Urban governance in Spain: From democratic transition to austerity policies

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (9) ◽  
pp. 2107-2122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Martí-Costa ◽  
Mariona Tomàs
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Urban Social Movements ◽  
Specific Process ◽  
The Welfare State

This article aims to explain the evolution of urban governance in Spain during the last 40 years as a product of different waves of state rescaling. Historical, political and economic specificities shape the evolution of Spanish urban governance, especially because of the recent process of democratic transition, regional decentralisation and the specific process of de-industrialisation. We distinguish three periods in urban governance trends, from the restoration of democracy in the late 1970s to the current austerity urbanism marked by the economic crisis starting in 2008. For each phase, we highlight the three interrelated factors explaining urban governance: (1) the evolution of the Spanish political economy in the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism; (2) the evolution of the welfare state; and (3) the role of urban social movements.

Globalization and Society: Processes of Differentiation Examined

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 527-528
Author(s):  
Peter Marden
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Comprehensive Treatment ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Global Inequality ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
The Welfare State

Globalization and Society: Processes of Differentiation Examined, R. Breton and J.G. Reitz, eds., Praeger: Westport, 2003, pp. 321.There is currently a plethora of books on globalization in all of its guises. Many of these fail to seriously contribute to a growing body of literature in any intellectually rigorous way because they either simply re-hash well-worn notions about global political economy or culture, or provide a weakly disguised postmodern attempt to textualise social and economic change. There are some notable exceptions, however, and this book is one of them. The first thing to strike you with this edited collection is the sheer breadth of the scale ranging from trends in global inequality to considerations about nationalism and the crisis of the welfare state. This is a comprehensive treatment of a highly complex set of processes which does not uncritically apply the term “globalization” without recourse to informed theoretical debate concerning the active role of civil society, forms of governmentality and the nation state. While the authors do not completely escape forms of reductionism in the language used, they do nonetheless attempt to ground this reasoning within a critical context which avoids the excesses of idiosyncratic localization or convergence theories.

The Political Economy of the Welfare State.

1983 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 734
Author(s):  
John B. Williamson ◽  
Thomas Wilson ◽  
Dorothy J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Welfare State

Entreprenøren som figur under neoliberalismen - Kapitalisme, individ og velfærdsorganisering

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luise Li Langergaard
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Economic Innovation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Welfare State

The article explores the central role of the entrepreneur in neoliberalism. It demonstrates how a displacement and a broadening of the concept of the entrepreneur occur in the neoliberal interpretation of the entrepreneur compared to Schumpeter’s economic innovation theory. From being a specific economic figure with a particular delimited function the entrepreneur is reinterpreted as, on the one hand, a particular type of subject, the entrepreneur of the self, and on the other, an ism, entrepreneurialism, which permeates individuals, society, and institutions. Entrepreneurialism is discussed as a movement of the economic into previously non-economic domains, such as the welfare state and society. Social entrepreneurship is an example of this in relation to solutions to social welfare problems. This can, on the one hand, be understood as an extension of the neoliberal understanding of the entrepreneur, but it also, in certain interpretations, resists the neoliberal understanding of economy and society.

Last Rights? Funerals, Poverty and Social Exclusion

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK DRAKEFORD
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Poor People ◽  
The Public ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

This article considers the current state of help with funeral expenses in Britain. It argues that assistance has been progressively and deliberately eroded to the point where the famous ‘from the cradle to the grave’ protection of the welfare state has been removed from increasing numbers of poor people. The article sets these developments within the context of the contemporary British funeral industry, with emphasis upon its treatment of less-well-off consumers. The changing nature of social security provision for funeral expenses is traced in detail, including the actions of the incoming 1997 Labour government. This article investigates the public health role of local authorities in the case of burials, concluding that such services are insufficiently robust to meet the new weight placed upon them. The article ends with a consideration of the impact which these different changes produce in the lives of individuals upon whom they have an effect.

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