe. From urban water privatisation in Bolivia (Spronk 2007) to the collection of television tax in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Delic 2016), from land conversion in Guyana's gold fields (Canterbury 1977) to timber production in south-eastern Mexico (Klepeis and Vance 2009), from workforce policy in New Zealand (Marcetic 2017;Perry 2007) to welfare consumerism in Denmark (Anderson 2019), from the contamination of water in Ontario (Prudham 2004) to the undermining of municipal unionism in San Francisco and Toronto (Travis 2017;Fanelli 2014)the roots of pernicious public policy can most often be sourced to the worldwide proliferation of neoliberalism. ...
... The 2005 Walkerton, Ontario tragedy exemplifies this contextual difference. As Prudham (2004) has identified, the provincial mandate for the use of private sector actors for municipal water testing resulted in a failure of regulatory oversight -a so-called 'normal incident' of neoliberalism -that caused extensive poisoning and the loss of life for citizens in the Ontario town. Though the infrastructure re-mained public, the affiliated testing services were privatized, signaling that privatization need not involve the sale of assets, simply the incorporation of the norms and characteristics of marketization, like commodification and commercialization (Bakker 2003). ...
In this paper I consider how the increase of Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) in Canada now threatens the autonomy of municipal water services. P3s have gained traction since the 1990s as a mechanism of private alternative service delivery that replace traditional public provision. Over the past decade, P3s have been actively promoted by the state via quasi-government agencies such as Public-Private Partnerships Canada (PPP Canada), yet their results have been markedly poor. Nevertheless, P3s are now being situated as a key mechanism in the neoliberal (re)regulation of public services, regardless of their shortcomings and inequities. With this in mind, I frame recent Federal policy changes concerning the funding of local water infrastructure and services and their implementation through such agencies as PPP Canada as expressions of post-political governance in Canada. I argue that the capacity for local decision-making concerning this integral social and ecological service is being overwhelmed by a technocratic, expert-driven political process that is contingent on the hegemony of economic austerity to institute municipal water privatization, free from democratic accountability. <!--[if gte mso 9]> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table-
... In European and North American water systems, the water bill is a key part of the reciprocal obligations that connect water companies (they provide sufficient quantity and quality of water) with their customers (they pay for this service according to a fiscal schedule) in a functional political ecology. Trust in the product supplied can break down for a variety of locally specific reasons, as in Walkerton, Ontario (Prudham, 2004), Flint, Michigan (Clark, 2018), and Sofia, Bulgaria (Medarov and McDonald, 2019). Trust can also break down generally, as is evident in the rise and rise of the global botted water industry; an industry predicated on the under-examined assumption that expensive bottled water is safer than cheaper tap water (Gleick, 2011). ...
... The literature has documented how broad (and also contradictory) the influence of this model has been around the globe. Examples include the imposition of fully tradable property rights in Chile [39], the creation of both water markets and water banks in Spain [40], the privatization of water supply infrastructure in England and Wales [41], the termination of state control of water quality mechanism in Ontario [42], the creation of water markets in Tenerife [43], the introduction of the full cost recovery principle in water management in South Africa [44], the decentralization of water management in Mexico [45], and the privatization of water services in Cochabamba [46], among others. ...
One of the most crucial discussions within water resource management is the debate between those who defend the concept of economic efficiency and those who privilege notions of social equity. This tension is located at the core of binary categories that currently constitute the public debate within comparative water law and policy. These categories are commodity/human right, private property/common property, free-market/state regulation, and market value/community value. This paper explores this tension by studying how neoclassical economics understands efficiency and tracing its rise as a key hegemonic principle for water resource management. I also present equity as a conceptual opposition to efficiency and describe its institutionalization through the human-right-to-water frame. A problematization of both the equity approach and the human- right-to-water frame follows. Finally, I propose a political ecology approach to better understand the tension between efficiency and equity and offer recommendations for informing the water research agenda on efficiency/equity.
... Accompanying the emphasis on the market and property rights are shifts from binding and state enforced regulations to "professional reliance" or "results-oriented" models that are voluntary, privately based, and often entail a form of self-regulation. This has afforded companies, and even state agencies, highly desired flexibility while also serving to limit public participation and means of oversight (Prudham 2004;Robertson 2018). As a number of commentators have suggested, neoliberal actors have derided government intervention and regulation yet have relied on the state to uphold property rights and to introduce continually leaner regulatory regimes (Peck and Tickell 2002;Castree 2008b). ...
This paper examines how colonial land grants and the neoliberalization of forestry policy have enabled an aggressive harvesting regime on a massive tract of private land on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We detail the intensity of industrial logging activities of three forestry companies—Island Timberlands, TimberWest, and Western Forest Products—on private land on Vancouver Island. We draw on 11 years of harvesting volume records from the public British Columbia Harvest Billing System to examine the rate of harvest on private land by the aforementioned companies. The paper maps the harvesting volumes we report in relation to forest land ownership and the boundaries of land grants to demonstrate the enduring settler‐colonial character of fee simple forest land and industrial harvesting activities. We argue that neoliberal legislation introduced in 2003 deregulated forestry operations on private lands, facilitating the harvesting regimes we detail. We further suggest that settler‐colonial enclosures set in motion by the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway Company land grants starting in 1884 have been foundational to the establishment and management of private forest lands on Vancouver Island and continue to represent barriers for Indigenous communities as they assert their rights and title to private forest land.
... Los temas que se tratan son diversos. Algunos autores discuten sobre los problemas hídricos (Castro, Kaika y Swyngedouw, 2003;Castro 2004;De Alba, 2016;Kaika, 2006Kaika, , 2003aKaika, , 2003bLoftus, 2006;Swyngedouw, 2004), la construcción de espacios verdes en las ciudades (Domene, Sauri y Parés, 2005;Heynen, 2006a;Heynen, Perkins y Roy, 2006), el hambre en las periferias urbanas (Heynen, 2006b) y la contaminación urbana (Prudham, 2004;Verón, 2006). Recientemente, también destacan los análisis sobre los riesgos y desastres urbanos (Collins, 2008;Marks, 2015;Krause, 2012;Pelling, 1999Pelling, , 2001Pelling, , 2003Ranganathan, 2015), a los que este trabajo pretende contribuir. ...
En este texto, se propone desde la perspectiva de la Ecología Política Urbana (EPU), plantear algunas reflexiones sobre lo que podría considerarse como Ecología Política Latinoamericana del Desastre Urbano. El objetivo es comprender a los desastres urbanos como procesos socioambientales, relacionados con la urbanización de la naturaleza y no como simples fenómenos naturales. Se trata de un primer acercamiento a una caracterización y definición de los desastres en la ciudad como objetos de estudio híbridos, el cual pretende escapar a los estudios tradicionales sobre ecología política y desastres. Finalmente, se concluye que el enfoque de la EPU ofrece una serie de elementos novedosos para la construcción de un futuro programa de investigación sobre desastres urbanos, el cual se necesita poner a prueba en un futuro próximo.
... Such focus on the entangled relations between society and nature is shared by scholars of political ecology but they have worked to further conceptualise it through the notion of socio-natures (Castree and Braun, 2001;Hinchliffe, 2007), arguing that in the urban area socio-natures, or urban nature, is the product as well as the medium of social-environmental changes (Swyngedouw, 2004). Given its Marxist legacy, compared with environmental history, political ecology is more capable of analysing issues of inequity, such as how neo-liberalisation increasingly dominates the production of nature (Bakker, 2005(Bakker, , 2010Castree, 2008b), often under highly legitimate labels such as efficiency, user-paying principle, sustainability and civic participation (Castree, 2008a;Heynen and Robbins, 2005;Mansfield, 2004;Perreault, 2006;Prudham, 2004). ...
This paper foregrounds the riverfront as a re-territorialising arena of urban governance. Through a long-term study of the Xindian River in Taipei metropolis, Taiwan, we illustrate how the riverfront can be the key locus where the expansion of the urban frontier is manifested through and intertwines with the transformation of nature. While first interwoven with everyday activities of subsistence, Xindian River was gradually turned into the periphery of the city and then green space for recreation, a process actualised through infrastructure aimed at flood control and waste treatment as well as other informal activities that challenge such measures. We propose that ‘territorialisation’ and ‘folding’ are notions that can grasp asymmetrical relations embedded in the physical landscape. We argue that a riverfront landscape composed by territorialisation and heterogeneous folding reveals that the emergence of a negotiable state–society relationship is pivotal in the production of the urban riverfront of Taipei.
