Analysing development to shape the future

This article links theory and politics in a systematic way by proposing Is-Shall-Do as a didactical model for analysing a concrete conjuncture, relating it to the desired future in the form of a concrete utopia. Aware of structural limits and potential space of manoeuvre for political agency adequate practical steps to implement the concrete utopia are elaborated. The paper is divided in a first section which exposes three interwoven aspects of development: the the idea of a good life, the complexity and multi-dimensionality of development and the relationship of knowledge and power. Section two exposes the model of Is-Shall-Do abstractly, while section 3 exemplifies it by exposing the challenges for the European left. The analysis of conjuncture as a concrete analysis of a concrete situation is centred in Europe today on the topic of inequality produced by finance-based accumulation. As the concrete utopia of a good life , the authors propose the values of the French revolution, freedom, equality and solidarity which are unfulfilled promises of European development. The paper ends with a plea for organising democratic and egalitarian alternatives. (...) (authors' abstract)Series: SRE - Discussion Paper

Housing Cooperatives and Social Capital: The Case of Vienna

Drawing on the case of Vienna, the article examines the role of third sector housing for social cohesion in the city. With the joint examination of an organisational and an institutional level of housing governance, the authors apply an interdisciplinary, multi-level research approach which aims at contributing to a comprehensive understanding of social cohesion as a contextualised phenomenon which requires place-based as well as structural (multi-level) solutions. Using a large-scale household survey and interviews with key informants, the analysis shows an ambiguous role housing cooperatives play for social cohesion: With the practice of “theme-oriented housing estates”, non-profit housing returns to the traditional cooperative principle of Gemeinschaft. However, community cooperatives rather promote homogenous membership and thus, encompass the danger to establish cohesive islands that are cut off from the rest of the city. Furthermore, given the solidarity-based housing regime of Vienna, fostering bonding social capital on the neighbourhood level, might anyway just be an additional safeguarding mechanism for social cohesion. More important is the direct link between the micro-level of residents and the macro-level of urban housing policy. In this respect, cooperative housing represents a crucial intermediate level that strengthens the linking social capital of residents and provides opportunity structures for citizen participation. However, the increasing adoption of a corporate management orientation leads to a hollowing out of the cooperative principle of democratic member participation, reducing it to an informal and non-binding substitute. Thus, it is in the responsibility of both managements and residents to revitalise the existing democratic governance structures of cooperative housing before they will be completely dismantled by market liberalization and privatization. In contrast to other European cities, third sector housing in Vienna has the potential to give residents a voice beyond the neighbourhood and the field of housing.Social Housing, Third Sector Housing, Housing Cooperatives, Social Cohesion, Social Capital, Governance

Emancipatory economic deglobalisation: a Polanyian perspective

The article explores the potential of a Polanyian analysis for overcoming the current Manichean opposition between cosmopolitan globalizers and reactionary nationalists. For long, Karl Polanyi has inspired socio-economic thinking in different ways. First, his reflections on the end of the first period of globalization in the 1930s offer insights for analysing the current political-economic situation. Furthermore, Polanyi contributes to an institutional analysis and utopian thinking towards a civilization for all. His approach enables a combination of a critique of current neoliberal globalization as a renewed version of the "liberal Utopia" with a cultural and ecological critique of capitalism as a mode of production and living. In this respect, Karl Polanyi may be contrasted to Friedrich Hayek, both contemporaries of Red Vienna, an ambitious project of local socialism as a step towards a "good life for all". The social and cultural struggles in Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s offer insights for current confrontations worldwide, but especially in Brazil where the reformist attempts of civilizing capitalism where confronted with severe opposition. Instead of the false polarization between globalization and nationalism, policies "for the select few" are opposed to policies "for all". Finally, Polanyi's reflections will be used to shed light onto the current impasse resulting from the illegitimate deposition of president Dilma Rousseff

Transformative Social Innovation

This paper presents transformative social innovation as a specific type of social innovation which attempts avoiding the trap of being used by the neoliberal mainstream. Unfortunately, utilizing social innovations to strengthen the "human face of neoliberalism" has become a real threat since the Barroso Commission has embraced social innovation as a panacea to solve the social crisis resulting from the financial breakdown in 2008. In this approach, social innovation has increasingly been reduced to a recipe of fostering social entrepreneurship and creating quasi-markets (Jenson, 2015, p. 101), thereby promoting an "enabling welfare state" which uses the creativity and personal commitment of its citizens (Bureau of European Policy Advisors, 2010: 7). In current social innovation policies, attention focuses on the space of manoeuvre of deliberate agency, often by social entrepreneurs or "change maker", to implement "piecemeal changes" in the short run, like improving language skills of migrants or reintegrating of long-term unemployed into the labour market. Nobody can object to "doing more with less" in the form of cost-and resource efficient responses in times of ecological crisis and fiscal constraints. Nor can one oppose incentives for active citizenship in a "participation society". However, these efforts have become increasingly problematic, as a one-sided concern with measureable social impact, offering quick and visible solutions, has impeded to reflect on the deeper causes of the current multiple crises. But without understanding causes, agency can neither grasp important dimensions of a problem nor identify potentials. It, therefore, tends to remain ineffective. This recalls the "old saying that 'when it comes to practicality, nothing beats a good theory" (Danermark, Ekström, Jakobsen, & Karlsson, 2005, p. 187f) - and a good theory of capitalist modernisation is prerequisite for all types of emancipatory agency. In this paper, I will first quickly present attempts at elaborating a more radical version of social innovation that aims at tackling causes, including unequal power relations and systemic elements of capitalist market economies. Frank Moulaert and his colleagues, the research project TRANSIT and Mangabeira Unger offer different analyses for identifying the transformative potential of social innovations. Based on these contributions, I will present my understanding of transformative social innovations, grounding it in Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, critical realism and transdisciplinarity.Series: SRE - Discussion Paper

A Good Life for all - A European development model

This working paper analyses the potentialities of an eco-solidarian development model for Europe by mobilising theories and experiences from Latin America. The argument is based on a didactical analysis in three parts: Is-Shall-Do. In a first step, the dysfunctional neoliberal regulation in Europe will be analysed. In a second step, the good life for all is presented as a concrete utopia, inspired from Latin America. This utopia polarizes movement, classes und proposals especially with respect to a decision on whether the good life shall be realized "for the few" or "for all". In a third step, the challenges for a pluralistic search movement to implement this great transformation will be analysed. (author's abstract)Series: SRE - Discussion Paper

Die gegenwärtige Krise

Series: SRE - Discussion Paper

"What about organisations in regional science?" Organisationsbezogene Elemente der Stadt- und Regionalentwicklungstheorie

Series: IIR-Discussion Paper

Sharing the liberal utopia. The case of Uber in France and the US

This article takes the case of Uber, a global platform specialized in transport technologies, to reappraise the claims of the sharing economy. The case presents a chronology of the struggles over the regulation of these digital markets in the US and France, using Uber's self-description and web discourse for additional illustrative purposes. It exposes Uber's business model, the key driving actors and their strategies as well as multi-scalar counter movements. The analysis is framed from a Hayekian and a Polanyian perspective, and the potential of the sharing economy to go beyond market fundamentalism. The Polanyian utopia of sharing as more than market relations based on self-interest is mobilized for legitimizing the platform. The Hayekian utopia of a market society which transforms social relations of friendship and community service into market activities is describing actual development. Finally, Polanyian "counter movements" are described and their potentials are discussed.Series: SRE - Discussion Paper