Neoliberal urban transformations in the arab city

This research represents a discursive-comparative analysis aiming to understand the current urban neoliberal condition in the Arab world in terms of the circulating patterns of urban transformation. The research introduces and suggests a discursive framework in which various neoliberal projects could be examined and evaluated against one or more of the following indicators: urban lifestyle, emancipatory neoliberal discourse, claims to social sustainability, socio-spatial politics and dynamics, governance and place management, changing role of the state, and circulation of neoliberal practices. The research applies and benefits from a reconciliation between neo-Marxist theories of political economy and poststructuralist approaches related to the art of governance. However, in doing so it relies mostly on one body of theory, namely, neo-Marxist theories considering neoliberalism as a class project of social exclusion. The framework of analysis is applied to the following three case studies in Amman: high-end business towers, gated upper-middle class communities, and low-income housing projects. In general, these projects, despite their emancipatory rhetoric, led to geographies of inequality and urban disparities within the city of Amman.

Download Full-text

General Particulars Regarding the Conflict of Interest

International conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION ◽

10.2478/kbo-2020-0067 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 145-149

Author(s):

Aurelia Teodora Drăghici

Keyword(s):

Local Government ◽

Conflict Of Interest ◽

Conflicts Of Interest ◽

National Level ◽

The State ◽

Role Of The State ◽

Legal Implications ◽

Determining Factors ◽

Changing Role

SummaryTheme conflicts of interest is one of the major reasons for concern local government, regional and central administrative and criminal legal implications aiming to uphold the integrity and decisions objectively. Also, most obviously, conflicts of interest occur at the national level where political stakes are usually highest, one of the determining factors of this segment being the changing role of the state itself, which creates opportunities for individual gain through its transformations.

Download Full-text

Land financialisation, planning informalisation and gentrification as statecraft in Antwerp

Urban Studies ◽

10.1177/00420980211028235 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 004209802110282

Author(s):

Callum Ward

Keyword(s):

Free Market ◽

Planning System ◽

Informal Governance ◽

Value Capture ◽

Role Of The State ◽

Recent Trends ◽

The City ◽

Insight Into ◽

Roll Out

This article offers insight into the role of the state in land financialisation through a reading of urban hegemony. This offers the basis for a conjunctural analysis of the politics of planning within a context in which authoritarian neoliberalism is ascendant across Europe. I explore this through the case of Antwerp as it underwent a hegemonic shift in which the nationalist neoliberal party the New Flemish Alliance (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie; N-VA) ended 70 years of Socialist Party rule and deregulated the city’s technocratic planning system. However, this unbridling of the free market has led to the creation of high-margin investment products rather than suitable housing for the middle classes, raising concerns about the city’s gentrification strategy. The consequent, politicisation of the city’s planning system led to controversy over clientelism which threatened to undermine the N-VA’s wider hegemonic project. In response, the city has sought to roll out a more formalised system of negotiated developer obligations, so embedding transactional, market-oriented informal governance networks at the centre of the planning system. This article highlights how the literature on land financialisation may incorporate conjunctural analysis, in the process situating recent trends towards the use of land value capture mechanisms within the contradictions and statecraft of contemporary neoliberal urbanism.

Download Full-text