... Los temas que se tratan son diversos. Algunos autores discuten sobre los problemas hídricos (Castro, Kaika y Swyngedouw, 2003;Castro 2004;De Alba, 2016;Kaika, 2006Kaika, , 2003aKaika, , 2003bLoftus, 2006;Swyngedouw, 2004), la construcción de espacios verdes en las ciudades (Domene, Sauri y Parés, 2005;Heynen, 2006a;Heynen, Perkins y Roy, 2006), el hambre en las periferias urbanas (Heynen, 2006b) y la contaminación urbana (Prudham, 2004;Verón, 2006). Recientemente, también destacan los análisis sobre los riesgos y desastres urbanos (Collins, 2008;Marks, 2015;Krause, 2012;Pelling, 1999Pelling, , 2001Pelling, , 2003Ranganathan, 2015), a los que este trabajo pretende contribuir. ...
In this text, it is proposed from the perspective of the Urban Political Ecology (UPE), to raise some reflections on what could be considered as Latin American Political Ecology of the Urban Disaster. The objective is to understand urban disasters as socio-environmental processes, related to the urbanization of nature and not as simple natural phenomena. This is a first approach to a characterization and definition of disasters in the city as objects of hybrid study, which aims to escape traditional studies on political ecology and disasters. Finally, it is concluded that the UPE approach offers a series of novel elements for the construction of a future research program on urban disasters, which needs to be tested in the near future.
Key words: Urban political ecology (UPE); Urban disaster; Socio-environmental processes; Urbanization of nature.
En este texto, se propone desde la perspectiva de la Ecología Política Urbana (EPU), plantear algunas reflexiones sobre lo que podría considerarse como Ecología Política Latinoamericana del Desastre Urbano. El objetivo es comprender a los desastres urbanos como procesos socioambientales, relacionados con la urbanización de la naturaleza y no como simples fenómenos naturales. Se trata de un primer acercamiento a una caracterización y definición de los desastres en la ciudad como objetos de estudio híbridos, el cual pretende escapar a los estudios tradicionales sobre ecología política y desastres. Finalmente, se concluye que el enfoque de la EPU ofrece una serie de elementos novedosos para la construcción de un futuro programa de investigación sobre desastres urbanos, el cual se necesita poner a prueba en un futuro próximo.
Palabras clave: Ecología política urbana (EPU); Desastre urbano; Procesos socioambientales; Urbanización de la naturaleza
... Yet, after each disaster, the industry has been propped up again through policies that deem these disasters to be "natural". Yet Stoddard (2015) and others show these disasters are far from natural, but instead are 'normal' or expected accidents (Prudham, 2004;Perrow, 2011) produced by the intentional tolerance of risk built into North Carolina's neoliberal governance of CAFOs. Tax exemptions, redefining farms to include CAFOs to enable zoning near schools and hospitals, weakened environmental penalties for discharging pig waste into local streams, shifting from required to voluntary inspections of pig waste lagoons, "enabled the hog industry to grow exponentially in an environmentally risky area, prone to floods and coastal storms, with limited oversight" (Stoddard, 2015, 142). ...
The global farmed animal sector is a driver of global environmental change, and it is also impacted by global environmental change in both the subsistence and commercial realms. There has been significant research looking at the experiences and impacts of these dynamics for humans. However, here has been little attention paid to the broad processes that shape the vulnerabilities of farmed animals in these contexts or how farmed animals experience and embody these vulnerabilities in their daily lives and lifetimes. The authors demonstrate the ways in which the vulnerabilities of animals, humans, and ecosystems are necessarily interconnected and interdependent. They also show the ways in which animals, as agents, can influence a situation, shaping their own and others’ vulnerability and capacity to respond and adapt to threats. They propose a triple animal-human-environment system approach to vulnerability research. They illustrate, using a case study of the pig industry in North Carolina, that bringing animals into vulnerability scholarship offers a more holistic lens to understanding the drivers, dynamics and impacts of global environmental change.
... En ese sentido, se cuestiona la idea de una única naturaleza existente de antemano y se opta por entenderla en su pluralidad de significados, adscritos a procesos constantes de producción, en con textos concretos, con dinámicas políticas, sociales y económicas específi cas. Algunos ejemplos son los trabajos enfocados en el análisis de procesos de neoliberalización de la naturaleza asociados al agua (Bakker 2015;Prudham 2004); los estudios sobre privatización y escasez de agua (Mehta 2007;Perrault 2014); las experiencias de sufrimiento generadas por la escasez y contaminación desde una perspectiva de género (Sultana 2011), y el análisis de tecnologías que median la relación con el agua (Barnes 2012; Carse 2012), entre otros. En Colom bia, se resaltan propuestas como las de Camargo (2008) y su análisis sobre el papel del Estado en la gestión de los recursos hídricos; VélezTorres (2012), sobre el despojo de agua en relación con procesos de etnización y racialización am biental, y López (2013) sobre el acceso desigual al agua en sectores urbanos, como consecuencia de reformas económicas neoliberales. ...
Las dinámicas de despojo y acaparamiento de agua son un eje central en investigaciones recientes que reconocen las relaciones asimétricas de poder y el poder de la naturaleza misma en el manejo, uso y control de los recursos. Sin embargo, no son muchos los trabajos sobre las alternativas de gestión local del agua. Este artículo aporta a este conjunto de literatura a partir de un acercamiento etnográfico al distrito de riego de Marialabaja (Bolívar), en el Caribe colombiano. El análisis de la construcción de esta obra ayuda a entender cómo la infraestructura se apropia como parte del territorio, a la vez que genera relaciones desiguales de acceso al agua. También muestra las consecuencias directas de una política de desarrollo rural en las vidas cotidianas de las poblaciones locales.
... As a result, improvements to centralized piped distributed water supply systems have been made, yet drinking water safety concerns remain for those on decentralized non-piped systems (e.g. wells, and truckto-cistern) (Prudham 2004). Decentralized non-piped distributed water systems provide drinking water to Indigenous reserve communities in Canada where centralized piped distribution systems or private wells are not economically or technically feasible, as determined by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. ...
The provision of safe drinking water is a key driver of public health and a pressing health issue facing First Nations communities in Canada. Contaminated water is a perennial issue for reserve communities across the country despite numerous government investments. Many First Nations communities rely heavily on cistern use for their drinking water supply; however, bacterial contamination within these systems is frequent and a common reason for household boil water advisories. The sources of contamination during the process of hauling water to cisterns in First Nations communities have received limited attention in academic research. The purpose of this research is to identify the risks to water quality through the truck-to-cistern water system. In partnership with a Saskatchewan First Nations community, drinking water quality was monitored in the treatment plant, in delivery trucks and at 142 household cisterns and taps from July to October, 2014. Risks to water supply were identified through monthly water sampling and laboratory analysis, key informant interviews, and observation. Coliform contamination in trucks, cisterns and taps was most common during August. Total coliforms were more likely to be found in cisterns compared to household taps and samples from trucks. Chlorine residuals were lower in household tap samples than in cisterns for August and September. Together with the community, investigators identified contamination and bacteriological growth in cisterns and household distribution systems, and variable levels of total chlorine concentrations depending on month and site of sampling. Recommendations are provided for advancing guidelines on management of truck-to-cistern drinking water supply chains in First Nations.
... The literature on water governance explores how states provide the material and discursive foundations for the adoption of neoliberal policies that privatise, commercialise and commoditise water resources (see Bakker, 2010;Prudham, 2004;Swyngedouw, 2004Swyngedouw, , 2007. This reflects the "neoliberal turn in environmental governance" (Mehta et al., 2012: 198) that includes governing water resources to facilitate mining (Budds and Hinojosa, 2012;Patrick and Bharadwaj, 2016;Zwarteveen, 2012, 2016). ...
The Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine has become a symbol of the promise of mining to revive Mongolia’s struggling economy and to propel the nation into a new era of prosperity. Water resources are vital to the operation of Oyu Tolgoi, which is expected to be in operation for at least thirty years. However, local residents, particularly nomadic herders, have raised concerns about the redirection of water resources for mining. While the company claims that mining infrastructure has little to no impact on herders’ water resources, herders regularly report decreasing well water levels. With increased mining development throughout Mongolia’s Gobi Desert region, mining infrastructure and regulations are transforming local relationships to water and livelihoods. I argue that water infrastructure for mining symbolises the movement of water away from culturally embedded contexts towards water management practices that prioritise the needs of national development and corporate profits. This analysis contributes to the under-examined intersection of water and mining in the hydrosocial cycle literature and demonstrates the currency of 'modern water' in the context of global mining development. The research includes interviews and focus groups conducted with stakeholders, participant observation and document collection that took place in Mongolia from 2011 to 2012 with follow-up research conducted in 2015.
