Libertarian municipalism

Before explaining the concept of new municipalism it is important to briefly identify its origin. Libertarian municipalism aims to democratise municipal governance by building and empowering neighbourhood assemblies to make decisions about improving’ the provision of certain basic goods and services (Shelley, 2024). In libertarian municipalism, neighbourhood assemblies also build the confidence that individuals need to reach localised and personal goals. Hence, people become more motivated to participate in political affairs on a local scale as opposed to national and international forms of participation.

This devolution of governance from the state level to the local level stems from Bookchin’s (1992) ideas of a completely non-hierarchical, stateless society, as his most radical vision, and “a living educational arena for developing an active citizenry” (Shelley, 2024, p. 235) as the pragmatic process of re-socialisation for  a society with greater levels of political awareness and engagement. Bookchin (1992) argues that “state agents and institutions have degraded the individual as a public being, as a citizen who plays a participatory role in the operations of his or her community.” (p. 228).

New municipalism

The more recent term, New Municipalism (NM), builds on Bookchin’s theory of the the democratic autonomy of municipalities and the concept of self-government at the local level. The municipality is understood as a strategic site for developing a transformative and prefigurative politics for realising social justice. In part as a reaction to failures of neoliberal state policies, especially with regard to the global financial crisis which was in essence an urban crisis, NM aspires to a socialist and transformative urbanism that may challenge the hegemony of capitalist urbanisms (Thompson, 2021): “From mid-2015, across most major Spanish cities, citizen platforms such as Barcelona en Comú took control of local authorities through ‘dual power’ strategies that successfully mobilised the power of anti-austerity social movements to elect progressive candidates to municipal office” (p.321).

The popular Barcelona case showed the potential of citizen platforms at the city level influencing institutions, transforming municipal governance and advancing progressive policy agendas. NM can therefore be considered as a counter-hegemonic movement contesting traditional party politics by strategically using the local scale for the redistribution of economic and political power. NM blurs the lines between state and civil society by mobilising citizen engagement, and the resources of communities. Russel (2019) explains that accessibility to direct change, which is palpable at the local level, can be defined as the “politics of proximity” through which NM aims to bolster the capacity of societies to govern themselves. However, there is also a danger of overemphasising the benefits of the local scale, a predicament expressed as the ‘local trap’, as localisation can also lead to less democratic outcomes (Russell, 2019). In the end, NM may not be able to significantly influence housing policy solely through citizen engagement and the decentralisation of decision-making process. Taking  into consideration “the strong capacity of neoliberalism to integrate dissident discourses” (Janoschka & Mota, 2020, p. 15), the state level may be also necessary to address the underlying causes of socio-environmental injustices which emanate from sources well beyond the local scale.