City government in an age of austerity

Discursive institutions and critique

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4138942
AutoresChris Fuller (0000-0002-8399-7963, Cardiff University, autor de correspondencia), Crispian Fuller
Año2017
Volumen49
Número4
Páginas745-766
Fecha de publicación2017-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0308518x16684139
OpenAlexW2584554334
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas20
Referencias citadas57

Austerity is an increasingly important feature of urban society in Western countries, both as a site interwoven with the crisis tendencies of capitalism and as spaces mitigating austerity programmes instigated by nation states. Cities have therefore become key spaces in the mediation of 'austerity urbanism', but where such processes involve deliberation, making the production of consensus highly problematic. Such tendencies require far greater intellectual sensitivity towards the practices of agents as they seek to enact social control and coordination, as well as subordinate resistance and critique. 'Pragmatist Sociology' is utilised in this paper to examine the construction and deployment of discursive institutions seeking to control the behaviour of actors, including reducing critique, with the intention of legitimising austerity programmes. Such discursive institutions establish semantic links between the discursive aims of those seeking to control and the pragmatics of the everyday lives of those subject to such institutions. The paper seeks to examine, first, through a case study of an English city, how key decision-makers construct discursive institutions in the implementation of austerity and subordination of resistance and, second, the actual practices of resisting austerity. In conclusion, the paper finds that austerity governance is characterised by discursive austerity institutions based on market and bureaucratic values, where large-scale critique has been marginalised, resulting in minor forms of critique in the everyday, and compounded by constant efforts at the reconfirmation of discursive institutions

Austerity · Capitalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Public Administration · Urban Planning and Governance