... Ancak su kaynaklarının özelleştirilmesinin hem su kirliliğine yol açacağı hem de artan fiyatlar nedeniyle yoksulların suya erişimini kısıtlayacağı (Spronk, 2010, s.159, 170) vurgulanmaktadır. Su kaynaklarına erişimi olanlar da tehlike altındadır, örneğin 2002 yılında Kanada' da deregülasyon nedeniyle su kaynaklarının yeterince kontrol edilmemesi içme suyunun kirlenmesine ve binlerce insanın zehirlenmesine ve hastalanmasına neden olmuştur (Prudham, 2004). Gıda hazırlama ile ilgili yasal düzenlemelerin esnekleştirilmesi de 1990'lar boyunca yiyecek zehirlenmelerinde artışa neden olmuştur (Thomson vd., 1998 (Albritton, 2011, s. 214). ...
Neoliberal politikalar ve sağlık arasındaki ilişki tartışılırken sağlık sıklıkla sağlık politikalarına indirgenmekte, neoliberal politikaların etkisi de küresel düzeyde sağlık sistemlerinde yaşanan dönüşüm çerçevesinde değerlendirilmektedir. Halbuki sağlık, biyolojik faktörler ve sağlık sistemlerinin yapısının yanı sıra yaşama, çalışma, barınma ve beslenme koşulları gibi çok sayıda ekonomik, sosyal ve politik faktör tarafından da şekillendirilmektedir. Bu çalışma, dünya genelinde neoliberal politikaların sağlıkla ilgili sonuçları üzerine yapılış araştırmaların bir derlemesine dayanmaktadır. Çalışmanın amacı mevcut literatürdeki bulguları ilişkilendirerek toplum sağlığının sadece sağlık sistemlerindeki dönüşümle değil, çalışma ve yaşama koşullarındaki dönüşüm ve eşitsizlikle ilişkili olduğunu vurgulamaktır. Diğer bir deyişle çalışma, neoliberal politikaların sağlıkla ilişkili sonuçlarını farklı boyutlar açısından ele alarak neoliberalizmin sağlık üzerindeki etkilerini sağlık sistemlerinin dönüşümüne indirgemeksizin bütünlüklü, ilişkisel ve eleştirel bir bakış açısı içinde değerlendirmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Çalışma Türkiye’ye odaklanmamakta, neoliberal politikaların küresel düzeyde toplum sağlığını hangi boyutlar üzerinden etkilediğini ortaya koymaya çalışmaktadır. Çalışmanın sonucuna göre mevcut literatürdeki ampirik bulgular, neoliberalizmin sağlık üzerindeki etkisinin sadece sağlık sistemlerinin dönüşümüyle sınırlı olmadığını göstermektedir. İşsizliğin artması, çalışma koşullarının kötüleşmesi, çevre, tarım ve gıda güvenliği, kentleşme ve beslenme konularında mevzuatın esnekleştirilmesi, sağlığa zarar verecek şekilde işleyen kapitalist işletmeler üzerinde devlet denetiminin zayıflaması ve toplumsal eşitsizliklerin derinleşmesi, neoliberal politikaların toplum sağlığını olumsuz yönde etkileyen diğer boyutları arasında yer almaktadır.
... Although with the existence of modern treated water networks, there are occurance of deformities during certain stages of the production. In several cases the raw water could be polluted with a large number of contaminants due to natural and anthropogenic factors [4][5]. Certain process disruptions and calamities at the treatment plants could affect the drinking water quality [6]. ...
In Commerce City, Colorado, residents contend with multiple environmental hazards and live in the most polluted zip code in the US. Perhaps no source of environmental harm is more visible than the imposing, aging Suncor Oil Refinery. The refinery dominates entire city blocks and residents' daily lives. Since 2005, the refinery has been cited for over nearly 60 environmental and safety violations. Despite this, it continues operating with minor penalties, exemplifying how the state's neoliberalized regulatory approaches prioritize corporate profit over social–environmental protections. We examine how the Suncor Oil Refinery creates harmful environmental injustices, representing a significant instance of state‐facilitated corporate crime, as the state leaves the industry to self‐regulate and violate (or operate without) permits. Bridging green criminology and environmental justice literatures, our findings emphasize the importance of recognizing state‐facilitated corporate crime as a key driver of environmental injustice. Drawing on interviews with 53 community members, educators, and elected officials, this study provides firsthand accounts of the detrimental effects of the refinery's operations on nearby residents and documents their lived experiences of environmental injustice. Our findings illustrate harmful impacts of state‐facilitated corporate crime and contribute to scant research examining people's experiences of harm from living or working near oil refineries.
This article critically reviews geographical scholarship to develop five categories for conceptualising the plurality of zoonotic disease situations configured through infrastructure. These are infrastructures that (1) unmoor zoonoses, (2) mobilise zoonoses, (3) immobilise zoonoses, (4) leak zoonoses, and (5) surveil zoonoses. Our analysis of these categories complicates notions that infrastructure either spreads or stops zoonoses and reveals the varied bio- and necro-politics associated with zoonotic disease situations configured through infrastructure. Before concluding, we review principles of infrastructuring zoonoses otherwise to help mobilise geographical scholarship in support of anti-anthropocentric, care-full, and probiotic approaches to modulating zoonoses in the (post)pandemic era.
From April 2020 to December 2021, the Canadian federal government earmarked $330,000,000 through the Emergency Food Security Fund to address food insecurity during the COVID-19 global pandemic. These funds were disbursed through a handful of national and regional emergency food and food justice agencies to smaller front-line organizations for the purchase of emergency food provisions and personal protective equipment, and to hire additional workers. We theorize these dynamics within the broader processes of neoliberalization and argue that the Canadian federal government was conscripting food justice and community development organizations into its efforts to address dramatically increasing rates of food insecurity across the country through charity emergency food provisioning. Within Peck and Tickell’s stylized conceptions of the destructive (roll-back) and creative (roll-out) moments of the process of neoliberalization, we frame the crisis of COVID-19 as exposing a form of recalibration (roll-call) neoliberalism. We focus on this dynamic specifically within the context of household food insecurity in Canadian communities and argue that the federal government’s funding regime during the global pandemic effectively directed food justice organizations (and by extension, the populace in general) away from a more ambitious social change agenda towards the more acceptable strategy (in neoliberal terms) of emergency food provisioning services.
This thesis critically interrogates how trade unions and labour organisations engage with climate change, energy, and environmental issues. The thesis draws on the work of the global labour network Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) as a main case study. Utilising a qualitative, multi-method research design to “follow the network” at a critical time of its development, I explore how TUED has become recognised as an important alternative knowledge producer on climate and energy issues in and beyond the labour movement. I argue that new labour environmentalist campaigns, such as TUED, have begun to challenge the status quo of neoliberal energy governance by promoting counter-politics in the energy sector. In this context, I explore how TUED’s “Resist! Reclaim! Restructure!” framework and its use of radical energy democracy and public ownership discourses has become part of a broader equivalential chain of anti- neoliberal left politics. The thesis also examines how TUED’s recent regionalisation efforts have become a key movement building strategy for the network. I discuss how the emergence of a ‘new’ generation of imagineers, who guide regional discussions, has enabled the TUED network to have more context- specific debates in particular places related to existing strategic opportunities around local policy and politics, such as the UK Labour Party’s ongoing public ownership debate. In this context, I also reflect on the spatiality of shared demands and the transfer of counter-hegemonic ideas, such as energy democracy and public ownership, between actors and organisations on the left. Finally, I highlight how this thesis contributes to a better understanding of the contested politics of climate change by introducing workers and trade unions as important actors with varying agencies and positionalities in these debates.
A variety of agricultural conservation trends have gained and lost favour throughout the years, with farm bills in the United States often influencing which conservation practices are implemented. This paper explores the consequences of a set of conservation techniques loosely defined as “no‐till agriculture,” focusing on their implementation and adoption since 1985, at which point such approaches began to be explicitly encouraged under US Farm Bill soil conservation mandates. We begin by noting a core contradiction that has characterized these approaches in the Fifteenmile Watershed of Wasco County, Oregon, where despite high rates of farmer enrollment in no‐till programs, both no‐till agriculture and sustained tillage have led to the increased use of herbicides and sustained sediment runoff. Using a critical physical geography framework that integrates intensive physical field data collection, spatial analysis, social surveys, and interviews, we address the biophysical and social factors collectively driving changes in herbicide use and variable erosion estimates. We draw particular attention to how farm bill support for no‐till has enrolled farmers in a vaguely defined and underregulated conservation practice that may ultimately undermine environmental quality .
