Warren Magnusson - Politics of Urbanism: Seeing like a city

Politics of Urbanism

To see like a city, rather than seeing like a state, is the key to understanding modern politics. In this book, Magnusson draws from theorists such as Weber, Wirth, Hayek, Jacobs, Sennett, and Foucault to articulate some of the ideas that we need to make sense of the city as a form of political order.

Locally and globally, the city exists by virtue of complicated patterns of government and self-government, prompted by proximate diversity. A multiplicity of authorities in different registers is typical. Sovereignty, although often claimed, is infinitely deferred. What emerges by virtue of self-organization is not susceptible to control by any central authority, and so we are impelled to engage politically in a world that does not match our expectations of sovereignty. How then are we to engage realistically and creatively? We have to begin from where we are if we are to understand the possibilities.

Building on traditions of political and urban theory in order to advance a new interpretation of the role of cities/urbanism in contemporary political life, this work will be of great interest to scholars of political theory and urban theory, international relations theory and international relations.

Warren Magnusson is Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, Canada.

Interventions

Edited by:

Jenny Edkins, Aberystwyth University, and Nick Vaughan-Williams, University of Warwick

As Michel Foucault has famously stated, knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting. In this spirit The EdkinsVaughan-Williams Interventions series solicits cutting edge, critical works that challenge mainstream understandings in international relations. It is the best place to contribute post disciplinary works that think rather than merely recognize and affirm the world recycled in IRs traditional geopolitical imaginary.

Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawaii at Mnoa, USA

The series aims to advance understanding of the key areas in which scholars working within broad critical post-structural and post-colonial traditions have chosen to make their interventions, and to present innovative analyses of important topics.

Titles in the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociology, politics and other disciplines and provide situated historical, empirical and textual studies in international politics.

Critical Theorists and International Relations

Edited by Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams

Ethics as Foreign Policy

Britain, the EU and the other

Dan Bulley

Universality, Ethics and International Relations

A grammatical reading

Vronique Pin-Fat

The Time of the City

Politics, philosophy, and genre

Michael J. Shapiro

Governing Sustainable Development

Partnership, protest and power at the World Summit

Carl Death

Insuring Security

Biopolitics, security and risk

Luis Lobo-Guerrero

Foucault and International Relations

New critical engagements

Edited by Nicholas J. Kiersey and Doug Stokes

International Relations and Non-Western Thought

Imperialism, colonialism and investigations of global modernity

Edited by Robbie Shilliam

Autobiographical International Relations

I, IR

Edited by Naeem Inayatullah

War and Rape

Law, memory and justice

Nicola Henry

Madness in International Relations

Psychology, security and the global governance of mental health

Alison Howell

Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt

Geographies of the nomos

Edited by Stephen Legg

Politics of Urbanism

Seeing like a city

Warren Magnusson

Politics of Urbanism

Seeing like a city

Warren Magnusson

First published 2011

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Warren Magnusson

The right of Warren Magnusson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Magnusson, Warren, 1947

Politics of urbanism : seeing like a city / Warren Magnusson.

p. cm. (Interventions)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-415-78241-8 ISBN 978-0-203-80889-4 1. Municipal government.

2. City-states. 3. CommunitiesPolitical aspects. I. Title.

JS78.M237 2011

320.85dc22

2011001037

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-78241-8 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-203-80889-4 (ebk)

Contents

Acknowledgements

I began this book in the context of a joint project with Rob Walker on Ontologies of the Political. The project was financed by a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), which enabled us to host two productive workshops, at the University of Victoria and Keele University respectively. I am grateful both to SSHRC and to the participants in the workshops, whose contributions stimulated my own thinking: Richard Ashley, Andrew Barry, Didier Bigo, Michael Brown, Mitchell Dean, Michael Dillon, Sakari Hnninen, Christine Helliwell, Barry Hindess, Engin Isin, Timothy Luke, Karena Shaw, Hidemi Suganami, Mariana Valverde, and Reg Whitaker. As usual, Robs and my conversations were of immense assistance, and he provided helpful comments on various parts of the book manuscript as it progressed. Arthur Kroker also commented on the first draft of the book, as did a number of my present and former students, especially Jen Bagelman, Ilan Baron, Andrea B. Gill, Simon Glezos, Maria Koblanck, Sbastien Malette, James Rowe, and Delacey Tedesco. Serena Kataoka, Nick Montgomery, and Mark Willson helped me directly or indirectly with my local investigations, and stimulated me through their own work. I also profited from comments on papers I delivered at the Urban Affairs Association, Conference for the Study of Political Thought, Canadian Political Science Association, Western Political Science Association, Pacific Northwest Political Science Association, BC Political Studies Association, and American Association of Geographers. Routledges anonymous reviewers made many helpful suggestions that guided me in my final round of revisions. The University of Victorias Department of Political Science has provided a supportive environment for this research, and its Interdisciplinary Programme in Cultural, Social and Political Thought (CSPT) has enabled me to make connections with faculty and students in many different departments. I owe a great deal to my students, both graduate and undergraduate, and I hope that this book will be of some help to them in their ongoing reflections on the puzzle of politics.