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New Urban Movement as an Emerging Field in Poland Anna Domaradzka, University of Warsaw Filip Wijkström, Stockholm School of Economics draft version for ISA Conference, Yokohama 2014 In this paper we’re proposing a field theory approach to the social movement research and analysis. We use an example of emerging Polish urban grassroots’ movement to illustrate the application of the new theoretical framework, defined by Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam in their recent book “A Theory of Fields” (2012). With more than half of the world’s population living in cities, and our lives becoming increasingly globalized, many important social conflicts nowadays concern urban issues, or are at least played out in urban contexts. They often center around spatial and social segregation, and put the searchlight on gentrification processes pushing low income-‐groups to the city margins. At the same time, many public spaces are deteriorating, or being privatized and shaped by capital and commercial interests rather than citizens and public will, making the cities less livable and less answering to the needs of their inhabitants. Such processes, we argue, lead to emergence of new global social movements such as “Right to the City”. Up to now, however, we believe urban social movements haven’t been paid sufficient attention, neither by social movement theorists nor in civil society studies in general. Since 2008 we observed the intensification of grassroots’ neighborhood activism also in a number of Polish major cities, along with popularization of the Lefebvre’s idea of the “right to the city” among urban activists (Lefebvre 1968, Harvey 2012). Urban grassroots activism also became an important and visible part of polish third sector, while remaining strongly embedded in the specific context of big cities and the problems of their inhabitants. With a number of international actors on global level promoting the ideas of “placemaking” and people’s “right to the city”, Poland becomes a country where a new and very dynamic urban movement is inspired by specific local problems fused with external influence. We argue that both the space and the demand for the emerging movement and its new actors are shaped by the engagement of local leaders and neighborhood activists around “concrete narrative” of everyday needs (Mergler 2008), as well as through the inspiration of internationally connected “norm entrepreneurs” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), linking and translating the global dispute over the right to the city and related causes to more local issues. The paper discusses both the genesis of the neighborhood movement in Polish cities (with the focus on Warsaw) and the role it plays nowadays, when, due to the weakening of the welfare state, neither local nor central government is able to satisfy the changing needs of different social groups. In this context, local civil society actors, like neighborhood associations and community groups, play an increasingly important role in-‐between the retreating city administration and the expanding corporate actors in providing better and more efficient solutions for local problems as well as in strengthening democratic mechanisms at the city
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level, but also in the provision of new ideas, norms and models for how to shape the future of urban areas. We specifically focus on understanding the dynamics of this emerging urban movement and the importance and role of its wider international as well as national context. We argue that the visibility of the ideas and actors of the new urban movement is the result of growing severity of urban problems as well as a rising awareness of cities’ inhabitants – as individuals as well as in groups – willing to participate in the city governance (in a wider understanding of the concept) and striving to become important forces on the “urban scene”. Furthermore, we claim that this process and the resulting new actors, although very diverse in nature, can be described, understood and explained by using a recently developed framework for field theory and analysis (Fligstein and McAdam 2011; 2012) – Strategic Action Fields (see theory section). We posit that this phenomenon is both a reaction to an overarching dominance of general neo-‐liberal rules of city planning and an example of more global urban trends adapted to local needs through civic engagement, in particular through the interpretation and translation work provided by local “norm entrepreneurs”, to speak with Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, see theory section). We use qualitative data from observations, content analysis and in-‐depth interviews with both local and international key urban activists in Warsaw and other Polish cities, as well as with various local experts in the field, to examine the processes that shape the new and emerging movement and its early development in Poland. Withdrawing “welfare city” Twenty-‐five years after the transformation and the fall of the communist regime led by “Solidarity” movement, Poland suffers from similar pains as other European Union countries. The demographic changes as well as low economic growth make the previously existing welfare system unsupportable. What makes any type of reform hard is that for many years, Polish welfare system was based on the transfer of low but stable cash benefits to the families and individuals, strengthening the passive attitudes of social aid beneficiaries. Many years of “giving the fish instead of fishing rod” and small emphasis on activization or equalization on the labor market, generated not only budgetary but also long term social costs. While many benefits became dysfunctional in the era of market economy, withdrawing them or at least modifying them would have high political costs. While none of the political parties was willing to take a risk of reforming the system, one of the supposed cures was the decentralization, based on giving the communes more autonomy over organizing local services and social support system. As a result of 1999 administrative reform, and with direct relevance for the urban scene, three levels of local government were introduced. The basic unit of local government, gmina, was considerably empowered, assuming many governmental functions previously controlled by the central government. Gmina council is elected in separate elections, it controls communal property, and has its own revenue base. Other introduced units were powiat (county) and województwo (voivodship or province). They took over tasks formerly performed by the state institutions, mainly in education and healthcare. New system delegated welfare responsibilities to the local and self-‐governing bodies, to ensure better embeddedness of services in the communities, but also to lower the cost of the centralized policies. Fifteen years after the administrative reform, in context of urbanizing Polish society, we can argue that the decentralization of welfare responsibilities translated into creation of local welfare regimes, dependent on the economical as well as political situation of the city. Most of