Drawing from Peck and Tickell’s (2002) theory of roll-back and roll-out neoliberalism
and Brenner et al.'s (2010) theory of variegated neoliberalism, this paper uses
comparative historical analysis to understand how the state of Wisconsin
suppressed its legacy of progressive environmentalism and embraced neoliberal policy
over time. Specifically, this paper examines the rapid expansion of concentrated
animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Wisconsin’s dairy industry since 1995. As these
large CAFOs have grown in size, so have the social and environmental problems
related to their use, including pollution of drinking water sources for rural communities.
Based on analysis of newspaper articles between 1965-2010, a turning point towards neoliberalism occurred with the demise of the Office of the Public Intervenor (OPI), a legally designated adversarial force unique to the state that was created in 1967 after a powerful coalition of environmental social movements defeated an attempt to merge the offices of development and environmental protection. Despite the continuous efforts of industry, the effort to weaken environmental regulations and institutions in Wisconsin failed not only in 1967, but in 1984 as well. However, by 1995, immediately after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the state switched their support from populist environmental social movements to industry. Through deregulation, elimination of the OPI, and the gradual dissolution of environmental social movements, the state of Wisconsin created the conditions that enabled CAFOs to expand without the “burden” of environmental
regulation. Subsequently, through re-regulation, Wisconsinites lost access to legal
remedies that could curb polluting practices of large CAFOs. This research is part of a
larger project to understand the environmental impacts of regulatory failure in the Core
as states in the Global North continue to adopt neoliberal environmental policy.
As the Western United States becomes increasingly arid from climate change, cities across the region are finding new ways to increase and conserve water resources. Some municipalities have proposed implementing rural-to-urban water transfers to augment urban water supplies. This was the case in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) proposed the Groundwater Development Project–informally known as the Las Vegas Pipeline–which sought to pump groundwater from eastern Nevada, transporting it 300 miles south to Las Vegas. In this article, I explore how SNWA’s pipeline project was contested by the environmental nonprofit organization the Great Basin Water Network (GBWN), a grassroots coalition of ranchers, environmentalists, and tribal members. Highlighting how GBWN successfully used water law based on the doctrine of prior appropriation–discursively, in practice, and as a legal strategy–I illustrate how SNWA’s project was defeated in March of 2020, after decades of activism and litigation. Drawing from legal geography and political ecology, this article illustrates how structure (in the form of law), and agency (in the form of activism), converge to affect legal outcomes over water resources and conflict in the Western U.S. Last, by highlighting the adverse effects of rural-to-urban water transfers, this essay contributes to discussions about more equitable forms of water governance between rural and urban governments, while offering insights into water rights based on private property by critically examining the doctrine of prior appropriation.
An ecofeminist criticism of neoliberalism, this book uses economic growth, CSR and the press coverage of environmental affairs as a case study. The author argues that CSR is part of a wheel of neoliberalism that continually perpetuates inequality and the exploitation of women and Nature. Using an ecofeminist sense-making analysis of media coverage of food waste, global warming, plastic, economic growth and CSR, the author shows how the press discourse in writing is always similar and serves to preserve the status quo with CSR being just a smokescreen that saved capitalism and just one cog in the wheel of neoliberalism. While available research offers perspectives from business and public relations studies, looking at how CSR is implemented and how it contributes towards the reputation of businesses, this book explores how the media enforce CSR discourse while at the same time arguing for environmental preservation. The book presents a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to explain how and why CSR is being pushed forward by the news media, and how the media preserves the status quo by creating moral panic on environmental issues while at the same time pushing for CSR discourse and economic growth, which only contributes towards environmental degradation. The original research presented in the book looks at how the media write about economic growth, plastics, food waste, CSR and global warming. This interdisciplinary study draws on ecofeminist theory and media feminist theory to provide a novel analysis of CSR, making the case that enforcing CSR as a way to do business damages the environment and that the media enforce a neoliberal discourse of promoting both economic growth and environmentalism, which does not go together. Examining the UK media as a case study, a detailed methodological account is provided so that the study can be repeated and compared elsewhere. The book is aimed at academics and researchers in business and media studies, as well as those in women’s studies. It will also be relevant to scholars in business management and marketing.
There is growing recognition that the effects of discourse in shaping environmental policy are nested within broader institutional contexts. Consequently, over the last decade there have been increasing efforts by institutionalism scholars to theorize the link between discourses and institutions. This emerging ‘discursive institutionalism’ perspective considers discourse not only as an ensemble of ideas and their expression in language, but also takes into account the institutional contexts in which discourses emerge and are institutionalized in social practices. The application of this perspective in the context of resource governance has mainly focused on how dominant discourses become institutionalized into regulatory frameworks. However, the converse scenario, whereby the institutional context shapes the very nature of the discourse itself, has received much less attention in the scholarly literature. In this study, we employ the discursive institutional perspective to better understand the policy processes in the province of Ontario and the state of Ohio regarding the problem of eutrophication in Lake Erie, shared between Canada and the United States. Data collected through interviews, documentary sources, the news media and other relevant sources was analyzed with a process tracing approach. Results show that the federal and provincial/state level institutional arrangements in the two regions have influenced the nature of the ideational and interactive dimensions of discourse differently in the context of developing Domestic Action Plans (DAP) to address the eutrophication problem. Divergences in policy discourses revealed in the analysis show how different institutional contexts acted as filters for the varying cognitive and normative aspects of the policy discourses ultimately adopted in the DAPs. These differences may shape the relative effectiveness of achieving nutrient runoff reduction targets that initially set in motion the development of the DAPs themselves.
Most countries will impose restrictions on the discharge of pollutants into water and, in particular, will set standards for the quality of drinking water. Of course, whether these restrictions are applied with any rigour and whether these standards are met raise the kind of questions with which this book is concerned. We start here with the issue of pollution of water because it tends to be the most common water concern, crime or harm of which people are aware: often, although not always (as we will discuss below in the context of Flint, Michigan), polluted water looks, tastes or smells foul. Of course, for many people across the world, the greater issue is access to water in the face of drought—thirst and related starvation—and in such circumstances, polluted water is consumed on the basis that dirty water is better than no water at all. In other instances, water pollution leads to issues of water scarcity: a region may rely on a specific water body and when it becomes polluted, access to clean freshwater becomes frustrated (see generally Smith 2015).Our point is that while water pollution and access to clean water are often conceptualized as separate problems with different socioeconomics and geopolitics, this is not always necessarily the case (McClanahan et al. 2015).We shall discuss these circumstances and the issues related to health and inequalities in a later chapter. For now, back to pollution—and to the different ways in which it occurs—not always so easily detectable as might be assumed—as well as the different ways in which it is responded to, for purposes of prevention and prosecution of polluters.
Citizen perspectives on a controversial aggregate mining application amendment are elicited using an online participatory platform P2P-Surveys. The interface uses interactive visual cues to focus the subject’s attention on their social values framework as a decision-aide. Interactive elements encourage learning by providing values feedback and then allowing the subject to adjust their preference input or to change the values-modeling parameters prior to submitting their responses. Individual preference rankings are then aggregated using a Modified Borda Count for subsets of the participants. The resulting group preference rankings provide insights useful to researchers interested in the interface between social values and environmental decision making, and for decision makers who wish to harness citizen input for integrated decision making. A real-life case study for citizen input into a below-water aggregate mining controversy in Southern Ontario, Canada, is utilized to explain this new methodology and to demonstrate the useful information generated to assist in resources management decision making.
This article explores the gendered process that leads to women informal miners’ restricted access to natural resources, their exclusion and their stigmatization in one village in the Muslim post-Soviet space. Drawing on eight months of ethnographic work in the village of Kante in Northern Tajikistan, this article seeks to understand how and why this process is mediated through notions of honor and shame traditionally seen as anchored in Muslim religion. A focus on changing masculinities and their relationship with women miners’ exclusion in this extractive landscape where informal coal mining developed alongside male migration and the setting up of a Sino-Tajik coal mine after the fall of the Soviet Union, allows us to develop a feminist political ecology of honor and shame. Here, I reveal how these cultural notions are mobilized in the wake of embodied and emotional work and resource struggles and the gendered impacts of broader politico-ecological changes. I particularly link women miners’ exclusion and its mediation through notions of honor and shame to men's loss of sense of self since the fall of the Soviet Union and the reconfiguration of masculinities with new work and resource struggles. By doing so, this article challenges the idea of Muslim men as fixed into codes of honor and patriarchy anchored in religion. Instead, it develops a re-theorization of Muslim masculinities which highlights instances where men oppress women at the same time as it challenges culturalist readings of gender and Muslimness that overemphasize culture/religion to the detriment of the economic/ecological.
