Geography 352

1

• Geography 352
• Urbanization in the Global South
• Jim Glassman
• Lecture 12, February 12

2
Political struggles and urbanization

• Workers as potential revolutionaries (liberals
  and Marxists)
• Greater resources of urban-industrial regions
• Greater power/organization of urban workers
• Ambiguities of the historical record
• Revolutions as having urban base?
• Revolutions as having rural base?

3
Does urbanization undercut possibilities for
revolution?

• Informal sector as barrier
• New (slightly) higher wage and consumption
  opportunities in city keep rural in-migrants
  occupied without opportunities for organization
• Remittances to rural areas help undercut rural
  immiseration and revolutionary politics while
  providing some goods for city and new streams of
  in-migrants
• Process of involution

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Does urbanization undercut possibilities for
revolution? (cont.)

• The city as a site of political surveillance
• The city as a site of co-optive politics

6
The weakness of organized labor, left parties in
the Global South

• Lack of social democratic alternatives on the
  periphery
• Effects of the Cold War (authoritarian regimes)

7
Populist politics and cities in the Global South

• What is populism?
• Populism and political bosses
• Populism and political demobilization
• Contradictions and limits of the attempt to
  demobilize urban populations
• Neo-liberal populism
• Urbanization, populism, and unions

8
Economic contradictions of populism

• Subsidized transportation and its contradictions
• Low fares important to urban poor
• Low fares may limit investment in upgrading
• Public housing and its contradictions
• Low cost housing important to urban poor
• Low cost housing may attract more in-migrants and
  overburden existing housing stock, leading to
  more squatter settlements

9
What is democracy?

• Participation?
• Representation?
• Multi-party elections?
• Equality?
• Will of the majority?
• A thing (institution) or a process
  (democratization)?

10
Differing perspectives on democracy and politics

• Philosophical liberals (separation of politics
  and economics)
• Philosophical radicals (politics/economics/culture
  interpenetrate)
• Feminist theorists (gender a distinct axis of
  political power)

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Liberals on democracy

• Modernization theorists (e.g., Huntington)
• Neo-liberals (e.g., IMF)
• Latin American structuralists/neo-Weberians
  (e.g., Lee Kwan Yew)

12
Modernization theorists on democracy

• Military dictatorship necessary during transition
• Growth of democracy with modernization and
  development of middle class
• Insulation of technocracy from politics

13
Neo-liberals on democracy

• Minimal government?
• Decentralization?
• Insulation of technocracy from politics

14
Latin American structuralists and neo-Weberians
on democracy

• Strong state (and ISI or EOI) necessary to
  development
• Military dictatorship sometimes endorsed
• Populist politics?

15
Marxists on democracy

• Fundamentalist Marxists (e.g., Marx, Stalin)
• Maoists/dependency theorists (e.g., Mao, Frank)
• World systems theorists (e.g., Taylor,
  Wallerstein)

16
Fundamentalist Marxists on democracy

• State always intervenes expresses class
  struggle
• State must be democratized through worker
  struggle
• Stalinist endorsement of dictatorship of
  proletariat

17
Maoists/dependency theorists on democracy

• State always intervenes expresses both class
  struggle and dominance of global core
• State cant be democratized without de-linking
  and socialist revolution
• Endorsement of national/popular struggles, role
  of peasants

18
World systems theorists on democracy

• State always intervenes expresses both class
  struggle and position in world system
• State cant easily be democratized (in liberal
  terms) within periphery or semi-periphery
• Minimal endorsement of national/popular
  struggles emphasis on need to change world system

19
Feminists on democracy

• Varieties of feminist politics
• The personal is political
• Gender politics and development in urbanizing
  countries