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the cities, however, did not manage to bridge the gap between the withdrawing welfare model on the state level and the arising needs of the urban residents. Theorists (Harvey 2012, Nawratek 2012) as well as practitioners (Krier 2009) emphasize that at the roots of the urban crisis is the fact that city government withdraws from its role of the main investor in the urban space, and so this role is taken over by private commercial investors or international corporations whose main objective is to maximize profits. Because of the global capital’s supra-‐national nature, these investors have no linkages to the local community and thus do not care about long-‐term social effects of their investments, focusing instead on the immediate returns. As a result, the quality and accessibility of urban space is increasingly often shaped not by the city planners or local residents, but by international investors and developers, whose growing importance started to raise public opposition. Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that existing local governments and social organizations were not able to deal with deteriorating quality of public space as well as quality of life of urban dwellers, and therefore new ways and practices of expressing “urban resistance” (Wybieralski 2014) emerged. In other words, the growing crisis of the welfare state and the inability of state administration – as well as the disinterest of the expanding of private commercial interests – to solve the mounting social problems have lead to an increased self-‐organization of residents who decide to take care of their problems themselves, without waiting for either public institutions or private corporations to provide relevant solutions. This activization often takes form of local and neighborhood groups or initiatives that are directly focused on improving quality of life in the given area of the city. Using the example of cities like Warsaw, Poznan, Kraków or Gdańsk, we can say that the domination of the traditional technocratic model of (public) urban management hit the metaphorical wall of civil disappointment. The fact, that some of the public investments are more oriented towards attracting outside investors and developers than serving the residents’ more current and immediate needs, has created a widespread frustration, which surfaced in the form of the Polish version of the “right to the city” movement, as described by Lefebvre (1968) and more recently Harvey (2012). We argue, that one of the main signs of the transformation in Poland is this fission, when the traditional methods of governance and service provision doesn't fit the present needs, and the new system is not yet in place. However, this situation empowered local civil society actors, taking up responsibilities of the local government in many areas of social policy, either as subcontractors, alternative or sole suppliers of specific services. The withdrawing welfare city entailed the wide mobilization of the social initiatives, which try to come up with solutions to most pressing social needs, like access to daycares, affordable housing or friendly public space. Meanwhile, however, the cities’ governments took up the role of the country “engines of growth”, investing in infrastructure and services, to attract multinational investors and developers. As social activist argues, the result of this business-‐centered policies, was neglecting the needs of the residents and primary users of the city. Raising urban movement In this context, grassroots civil initiatives became an important voice that is advocating for needs of the residents as well as alternative to insufficient public policies, and filling the gaps in cities services, thus acting both as norm entrepreneurs and small-‐scale service providers. In this way, we observe how emerging civil society actors have been active in a renewed negotiation of the future of the city and – in different ways and with various methods – opened up the discussion about the rules and principles for the future development of the city.
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This growing importance of the “urban issues” is reflected in the visible increase of social activity at the neighborhood level in many Polish cities. As our qualitative data shows, this mobilization is a result of unfulfilled residents' needs – both new and traditional. While it affects the quality of life of residents in a direct way it also causes increased interest in local affairs and therefore generates social capital. However, if we’ll take into account the scope of the grassroots mobilization and its geographical dispersion, we can talk about local initiatives being a part of a broader social movement (new urban movement). This movement, we will describe and analyze using the Fligstein and McAdam fields’ theory approach. For the purpose of this analysis we define the new urban movement as the recently growing different forms of civic engagement in the cities and about the cities, focused on representing the rights and needs of residents. Its main distinctive feature is that the individual initiatives are very local and focused on specific problems or needs of local communities. One of the local movement leaders, Lech Mergler, refers to it as the “cities residents’ involvement promoting their own essential needs and interests, as belonging to the residents of the city, carried out in the city and through the city” (Mergler 2008: 15). Another trait of urban initiatives is their hybridity (Kurnicki 2013) in terms of both the different civil society organizational forms they represent (formal associations and foundations, informal grassroots initiatives and neighborhood groups, electoral committees etc.) and the mixture of topics they tend to specialize in (e.g. transport and ecology, education and social services, culture and