In North America, uranium workers are fighting for their right to participate in a free-market system that provides them with small personal benefits. These workers experience powerlessness, instability, and unpredictability – or social dislocation – by living amidst capitalism's polluted ecosystems, unstable economies, and disintegrating communities. However, they feel reliant on uranium for their livelihoods and strongly support the industry's renewal and form sites of acceptance to support industry renewal. Here, we explore the phenomenon of pro-neoliberal activism emerging in communities that identify with uranium markets and that trust in corporate self-regulation, private transparency, and the perceived benefits of potential economic development. Polanyian theory helps us analyze these curious socio-environmental outcomes. While social movements might be ‘progressive,’ ‘regressive,’ or otherwise diverge, Polanyi consistently characterized double movement activists as protecting communities and ecosystems from unstable, self-regulating market systems. But here we see something different and ask: First, how does pro-neoliberal activism contribute to the embedding and institutionalization of neoliberal regimes in uranium mining communities? Second, what structural mechanisms precede and help to facilitate socio-cultural support for free markets and corporate self-regulation, as opposed to support for re-embedding markets in local, public social protections for the US uranium industry?
Geography and allied disciplines have long debated the ontological relationship between nature and society. Although a binary perspective has historically predominated, recent decades have given rise to theories transgressing the nature–society divide through nondualist conceptualizations of socionatures. Proponents of actor-network theory (ANT) in particular have made the case for a nondualist approach focused on hybrid socionatural networks. Yet some scholars working in critical traditions such as political ecology reject ANT for reasons including insufficient attention to power and human intentionality. This article engages this debate, arguing that ANT’s approach to socionatural networks is compatible with political ecology’s core commitments and that drawing on ANT can help address enduring critiques of political ecology’s privileging of the political and economic over the material. The article grounds its argument empirically by applying a political–ecological network approach to a conflict rooted in the neoliberal subsumption of nature at Peru’s Lake Parón. In documenting the historical dynamics of socionatural articulation within the Parón waterscape, the case illustrates the potential of a network approach for understanding processes of assemblage and hybridization in ways that emphasize their historical-materialist character and the emergent agency of the social and natural—and socionatural—actors that they link. The article contends that such an approach not only yields a more comprehensive and symmetrical understanding of agency but can also support more just environmental governance by highlighting the contradictions between social reproduction and economic production that underlie many socioenvironmental conflicts under capitalism. Key Words: actor-network theory (ANT), hydrosocial systems, political ecology, resource conflict, water governance. 地理学和相关领域长期辩论自然与社会之间的本体论关系。尽管历史上盛行二元对立的观点, 但晚近数十年则见证了通过非二元的社会自然概念化兴起的超越自然—社会分隔的理论。特别是行动者网络理论（ANT）的提倡者, 更为聚焦混杂的社会自然网络之非二元对立方法提供了充分理由。但从事诸如社会生态学等批判传统研究的若干学者, 却仍以未能充分关注权力和人类意向等理由拒绝 ANT。本文涉入此一辩论, 主张 ANT 的社会自然网络方法与政治生态学的核心承诺相容, 且运用 ANT 能够有助于应对政治生态学偏好政治与经济而非物质的长期批判。本文通过应用政治生态网络方法来处理深植于秘鲁帕龙湖中有关自然的新自由主义次预设之冲突, 将此一主张植基于经验 。该案例在记录帕龙水景中的社会自然接合的历史动态中, 阐述以网络方法理解凑组和混杂的过程之潜能, 该方法强调其历史物质特徵, 及其所连结的浮现中的社会与自然之主体性、以及社会自然行的动者。本文主张, 此一方法不仅能对主体性有更为全面且匀称的理解, 并且通过强调凸显资本主义中诸多社会环境冲突的社会再生产与经济生产之间的矛盾, 能够支持更为公正的环境治理。关键词：行动者网络理论（ANT）, 水文社会系统, 政治生态学, 资源冲突, 水治理。 Durante mucho tiempo la geografía y las disciplinas afines han debatido la relación ontológica entre naturaleza y sociedad. Aunque históricamente ha predominado una perspectiva binaria, en épocas recientes han surgido teorías que transgreden la divisoria naturaleza–sociedad por medio de conceptualizaciones no dualistas de socionaturalezas. Los partidarios de la teoría actor–red (ANT) en particular han propugnado por un enfoque no dualista enfocado a redes socionaturales híbridas. No obstante, algunos eruditos que trabajan en tradiciones críticas, tales como ecología política, rechazan la ANT por razones que incluyen la atención insuficiente que prestan al poder y a la intencionalidad humana. Este artículo se involucra en este debate arguyendo que el enfoque de la ANT a las redes socionaturales es compatible con los compromisos centrales de la ecología política, y que basándonos en la ANT se pueden abocar críticas perdurables a la ecología política por privilegiar lo político y lo económico sobre lo material. El artículo fundamenta empíricamente su argumento aplicando un enfoque de red político–ecológica a un conflicto arraigado en la subsunción neoliberal de la naturaleza en el Lago Parón del Perú. Documentando la dinámica histórica de la articulación socionatural dentro del paisaje hídrico del Parón, el caso ilustra el potencial de un enfoque de redes para entender los procesos de ensamble e hibridación en maneras que enfatizan el carácter histórico-materialista de la agencia emergente de los actores sociales y naturales—y socionaturales—que ellos vinculan. El artículo sostiene que tal enfoque no solo genera un entendimiento más comprensivo y simétrico de la agencia, sino que puede igualmente dar su apoyo a una gobernanza ambiental más justa destacando las contradicciones entre la reproducción social y la producción económica que subrayan muchos conflictos socioambientales bajo el capitalismo. © 2018, © 2018 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Since the 1980s, the emergence of neoliberalism as a dominant government paradigm has led to increasing instances of accountability failure, resulting in significant injuries or death. Employing a grounded theory approach, accountability failure is defined and explored through analysis of 18 public inquiries and reports in the United Kingdom and Canada. The analysis reveals that the combination of a neoliberal policy paradigm and flawed regulation, governance, culture, and performance management inevitably led to accountability failure. Neoliberal policies have precipitated uncoordinated and underfunded regulatory regimes, an oppressive culture focused on financial efficiency at the expense of quality, self-serving and willfully blind governance, and underfunded and inadequate tools for measuring performance. The evidence suggests that organizations have not learned from each other within or between countries, revealing a pattern of accountability failure in which citizens are placed at risk in their communities and hospitals for preventable injury or death within an increasingly politicized government and leadership environment.
Profound changes in risk regulation have been brewing over the last few decades. These changes include an explosion of new institutional forms and strategies that decenter risk regulation and introduce a role for meta-regulation, a growing reliance on risk-based analysis to organize decision making and management, an increasingly preventive approach to regulation that requires an expansion of surveillance to better characterize and monitor risks, and a sharpening of contestation over strategies for evaluating and responding to risk. We distill two perspectives from the existing literature on risk regulation that can plausibly provide overarching explanations for these trends. The first perspective explains these trends as a reflection of the refashioning of state, market, and society to privilege economic liberty—an explanatory framework we call “neoliberal governmentality.” The second perspective argues that these trends reflect practical demands for more efficient and effective risk regulation and management—an explanatory framework we refer to as “functional adaptation.” The central purpose of this paper is to advance a third explanation that we call a “problem definition and control” approach. It argues that trends in risk regulation reflect interactions between how society defines risks and how regulatory regimes seek to control those risks.
A decade – more or less – past the publication of the edited collection Neoliberal Environments and Neil Smith’s ‘Nature as an Accumulation Strategy’, this forum aims to revisit and reflect on neoliberal natures, both out in the world and in the scholarly literature. In this time, there have been a number of advances in our conceptual apparatus for interpreting capital’s productions of nature, ranging from financialization to vital materialism to world ecology. Further, the world has not stood still in the intervening decade. Various schemes for neoliberalizing nature have come and gone while others have launched, and the financial crisis led to widespread and often retrenched austerity even as extractivism showed no sign of abating. In light of these developments, we convened this forum to ask: what are the failures and accomplishments of neoliberal natures? Our use of the world accomplishments is not normative. We have gathered insights to reflect on the material-semiotic effects of neoliberal hegemony in the environmental register, and how critical scholars interpret, and even intervene in, those effects. The forum begins with an introduction that parses some trends in the world ‘out there’ and then turns ‘in’ to examine the neoliberal natures literature. Reflecting on a bibliometric analysis and broader trends in the literature, we argue that there remain critical gaps in explanatory frameworks driven in part by geography’s troubling lack of racial and gender diversity.
This paper uses the analytical tools of regulation theory to analyse critically claims about the emergence of post-Fordism. It is argued that prevailing notions of post-Fordism are inconsistent with the central tenets of regulatioist method, devaluing as they dothe critical importance of social regulation and the ways in which a putative post-Fordist economy may be macro-economically pieced together. Rather than representing the basis for a renewed period of sustained growth, flexibility and its corollary, neo-liberalism, are argued to represent the politics and economics of sustained capitalist crisis. Only when the systemic instability at the global level can be regulated can we expect a durable replacement for Fordism. This requires not only a new macro-economic regime but, crucially, a new ‘institutional fix’.
This paper examines processes of local social regulation, critically deploying a regulationist perspective on the political economy of uneven development. It is argued that the key issue of social regulation has been neglected in much recent work on economic restructuring. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for analysing social regulation at the subnational scale, applying this in a preliminary investigation of uneven development under Thatcherism.
This paper revisits the question of the political and theoretical status of neoliberalism, making the case for a process–based analysis of “neoliberalization.” Drawing on the experience of the heartlands of neoliberal discursive production, North America and Western Europe, it is argued that the transformative and adaptive capacity of this far–reaching political–economic project has been repeatedly underestimated. Amongst other things, this calls for a close reading of the historical and geographical (re)constitution of the process of neoliberalization and of the variable ways in which different “local neoliberalisms” are embedded within wider networks and structures of neoliberalism. The paper’s contribution to this project is to establish a stylized distinction between the destructive and creative moments of the process of neoliberalism—which are characterized in terms of “roll–back” and “roll–out” neoliberalism, respectively—and then to explore some of the ways in which neoliberalism, in its changing forms, is playing a part in the reconstruction of extralocal relations, pressures, and disciplines.
Since the early 1970s, debates have raged throughout the social sciences concerning the process of ‘‘globalization’’ ^ an essentially contested term whose meaning is as much a source of controversy today as it was over two decades ago, when systematic research ¢rst began on the topic. Contemporary globalization research encompasses an immensely broad range of themes, from the new international division of labor, changing forms of industrial organization, and processes of urbanregional restructuring to transformations in the nature of state power, civil society, citizenship, democracy, public spheres, nationalism, politico-cultural identities, localities, and architectural forms, among many others. 2 Yet despite this proliferation of globalization research, little theoretical consensus has been established in the social sciences concerning the interpretation of even the most rudimentary elements of the globalization process ^ e.g., its historical periodization, its causal determinants, and its socio-political implications. 3 Nevertheless, within this whirlwind of opposing perspectives, a remarkably broad range of studies of globalization have devoted detailed attention to the problematic of space, its social production, and its historical transformation. Major strands of contemporary globalization research have been permeated by geographical concepts ^ e.g., ‘‘space-time compression,’’ ‘‘space of £ows,’’ ‘‘space of places,’’ ‘‘deterritorialization,’’ ‘‘glocalization,’’ the ‘‘global-local nexus,’’ ‘‘supra
In Uneven Development, a classic in its field, Neil Smith offers the first full theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalist development. Featuring pathbreaking analyses of the production of nature and the politics of scale, Smith's work anticipated many of the uneven contours that now mark neoliberal globalization. This third edition features an afterword updating the analysis for the present day. © 2008 by The University of Georgia Press. All rights reserved.
A recent history replete with compromise and capitulation has pushed a once promising and effective political movement to the brink of irrelevance.So states Mark Dowie in this provocative critique of the mainstream American environmental movement. Dowie, the prolific award-winning journalist who broke the stories on the Dalkon Shield and on the Ford Pinto, delivers an insightful, informative, and often damning account of the movement many historians and social commentators at one time expected to be this century's most significant. He unveils the inside stories behind American environmentalism's undeniable triumphs and its quite unnecessary failures.Dowie weaves a spellbinding tale, from the movement's conservationist origins as a handful of rich white men's hunting and fishing clubs, through its evolution in the 1960s and 1970s into a powerful political force that forged landmark environmental legislation, enforced with aggressive litigation, to the strategy of "third wave" political accommodation during the Reagan and Bush years that led to the evisceration of many earlier triumphs, up to today, where the first stirrings of a rejuvenated, angry, multicultural, and decidedly impolite movement for environmental justice provides new hope for the future. Dowie takes a fresh look at the formation of the American environmental imagination and examines its historical imperatives: the inspirations of Thoreau, the initiatives of John Muir and Bob Marshall, the enormous impact of Rachel Carson, the new ground broken by Earth Day in 1970, and the societal antagonists created in response that climaxed with the election of Ronald Reagan. He details the subsequent move toward polite, ineffectual activism by the mainstream environmental groups, characterized by successful fundraising efforts and wide public acceptance, and also by new alliances with corporate philanthropists and government bureaucrats, increased degradation of environmental quality, and alienation of grassroots support. Dowie concludes with an inspirational description of a noncompromising "fourth wave" of American environmentalism, which he predicts will crest early in the next century.
This thesis examines how the current division of federal and provincial responsibilities for environmental policy in Canada evolved, and the implications of that arrangement for protection of the environment. At a theoretical level, the example of environmental protection is used to explore the relationship between federalism and public policy more generally. It is accepted wisdom that governments seek both to claim credit and avoid blame. However, to date, students of Canadian federalism have been much more attentive to the dynamics of intergovernmental credit claiming than to opportunities for intergovernmental blame avoidance. A central argument of this thesis is that the implications of federalism for public policy are very different when both levels of government are eager to assume responsibility for a particular policy than when one or both are content to vacate the field. It is argued that because environmental protection typically involves diffuse benefits and concentrated costs, it offers few political benefits and significant political costs. Thus the case of environmental protection is used to explore the implications of policy inaction within the federal system. The thesis presents a study of the evolution of the federal government’s role in environmental protection and of federal-provincial relations concerning the environment between 1968 and1992. The exclusive focus of the thesis is the federal government’s role in "federal Canada," that is, within the provinces, rather than the Northern territories. It is argued that the federal government has taken advantage of overlapping jurisdiction to shirk its responsibility for environmental protection for most of the last two decades. In light of federal deference to the provinces, federal-provincial relations concerning the environment have been relatively cooperative, with the important exception of two brief periods of heightened salience of environmental issues, during which both levels of government were more inclined to adopt a broad view of their jurisdiction. A case study of federal and provincial regulation of pulp mill effluents offers considerable evidence of provincial reluctance to strengthen environmental standards for fear of placing local industry at a competitive disadvantage. Scholars troubled by the environmental implications of interprovincial economic competition typically look to the federal government to establish national standards. However, it is argued that many have underestimated the political obstacles to such a federal response.
Deliberative Democracy and Beyond takes a critical tour through recent democratic theory, beginning with the deliberative turn that occurred around 1990. The essence of this turn is that democratic legitimacy is to be found in authentic deliberation among those affected by a collective decision. While the deliberative turn was initially a challenge to established institutions and models of democracy, it was soon assimilated by these same institutions and models. Drawing a distinction between liberal constitutionalism and discursive democracy, the author criticizes the former and advocates the latter. He argues that a defensible theory of democracy should be critical of established power, pluralistic, reflexive in questioning established traditions, transnational in its capacity to extend across state boundaries, ecological, and dynamic in its openness to changing constraints upon, and opportunities for, democratization.
In recent years, urban governance has become increasingly preoccupied with the exploration of new ways in which to foster and encourage local development and employment growth. Such an entrepreneurial stance contrasts with the managerial practices of earlier decades which primarily focussed on the local provision of services, facilities and benefits to urban populations. This paper explores the context of this shift from managerialism to entrepreneurialism in urban governance and seeks to show how mechanisms of inter-urban competition shape outcomes and generate macroeconomic consequences. The relations between urban change and economic development are thereby brought into focus in a period characterised by considerable economic and political instability.