democratization, etc.). Although local grassroots activity has a longer history (some of it dating pre-‐war, other emerging soon after the fall of the communism), many of the local initiatives in Poland started to mushroom only in the last decade. For example, one of the more established and known neighborhood initiatives is Smolna Street Residents Association, which was established in Warsaw in 2001 and quickly became a role model for many similar initiatives. Another important organization was Association My-‐Poznaniacy, established in 2007 in Poznań, and the first organization to engage in legal struggles around planned development of city parks (mainly “Rataje” and “Sołacki” parks) with the city hall as well as systematic monitoring of the city planning activities. The Right to the City Association that emerged from My-‐Poznaniacy Association in 2013, still works on the local level, but is also the main co-‐organizer of Urban Movements Congress – an informal national network of local grassroots’ initiatives – as well as a leading actor in building the movement know-‐how and network potential. Various urban initiatives emerged as a reaction to the “investment boom” of the last decade, on the wave of city development that – according to interviewed urban activists – violated the “urban tissue” and existing social relations. They argue that a new type of grassroots organizations was set off by these processes, bringing people together around new problems and issues and doing it in a new way, since they were neither political parties nor highly formalized NGOs (Mergler, Pobłocki, Wudarski 2013). Although the postulates are sometimes of a very general nature, these kinds of initiatives mainly grows from the need to protect material interests of cities’ residents, whose quality of life is threatened by the growing dominance of developers’ interests and a parallel lack of public solutions that would guarantee and safe-‐guard a more long-‐term development of the cities. The phase of Poland’s accession to the European Union was, according to Mergler (2008), crucial in terms of urban mobilization. It was a period of the investment process revival, with private housing developments dominating the housing market and business infrastructure growing by the day. As Merger argues, this period of rapid growth led to commercialization of thinking about the city, where city was defined as “a limited liability company” rather than community of residents, entrepreneurs and service providers. This trend coincided with the lack of long-‐term urban planning strategies, which, according to Mergler, resulted in a
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growing chaos in city development. As residents soon discovered, the local authorities were practically unable to solve the problems of urban development, given the existing resources and legal tools. Therefore, the grassroots’ urban movements started to emerge, to express the political interests of the local urban population, which no one else would take care of, as well as to solve some of the more pressing needs of its citizens. These different initiatives first started as sporadic and very local initiatives, usually limited to a single neighborhood, street or even building. They progressively became more numerous and more global in their scope. However, only in the recent years, scholars as well as politicians have begun paying attention to the increased activity of urban movement. The big change came around 2008, when the self-‐organization and consolidation of local urban actions into a more consolidated social (urban) movement begun, creating a nation-‐wide interest group, acting not only on the city level, but also visible and recognized on the national level. The main manifestation of this consolidation was the already mentioned Urban Movements Congress, which was established in 2011. As an earlier study by Kowalewski (2013) indicates, the Congress was a tool for building a common urban movement ideology. The main aim of the Congress was to achieve a real change in urban policy, through lobbing for more democracy in cities decision-‐making processes. The Congress helped strengthening the lobbing abilities of urban activists in different cities, through building a wide support network of activists as well as experts on different urban issues. Overcoming the dispersion of the urban initiatives and organizations, created the opportunity for organized effort to press for a real change in legislation as well as practices of municipalities. It was, in a way, a show of strength of urban local activists and their organizational platforms, which made them visible to both local and central government. An important quality of the urban movement initiatives and organizations comes from their independence from public funds. As many critics of Polish civil society observed, Poland experiences growing NGO-‐ization and co-‐optation of civic sector (Korolczyk 2011, Jacobsson 2013). High level of dependence on (very limited) public funds is one of the major weaknesses of the Polish third sector, which not only risk silencing the potential whistle-‐blowers, but also creates fierce rivalry among civil society organizations that feel that they have to compete for the limited resources offered by public sources. Lack of alternative to public funding (with public institutions also being the most important intermediaries in EU funding programs) gives public bodies a strong control mechanism over potential “trouble-‐makers”. However, one can now talk about NGO-‐ization backlash, when the growing number of neighborhood groups and initiatives illustrate the shift from representative democracy toward direct democracy, based on the growing engagement of individuals and informal groups. Many of the urban initiatives are very critical toward so-‐called NGOs, defined as formal organizations with more of a clientelistic approach toward public institutions and serving mostly as a subcontractor of various social services for municipalities. The distinction is fuzzy, because both NGOs and urban movement organizations share the same legal status, and there are possible overlaps. From the urban activists’ point of view, however, there seem to be an important distinction between new urban movement organizations and informal groups on the one hand, that in a very classical way claim that they will maintain their grassroot character and today are very much focused on solving the local issues, and on the other hand the growing number of NGOs active in the same cities, but focusing on service-‐ provision and fund-‐raising rather than direct representation of residents’ needs. Therefore different types of organizations, that are a result of residents’ various sense of responsibility for their city, remain at the core of the urban movement: “... for some reason, in a given time and in case of certain issue, some residents, motivated by a sense of responsibility for their city become engaged in a dispute with