This paper argues that urban neoliberalism can best be understood as a contradictory re-regulation of urban everyday life. Based on an analysis of neoliberalism as a new political economy and as a new set of technologies of power, the paper argues that the urban everyday is the site and product of the neoliberal transformation. Governments and corporations play a key role in redefining the conditions of everyday life through neoliberal policies and business practices. Part of this reorientation of everydayness, however, involves new forms of resistance and opposition, which include the kernel of a possible alternative urbanism. The epochal shift from a Keynesian-Fordist- welfarist to a post-Fordist-workfarist society is reflected in a marked restructuring of everyday life. The shift changes the socioeconomic conditions in cities. It also includes a reorientation of identities, social conflicts, and ideologies towards a more explicitly culturalist differentiation. Social difference does not disappear, but actually becomes more pronounced; however, it gets articulated in or obscured by cultural terms of reference. The paper looks specifically at Toronto, Ontario, as a case study. An analysis of the explicitly neoliberal politics of the province's Progressive Conservative (Tory) government under Mike Harris, first elected in 1995, demonstrates the pervasive re-regulation of everyday life affecting a wide variety of people in Toronto and elsewhere. Much of this process is directly attributable to provincial policies, a consequence of Canada's constitutional system, which does not give municipalities autonomy but makes them "creatures of provinces." However, the paper also argues that Toronto's elites have aided and abetted the provincial "Common-Sense" Revolution through neoliberal policies and actions on their own. The paper concludes by outlining the emergence of new instances of resistance to the politics of hegemony and catastrophe of urban neoliberalism.
Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them. The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.
The Niagara Escarpment forms the eastern boundary of the deeply scoured dolomite plain of the Bruce Peninsula. Since glaciation normal channel drainage on the backslope of the cuesta has competed with groundwater discharge to the scarp foot resulting in the progressive karstification of the carbonate mass. Nearest the scarp is a zone of holokarst dominated by vertical drainage and lacking normal surface channels. Westward of this zone are at least five small fluvio-karst basins which have regular surface flow but are drained entirely by sinkholes. Most of the remaining drainage is normal surface flow draining westward away from the escarpment.
This essay elaborates a critical geographical perspective on neoliberalism that emphasizes (a) the path–dependent character of neoliberal reform projects and (b) the strategic role of cities in the contemporary remaking of political–economic space. We begin by presenting the methodological foundations for an approach to the geographies of what we term “actually existing neoliberalism.” In contrast to neoliberal ideology, in which market forces are assumed to operate according to immutable laws no matter where they are “unleashed,” we emphasize the contextual embeddedness of neoliberal restructuring projects insofar as they have been produced within national, regional, and local contexts defined by the legacies of inherited institutional frameworks, policy regimes, regulatory practices, and political struggles. An adequate understanding of actually existing neoliberalism must therefore explore the path–dependent, contextually specific interactions between inherited regulatory landscapes and emergent neoliberal, market–oriented restructuring projects at a broad range of geographical scales. These considerations lead to a conceptualization of contemporary neoliberalization processes as catalysts and expressions of an ongoing creative destruction of political–economic space at multiple geographical scales. While the neoliberal restructuring projects of the last two decades have not established a coherent basis for sustainable capitalist growth, it can be argued that they have nonetheless profoundly reworked the institutional infrastructures upon which Fordist–Keynesian capitalism was grounded. The concept of creative destruction is presented as a useful means for describing the geographically uneven, socially regressive, and politically volatile trajectories of institutional/spatial change that have been crystallizing under these conditions. The essay concludes by discussing the role of urban spaces within the contradictory and chronically unstable geographies of actually existing neoliberalism. Throughout the advanced capitalist world, we suggest, cities have become strategically crucial geographical arenas in which a variety of neoliberal initiatives—along with closely intertwined strategies of crisis displacement and crisis management—have been articulated.
This article expounds the traditional Marxist theory of the contradiction between forces and relations of production, over production of capital and economic crisis, and the process of crisis-induced restructuring of productive forces and production relations into more transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms. This exposition provides a point of departure for an “ecological Marxist” theory of the contradiction between capitalist production relations and forces and the conditions of production, underproduction of capital and economic crisis, and the process of crisis-induced restructuring of production conditions and the social relations thereof also into more transparently social, hence potentially socialist, forms. In short, there may be not one but two paths to socialism in late capitalist society. While the two processes of capital overproduction and underproduction are by no means mutually exclusive, they may offset or compensate for one another in ways which create the appearance of relatively stable processes of capitalist development. Study of the combination of the two processes in the contemporary world may throw light on the decline of traditional labor and socialist movements and the rise of “new social movements” as agencies of social transformation. In similar ways that traditional Marxism illuminates the practises of traditional labor movements, it may be that “ecological Marxism” throws light on the practices of new social movements. Although ecology and nature; the politics of the body, feminism, and the family; and urban movements and related topics are usually discussed in post-Marxist terms, the rhetoric deployed in this article is self-consciously Marxist and designed to appeal to Marxist theorists and fellow travelers whose work remains within a “scientific” discourse hence those who are least likely to be convinced by post-Marxist discussions of the problem of capital’s use and abuse of nature (including human nature) in the modem world. However, the emphasis in this article on a political economic “scientific” discourse is tactical, not strategic. In reality, more or less autonomous social relationships, often non-capitalist or anti-capitalist, constitute “civil society,” which needs to be addressed on its own practical and theoretical terms. In other words, social and collective action is not meant to be construed merely as derivative of systemic forces, as the last section of the article hopefully will make clear.
Preface and Acknowledgements. 1. Strategies. 2. Capitalism and Anti-essentialism: An Encounter in Contradiction. 3. Class and the Politics of "Identity". 4. How Do We Get Out of This Capitalist Place? 5. The Economy, Stupid! Industrial Policy Discourse and the Body Economic. 6. Querying Globalization. 7. Post-Fordism as Politics. 8. Toward a New Class Politics of Distribution. 9. "Hewers of Cake and Drawers of Tea". 10. Haunting Capitalism: Ghosts on a Blackboard. 11. Waiting for the Revolution. . . Bibliography. Index.
Paleobathymetric interpretation of strata from the Bruce Peninsula and Lake Timiskaming District of Ontario shows strong correlations with data from the Michigan Upper Peninsula and Ontario's Manitoulin Island. Three to four cycles of fluctuating sea level occurred during Early Silurian (Llandoverian) time throughout much of the northern Great Lakes area, and involved the highly regular replacement of ostracode–vermiform, coral–algal, and pentamerid communities by one another. Although exposure is more limited than on Manitoulin Island or the Michigan Upper Peninsula, important clues regarding Early Silurian geography are found in strata of the Bruce Peninsula and Lake Timiskaming District. Continued thinning of stratigraphic units and an increased incidence of disconformities from north to south on the Bruce Peninsula suggest the episodic rise of the Algonquin Arch farther to the south and west. Contrary to earlier paleogeographic reconstructions, the patterns of community changeovers preserved in the Silurian outlier of the Lake Timiskaming District indicate a persistent, open connection between the seas of the northern Great Lakes area and the Hudson Bay Lowlands. This interpretation is more in keeping with recent paleontologic work on faunal distributions.
Surface and subsurface waters on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, were sampled and analysed for Ca2+, Mg2+, pH, HCO3−; partial pressure of CO2(PCO2), and saturation states with respect to calcite (SIc) and dolomite (SId) were calculated. A total of 250 samples representing six hydrochemical environments were collected. These environments are (1) Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, (2) inland lakes, (3) rivers and streams, (4) wetlands, (5) conduit-flow springs, and (6) diffuse-flow springs. The seasonal behaviour and chemical separation of these waters are examined.Except for Georgian Bay and Lake Huron the waters of the peninsula are very hard, ranging from 180–320 ppm Ca2+ plus Mg2+ (as CaCO3), and display increasing hardness as the summer season progresses. Surface recharge and conduit-flow springs are generally saturated with respect to calcite and dolomite. Only diffuse-flow springs, which are among the hardest of waters, are commonly undersaturated. These waters are also the easiest to distinguish chemically and results of a linear discriminant function analysis suggest other waters of the peninsula to be of one class.
Technology and Culture 42.4 (2001) 631-664
In his 1948 classic, Mechanization Takes Command, Siegfried Giedion posed the following question: "What happens when mechanization encounters organic substance?" Well aware of the application of mass-production techniques to agriculture and of the role of genetics in facilitating "the structural alteration of plants and animals," Giedion nevertheless held to a basic distinction between "living substance" and mechanization. The idea of nature as technics, of biophysical systems as technological systems, would have seemed inappropriate in his framework. For Giedion, interventions in the organic growth process were qualitatively different from efforts to subject other aspects of modern life to the dictates of the machine.
In the half century since Giedion posed this question, numerous scholars have explored the relationship between nature and technology in a variety of areas, emphasizing the difficulty of making hard and fast distinctions. Environmental historians such as Donald Worster, William Cronon, and Richard White have interrogated some of the ways in which nature is incorporated into technological and political-economic systems. Historians of science such as Robert Kohler have explored how experimental creatures (drosophila in his case) are constructed as research instruments and technologies. And several historians and social scientists have investigated the role of science and technology in the industrialization of agricultural systems. Jack Kloppenburg and Deborah Fitzgerald, for example, have both demonstrated how a particular biological organism (hybrid corn) has been refashioned as an agricultural commodity and a vehicle for capital accumulation.