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the city administration in the name of the future of the city. Starting point being their critical evaluation of the substantial part of the administration’s concept about how the city should be organized, and the fact that the administration didn’t try to consult their ideas with residents to a satisfactory degree.” (Mergler 2008: 15). To summarize, social activity at the local or neighborhood level visibly increased in Polish cities in the last ten years, as a result of changing and unfulfilled residents’ needs as well as threats to their quality of life. It is also a symptom of growing willingness of residents to engage in creating the future of the city instead of remaining passive consumers of the city offer (or as some activists would put it – passive victims of the lack of it). The initiatives themselves positively affect the quality of life of residents and increase their interest in local affairs, which, in turn, generates social capital, visibly strengthening local communities. As we argue here, the synergy of all the mushrooming neighborhood activity has the potential to result in an emergence of a broader social movement (new urban movement), which quickly has become an important actor in “the game of the city”. Data from World Values Survey waves 2005 and 2012 for Poland well illustrates the aforementioned increase in several areas of local activism. Figure 1 shows the percentage of adult Poles declaring that they took part in some type of neighborhood activity in the last two years. Types of activities include discussion concerning local area, meeting of local residents, action to improve local area, meeting of housing cooperative, and meeting of local council. Lines show the difference between 2005 and 2012 data, illustrating a significant increase in local activity recorded between 2005 and 2012 in all age groups. Interestingly, this increase is even more visible in population of people aged 50 and more. Figure 1. Did you in last two years participated in...? (%, WVS 2005, 2012)
Source: World Values Survey data from 2005 and 2012 for Poland (country specific questions, not available in the international dataset). Bars show results for 2005 data, lines indicate results for 2012. Polish part of the project coordinated by the team of Renata Siemieńska (PI) and Anna Domaradzka.
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Quantitative data also suggesting that the population 50+ engage more often in local activity and is a driving force of Polish new neighborhood movement is corroborated by the qualitative research. Interviews with local leaders as well as observation and press analysis show that usually older adults are behind the phenomenon of mushrooming local initiatives, neighborhood groups and organizations. Most of the interviewed local leaders were 50+ and described their civic engagement as a way to deal with low quality of life in urban environment and everyday problems connected with changing life style or ageing (in case of seniors). Also, some of them expressed the need to protect they propriety (house or flat) value, through taking responsibility of the neighborhood future development. Same research data suggest (WVS 2005, 2012) that one of the important factors that leads to residents’ activization is also the lack of trust in public institutions and historically reinforced conviction that delegation of tasks to outside institutions does not bring appropriate solutions (Siemieńska, Domaradzka, Matysiak 2011). We argue that belief that given problem can be solved only through personal involvement is an important catalyst in formation of the grassroots movements in Poland. However, this general lack of trust makes it difficult to collaborate with local government as well as to form larger coalitions among the initiatives and formal CSOs. This usually leads to fragmentation of these movements, which however seems not to be the case of the urban movement. Theoretical framework While analyzing the short history of Polish urban movement we use the framework of Fligstein and McAdam (2012) theory of fields as well as the writing by Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) on norm entrepreneurs, to allow for better understanding of this new phenomena and stipulate about its future development. According to fields’ theory approach, an institutional (organizational) field is defined by the relationships and interactions between actors who share a common understanding of the field, its rules and purposes, although they do not have to share the same values or ambitions. On the contrary, the organizational field is often understood as a field of contestation. Along one of the most promising (Martin 2003) lines in field theory, in our main theoretical reference for this paper – Fligstein and McAdam (2012) – the authors consider the field as a game, struggle or even battle with a particular set of rules. They define this “Strategic Action Field” (SAF) as a “constructed mesolevel social order in which actors (who can be individual or collective) are attuned to and interact with one another on the basis of shared (which is not to say consensual) understandings about the purposes of the field, relationships to others in the field (including who has power and why), and the rules governing legitimate action in the field” (Fligstein and McAdam 2012: 9). In this way they solve the challenge of “understanding the field’s ability to provide goals while being the site for conflict” (Martin 2003: 31). For the sake of this paper, it is important to note that “the struggle is both over and within the rules” thus opening up not only for rule-‐obedience in the but also rule-‐alterations or even challenges: “When patterns of conduct are recognized by actors as forms of regularity, conformity or nonconformity to the pattern, whatever advantages or disadvantages may also follow, has semiotic import […] Like a poet breaking meter for emphasis, players break the rules precisely because they are rules” (Martin 2003: 31). In their approach, Fligstein and McAdam place emphasis on various types of collective actors, the dynamics for how different fields change, as well as on the broader inter-‐field environment and the importance of over-‐ lapping or adjacent fields. On the question of how fields develop, they highlight both the interaction of the incumbent-‐challenger relationship and exogenous shocks. As a result, their theory adopts a process approach to change, according to which SAF might be found in three different states: in formation, stability or crisis. For the sake of this paper, we will focus on
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actors in a particular field of urban unrest in Poland, that we studied in detail using Warsaw case studies of grassroots’ initiatives. We argue, that this particular field is emerging at least partly as a result of an earlier exogenous shock brought on by the shift from communist regime to capitalistic paradigm in Poland. Consequently, we show how it can be interpreted as a sign of social transition in terms of values and collective behavior, 25 years after the crumble of the Soviet bloc and the fall of the communist regime. Given the qualitative case study methodology used in our research, the field theory approach is perfectly suitable, due to its special situational character. As Martin describes it: “Field theory […] emphasizes that the regularity comes at the level of the situation and that the further one goes into a particular case, the more revealing it will be of general principles” (Martin 2003: 35). Another strength of the field theory approach developed by Fligstein and McAdam is that it is able to cater for an analysis of multiple or overlapping fields influencing each other. The embeddedness of SAFs is one of the central insights brought forward by the authors in their writing: “Fields do not exist in a vacuum. They have relations with other strategic action fields and these relations powerfully shape the developmental history of the field. […] The relations between strategic action fields are of three types: unconnected, hierarchical or dependent and reciprocal or interdependent” (Fligstein and McAdam 2012: 59). One particularly important type of field identified is the state field, or rather the approach to view the state as a system of strategic action fields. The state and its capacity and claim to exercise sovereignty means that state fields have huge potential to shape the prospects and possibilities for change as well as stability, although the stability of even the most powerful state depends at least in part on the support it derives from incumbents that control certain key nonstate fields” (Fligstein and McAdam 2012: 67). Finally, central to this particular strand of field theory stands the idea of Internal Governance Units (IGUs), which is a special type of actor “charged with overseeing compliance with field rules and, in general, facilitating the overall smooth functioning and reproduction of the system” (Fligstein and McAdam 2012: 13-‐14). These units are internal to the particular field and thus distinct from, for example, external state or government structures that hold jurisdiction over all the SAF. In overseeing the system, IGUs free the other actors, the incumbents, from the kind of overall field management and leadership that they necessarily exercise themselves during the emergence or entrepreneurial phase of a field. In this, they “ensure the routine stability and order of the strategic action field” (ibid., 77). The sole existence of these units also serves to legitimize the rules of the field at the same time as they are standardizing and providing information about the field and its actors. Finally, they often act as the liaison between the SAF in case and other, adjacent or external, fields. From Finnemore and Sikkink (1998), and to complement the breaking-‐the-‐rules possibility stressed by Martin (2003) as discussed above, with a changing-‐the-‐rules strategy in the more general model suggested by Fligstein and McAdam (2012) we borrow the idea of a kind of “life cycle“ of norms in three stages, where the “norm entrepreneur” has its most important role to play in the first stage. In the writings of Fligstein and McAdam, the concept of “challenger” is used for the kind of actor that brings system dynamics, change or even rupture to the field. However, we consider this type of norm-‐enhancement or -‐provision so central that we prefer a special term for this type of challenger. In our view, the norm approach provided by Finnemore and Sikkink in-‐itself adds substantially to the analysis of the field dynamics, where the frames and rules of the game are changed or transformed. According to this concept each of the “norm life cycle” stages has its unique origins, conditions under which norms will influence politics as well as its own mechanisms of influence. Although developed originally for international relations analysis, we consider the life-‐cycle model suggested by
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Finnemore and Sikkink suitable also for other types of situations where new norms develop and change the rules of the game. Both the theories put forth by Fligstein and McAdam (2012) and Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) stress their capacities to deal with social change and dynamics. In case of the latter, the first stage, which is the one we claim of most relevance for our analysis, is norm emergence, when norm entrepreneurs are motivated to adopt a norm, either by altruism, empathy, or ideational commitment. These entrepreneurs often use organizations as tools to promote the new norms, either already existing ones or organizations (or organizational platforms, to speak with Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) created specifically for this cause, to persuade others (often governments or other public sector actors) to adopt and promote the new norms. They argue that: “Whatever their platform, norm entrepreneurs and the organizations they inhabit usually need to secure the support of state actors to endorse their norms and make norm socialization a part of their agenda, and different organizational platforms provide different kinds of tools for entrepreneurs to do this.” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 900). These organizations rarely are able to coerce the other actors into adopting a norm – they must negotiate or persuade. Before being able to move onto next stage, the relevant norms must be institutionalized into rules or organizations. Once enough actors have adopted the norm, however, the stage of norm cascade will be entered, during which actors are motivated by a desire to adopt a norm in order to enhance legitimacy or reputation. In this stage, new actors are motivated more by other external actors than local pressure groups led by local norm entrepreneurs. When growing number of actors adopt the new norm, this creates cognitive dissonance between behavior and identity in non-‐ conforming actors. To retain one’s identity, then, one must adopt the norm, if the norm cascading is successful. The final stage is called internalization, where the legal system, professional training, and bureaucratic procedures incorporate the norm. Any remaining non-‐ conforming actors adopt it simply to conform. The norm is now so institutionalized that it becomes a matter of habit and is taken for granted. It becomes part of common knowledge. This institutionalization, however, does not mean that only one possible way forward exists. On the contrary: “Actors may face varied and conflicting rules and norms all making claims for different courses of action. Indeed, most significant political choices are significant and difficult precisely because they involve two or more conflicting claims for action on a decision maker. Actors must choose which rules or norms to follow and which obligations to meet at the expense of others in a given situation, and doing so may involve sophisticated reasoning processes” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 914). Taking this into account, the surprisingly rapid spread of “right to city” ideas in Poland as well as other countries, surely deserves our attention. Emerging field or an old field renegotiated? According to Strategic Action Fields definition we can distinguish several stages of movement formation. First, some specific problems or needs on the local level become an impulse to form a local simple action field. At this stage, when groups of people (in our case neighbors) decide they have a common goal and decide to act on it, different local SAFs emerge independently in multiple localizations across the cities as well as countries. After some time, however, the autonomous local SAFs, emerging around neighborhood leaders and grassroots’ mobilization have a tendency to connect and create small networks, especially if they are located in geographical vicinity (of the same city or a district). Finally, with the growing number of initiatives and/or dominant player entering the field (like leadership organization or networking event), the phase transition takes place. That’s when small local players form a common action field around generalized goal. From that stage, we can talk about shared
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frame for joint action (as defined by Benford and Snow 1988, 2000) and the development of some kind of structure that defines the movement more clearly. In case of many studied local initiatives we can observe the development around those stages, although some of the initiatives remain small scale and focused on the neighborhood level. Most of them, however, developed along the similar lines – from the local particular goal (fix the street, build the playground, clean the graffiti, create a neighborhood garden, stop the unwanted investment) they moved to a more generalized goal or set of values (carrying about immediate urban environment, generating social capital, building local community, promote urban residents’ wellbeing) and finally express a political goal, establishing the new set of norms for the city development. In case of the studied urban movement those political postulates include reclaiming the public space and access to decision-‐making and city planning. As our qualitative data shows, spontaneous initiatives all over Poland were usually emerging as protests against local authorities, after they announced some type of unwanted development, usually at a price of some of the residents’ comfort. When the protest begun, many of the active residents realized that they have no influence over the municipal decisions, and they started to form local coalitions and networks to support their claims. A breakthrough was the organization of first Urban Movements Congress in 2011, which was solely devoted to networking and sharing the experiences between local initiatives. Also, at that moment, the group of pragmatic local activists started to work closely with a group of intellectuals. Some of the intellectuals, we argue, played an important role of norm entrepreneurs (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) at that stage, introducing the idea of the “right to the city” (Lefebvre 1968, Harvey 2012), “uneven development” (Smith 2010) and “deep democracy” (Appadurai 2001) to the discussion. From the practitioners side, the idea of the “concrete narrative”, introduced by Mergler (2008) became a shared motto, readily repeated and used to frame their actions. Those slogans become the part of the shared discourse, resulting in many publications, as well as formulation of Nine City Theses (2011) during the first Congress, including postulates for democratization and decommercialization of cities development strategies. Soon after, the government presented the outline of National Urban Policy, criticized during the second Congress in 2012, which prepared its own proposition of the document tenets. Between the Congresses, the urban movement representatives were lobbing for its cause through publications, social media and events focusing on the problems of the cities and democratic representation at the local level. As a result, at the third Congress in 2013, the head of the Department of Spatial Development Policy presented the state of affairs in respect to the works around National Urban Policy and invited the participants to take part in the series of workshops discussing main topics on which the document is touching upon. It was in accord with the third Congress focus on the issues of further lobbing for legal solutions that would strengthen the citizens’ voice at the local level. The visibility of the urban movement was also strengthened by the series of local referenda organized in several Polish cities, to overthrow city presidents, who lost social support, but managed to stay in power due to the political parties strong influence on local politics. Although most of the referenda were unsuccessful from the point of view of the organizers, they were an important manifestation of power as well as mobilization potential of urban initiatives. Recently, we can talk about a new important development, connected with the upcoming local elections that will take place in November 2014. While we could already observe local activists running for elections in 2010, this time they managed to become serious alternative to the ruling political parties in several cities. Just a week ago (July, 8th 2014) a new election