Following these leads, this article focuses on another organism, the broiler or young meat-type chicken, asking how science and technology have subordinated its biology to the dictates of industrial production. By looking explicitly at those technoscientific practices involved in making the industrial chicken, it offers a perspective on the course of technological change in agriculture that further blurs the distinction between nature and technology.
A product of key innovations in the areas of environmental control, genetics, nutrition, and disease management, the industrial broiler emerged during the middle decades of the twentieth century as a very efficient vehicle for transforming feed grains into higher-value meat products. By the 1960s the broiler had become one of the most intensively researched commodities in U.S. agriculture, while complementary changes in the structure, financing, and organization of leading firms created an institutional framework for rapidly translating research into commercial gain. The resulting increases in productivity and efficiency led to falling real prices, despite growing demand, and successfully brought chicken to the center of the plate for many Americans.
Like hybrid corn, the story of the industrial chicken must be seen as part of a larger process of agro-industrialization, which has not only transformed the social practices of agriculture, food production, and diet in twentieth-century America but also facilitated a profound restructuring of the relationship between nature and technology. This article explores the various and ongoing efforts to intensify and accelerate the biological productivity of the chicken -- asking how nature has been made to act as a force of production. Like Jack Kloppenburg's analysis of how capital intervenes in and circulates through nature in the case of plant breeding and biotechnology, the following story focuses quite specifically on the role of science and technology in incorporating biological systems into the circuits of industrial capital.
Yet where Kloppenburg offers an institutional analysis of how the "commodification of the seed" serves as an accumulation strategy, this essay focuses more broadly on a variety of technologies involved in accelerating biological productivity. While breeding and genetic improvement were clearly central vectors of technological change in making the industrial chicken, they were by no means the only ones. Intensive confinement, improved nutrition and feeding practices, and the widespread use of antibiotics and other drugs also represented important aspects of a larger technology platform aimed at subordinating avian biology to the dictates of industrial production.
Given the unpredictable nature and emergent properties of biological systems, however, any program aimed at the systematic intensification of biological productivity will almost inevitably be confronted with new sources of risk and vulnerability. Efforts to accelerate biological productivity must confront the vagaries of nature and the unintended consequences of attempts to simplify and incorporate biological processes...
Seventeen environmental experts explore the major changes in environmental policy that took place during the first three years of the Reagan presidency. By focusing on the process the administration used to shape its environmental program, the book attempts to answer this question: to what extent can an incoming presidential administration strongly committed to reorienting national priorities achieve substantial policy changes. Following an introduction which establishes a framework for evaluating policy change, the next four parts address the policy environment, changes in policy making procedure, specific changes in six areas, and economic and political evaluations of Reagan's policy changes. Separate abstracts were prepared for the 17 papers selected for the Energy Data Base (EDB) and Energy Abstracts for Policy Analysis (EAPA).
Analyses of the roles of actors such as citizens' groups and unions in the formation of public policy have been notably lacking in Canada. The regulatory battles studied here include: the amendment to the Ontario Environmental Protection Act which became known as the "Spills Bill"; Ontario's Municipal-Industrial Strategy of Abatement for pollution entering waterways; the introduction of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act; the public review of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement; and the public participation process for the Remedial Action Plans for the "areas of concern" in the Great Lakes Basin.
In addition to documenting the struggles of citizens groups and environmental organizations to shape environmental regulation in the 1980s and 1990s, the author compares are the responses of two industrial trade unions to environmental regulation of industry and the growing influence of the environmental movement. These are: the Energy and Chemical Workers Union (ECWU) and the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW). She also examines the strategies adopted by corporations and business associations in their efforts to shape environmental policy.
Using documentary evidence, interviews, and survey work, Adkin studies the potential of new social movements and the labour movement to pose radical challenges to the hegemonic model of development in the West. Although there are considerable obstacles on both sides, the author believes that the potential exists for a convergence between a radicalized "social unionism" and the popular democratic discourse of political ecology. While ecological critiques were overshadowed in the 1990s by deepening social inequalities, many labour and other social movement activists involved in coalition building have grasped the counter-hegemonic potential of "green economics" and democratic discourse.
"Late Victorian Holocausts" focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China and North-Eastern Brazil. All of these countries were effected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated the populations. The effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. The author, Mike Davis, argues that the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as "The Third World" were sown in this era of high imperialism, as the price for Capitalist modernization was paid in the currency of millions of peasants' lives.
This paper reflects upon the progress and prospects of the "production of nature' thesis within Marxist geography. Pivoting around a distinction made by George Canguihelm between "theories' and "concepts,' the argument is two-fold. First, it is suggested that Marxist geographical accounts of produced nature underplay the materiality of produced nature. A general theoretical account is then presented wherein historical materialist concepts can register the materiality of produced nature. Second, it is suggested that Marxist geographical accounts of produced nature insufficiently problematize the concept of nature deployed within their theoretical-explanatory frameworks. A discussion of "cultural studies of science' is then presented in order to problematize that conception. In the final part of the paper an attempt is made to reconcile the ontological realism of the first part and epistemological skepticism of the second by arguing that Marxist geographers must see produced nature as simultaneously a constellation of ontologically real and yet epistemologically-conceptually "fixed' entities. -from Author
Drawing on recent developments in regulationist economics and neoMarxist state theory, this contribution begins with a brief comment on the nature of social reproduction regimes and the importance of taking proper account of the ‘mixed economy of reproduction’.1 It then addresses four interrelated sets of questions about the recent restructuring and possible transcendence of the post-war social reproduction regime associated with Atlantic Fordism, especially in its north-West European guise of the Keynesian welfare state. First what is involved in theorizing ‘post-Fordist’ social reproduction regimes? Second, considering the latter in relatively abstract theoretical terms, what might its core features comprise? Third, moving to more concrete-complex terms, how might post-Fordist social reproduction regimes be distinguished one from another? And, fourth, what are the respective roles of the state (whether at supranational, national, or local level) and other forms of governance in such regimes? Unfortunately space constraints preclude a detailed answer to all these questions but I will at least try to suggest how they might be addressed.
As visibly extractive industries reliant on the material and semiotic commodification of nature, forestry and mining have come to be popularly viewed as “environmental pariahs.” Yet forestry and mining continue to be successfully profitable enterprises despite a significant increase in environmental awareness and activism in the latter half of the twentieth century. To understand the relative stability and growth of these sectors in the face of overt contradictions arising from their use of the environment, this article revisits the work of regulation theorists who asked similar questions about the persistence and maintenance of capitalism in general.
Two case studies are presented–forestry in British Columbia and gold mining in California and Nevada–which demonstrate how the political economy of forestry and mining is subject to contradictions arising out of the technological and organizational mechanisms through which nature is appropriated during production. Analysis of the case studies shows that the regulation of these contradictions is increasingly achieved through the deployment and cooptation of sustainability narratives. The case studies therefore juxtapose the recent proliferation of sustainability narratives within the forestry and mining sectors with the sectors’ persistent challenge to concepts of sustainable development.
This paper argues that urban neoliberalism can best be understood as a contradictory re–regulation of urban everyday life. Based on an analysis of neoliberalism as a new political economy and as a new set of technologies of power, the paper argues that the urban everyday is the site and product of the neoliberal transformation. Governments and corporations play a key role in redefining the conditions of everyday life through neoliberal policies and business practices. Part of this reorientation of everydayness, however, involves new forms of resistance and opposition, which include the kernel of a possible alternative urbanism. The epochal shift from a Keynesian–Fordist–welfarist to a post–Fordist–workfarist society is reflected in a marked restructuring of everyday life. The shift changes the socioeconomic conditions in cities. It also includes a reorientation of identities, social conflicts, and ideologies towards a more explicitly culturalist differentiation. Social difference does not disappear, but actually becomes more pronounced; however, it gets articulated in or obscured by cultural terms of reference.
The paper looks specifically at Toronto, Ontario, as a case study. An analysis of the explicitly neoliberal politics of the province’s Progressive Conservative (Tory) government under Mike Harris, first elected in 1995, demonstrates the pervasive re–regulation of everyday life affecting a wide variety of people in Toronto and elsewhere. Much of this process is directly attributable to provincial policies, a consequence of Canada’s constitutional system, which does not give municipalities autonomy but makes them “creatures of provinces.” However, the paper also argues that Toronto’s elites have aided and abetted the provincial “Common–Sense” Revolution through neoliberal policies and actions on their own. The paper concludes by outlining the emergence of new instances of resistance to the politics of hegemony and catastrophe of urban neoliberalism.