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committee was publicly announced during a press conference outside Warsaw city hall. Grassroots’ candidates to local councils from six cities decided to create a joint political initiative called Urban Movements Coalition that will support candidates all over Poland in their attempts to be elected. Meanwhile, activists not only seek to become the part of local government, but also decide to take up jobs in the city hall, introducing the movement ideas to its bureaucratic structures. Apart from this growing political engagement, urban movement activities also concentrate around other issues, especially lobbying for urban policy and the introduction of legal changes in favor of democratization and sustainable urban development as well as daily struggle for “every bush and tree, square, school and kindergarten, tram, municipal building, a street, not to mention bigger things – airports, housing, urban highways, incinerators” (Mergler 2008). Those three main notions intertwine and are supported by the intellectual and ideological discussions about urban issues that take place in press and during the numerous meetings in academia as well as practitioners circles. An important part of constructing the social movement, as both Fligstein and McAdam (2011, 2012) and Benford and Snow (1988, 2000) would argue is the definition of boundaries between the movement and its context. This differentiation strategy is visible in some of the writing of urban leaders. Most clearly visible in Mergler (2008) writings, where he enumerates what is not a part of the urban movement: associations of professionals such as planners, architects, specialists in public transport; Association of Polish Cities (or Metropolitan Union); non-‐governmental organizations operating in the city, but not focused on urban issues (e.g. ecological, cultural, charitable associations and foundations); as well as clusters of young academics or intelligentsia active in the media, publishing on urban sociology and urban planning. To put it more broadly, we can say that the urban movements entered the scene with new postulates, answering the burning question also posed by theorists of globalization (Sassen 1996): whose city is it? The first Congress of Urban Movements announced those postulates in the form of “Nine Urban Theses“. Two years later, in 2013, the second thesis about participative budget was already being implemented in many cities across Poland. Thus, what for a long time was considered as an extravagant and exotic Brazilian idea has recently become a widely discussed and implemented instrument of urban governance. Although critics like Bendyk (2013) or Miessen (2013) often point out that this idea may still be not so much a tool of democratization as a safety valve protecting the status quo, this new tool of voicing the needs and preferences of citizens is nevertheless entering into force. It will be an important test not only of the willingness of the local authorities to work with the citizens, but also of the real strength of urban movement and its ability to mobilize people to engage in decisions concerning their own space. This strength is already illustrated in the recent book published by urban movement activists (Mergler, Pobłocki, Wudarski 2013), which lists several more or less successful “battles for space”, describing legal tools available for citizens who want to influence the decision making process or protest against unwanted investments in their city. This know-‐how book is in itself a tangible proof of growing organization and professionalization of the movement. It’s now widely read and discussed not only by the urban activists, but also architects, city planners and local administration. As our research shows, those “battles for space” were crucial for emergence of urban grassroots’ initiatives. From the interviewed activists point of view, common space constitutes a specific point of reference and a context for fulfillment of everyday needs of the residents, uniting them in a very practical manner – the necessity to share the common space turns it almost automatically into a common good and a shared value. Thus, space can be
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understood as the classical “common-‐pool resource”, in the sense Elinor Ostrom uses to describe resources as groundwater pools, forests, fisheries or grazing lands. In her book dedicated to governance of the CPR, Ostrom (1990) opts for economic benefits of introduction of the possibility of such goods to be administered not by the state or the market, but by the local communities, using their own institutional solutions. On the other hand, however, the space, which we use every day, becomes something obvious and unseen, which often leads to a situation, in which its inhabitants are no longer able to notice the existing problems. They either accept them or are convinced that nothing can be done. The sense of lack of responsibility for the urban space undoubtedly also stems from the belief that it is a common space, and thus nobody’s space, usually remaining under management of some official institutions – the district or city authorities or the homeowner association, housing cooperative or the investor. This dispersion of responsibility is strengthened by the popular belief that “our” space begins at the threshold of our private apartment. This often leads to a situation in which problems associated with public and semi-‐ public space are defined as issues that should be solved by somebody else – local official, policeman, cleaning services, or a housing cooperative. As data indicates, that’s why the shape and the physical form of the common space matters in this respect. If the space between the buildings is separated from purely public space, and the group of residents who use this space on everyday basis is clearly defined the easier it is to mobilize this group around local initiatives and protection of such space. It is much easier to engage in activity on behalf of common space, if it is sufficiently friendly and private to be treated as the extension of privately owned space. This is the case of internal backyards and squares, separated more or less visibly from the street. The sense of ownership of a given space seems to be the key factor, motivating local residents to act for its sake and to assume responsibility for it’s quality. In this context we can also use Benford and Snow (2000) concept to discuss how the space ownership is framed or re-‐framed and by whom. What from the one hand looks like taking responsibility for shared space can as well be a way to „re-‐frame“ an existing public space into semi-‐public or even semi-‐private one, creating new exclusion patterns. This seems to be the case in many middle-‐class initiatives, which focus on making the neighborhood more aesthetic and exclusive, and defending the space from the negative influence of “unwanted inhabitants”, poor and marginalized members of local community. Typical for the course of various initiatives is the preliminary focus around a single problem or need, which then may, although does not have to, “spill over” and inspire different types of activities. Research on initiatives shows that the greatest potential for integration of inhabitants and generating of social capital, which may then serve as fuel for further group action, is a situation of an acute conflict and direct threat to interests of the local residents. Dissatisfaction of the residents, however, is usually not sufficient for an initiative to emerge – this requires a leader (much less frequently a group), who decides to counteract the undesirable situation and organize the joint efforts. The potential for mobilization, associated with emergence of a common enemy, is not something new; however, it is worth noting that very often this negative motivation gives the initial impulse for changes in the neighborhood. According to Mergler (2012), one of the basic barriers preventing activation of the inhabitants is the diversity of interests and preferences that they represent. Frequently, one person, due to his/her various traits, represents conflicting preferences – an example here may be a situation, in which, as drivers, we need sufficient number of parking lots in the neighborhood, and at the same time, as parents of small children, we would prefer to live in a location, in which playgrounds are developed instead of parking lots. If we experience this type of conflicting interests internally, it’s no
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surprise they are much more acute between representatives of the local community, who differ in age, gender, education, income, family status and so on. What makes it possible to act together in this typical situation of conflicting interests, it what Mergler calls „concrete narrative” (Mergler 2012). It describes the situation when, through focusing on a certain concrete component of the common space, which requires intervention or protection, even a highly diverse group of people can build the idea of common interests around it. Focusing on a specific matter (protection of a square, cleaning of a dirty backyard, elimination of a troublesome night club) allows for joint action of persons representing very different views and conflicting interests. Concrete narrative or, in other words, discussion on a specific component of the common everyday reality, allows people to focus on solving a real and shared problem of local residents, avoiding discussions of ideological or symbolic nature. Particularly because it turns out that persons or groups displaying polarized views often share the same postulates at the specific narration levels. In other words, if we do not talk about the principles, but about specific problems or threats, effective cooperation is possible within a much broader group of residents as well as other local agents or institutions. Still, a leader able to bringing those wider principles into the project is needed. More importantly, the cooperation based on concrete narrative often brings an additional benefit of increased tolerance or openness to the views of others as a result of getting to know each other better or appreciating the benefits of overcoming the differences. In the case of the examined grassroots’ initiatives, we are usually dealing with a scheme, in which appearance of a leader allows for mobilization around a common problem to transform dissatisfaction or theoretical postulates into action. A leader usually mobilizes the group around the common problem – usually, however, they also notice the broader potential benefits of activity in the neighborhood. The presence of a leader seems to be decisive for emergence of the „bubble” of activity in a given neighborhood. The basic role of a leader is to initiate a certain kind of activity by giving example of they own activity. In the case of the initiatives examined, such first impulse was, for instance, cleaning of a backyard, painting of the elevation, planting of trees or hanging “protest posters” by the leader. The second stage, during which the role of the leader is also very significant, is the defining of the existing situation or a problem as a common cause of all residents, through showing the benefits of joint action or threats associated with inactivity. For this purpose, the leaders often attempt to reach other inhabitants personally – by doing door-‐to-‐door, talking to the neighbors. At present, increasingly often, they also use the social media to popularize their cause via Facebook, blogs or specific web pages. Various announcements, posters and flyers, encouraging others to act together, are also helpful at this stage. It seems, however, that during the first stage, establishing personal contact with other residents is the most effective solution; the trust build during those encounters can be then maintained through less personal means like formal announcements or electronic media. The initial focus of activity of the neighbors around a single problem or initiative is often translated to further actions, particularly if the cooperation so far has brought some measurable effect. The sense of effectiveness provides the group with a sense of direction and often serves as a basis for building of the group identity through the shared story of successful activities. Moreover, defining of quality of a given space as a common good, which one may influence, results in transformation of the informal initiative into a specific group of interest. Although we could expect that after a given problem is solved or a threat is eliminated, the group would become inactive, it usually turns out that there are many other matters worth taking care of together. Willingness to keep acting seems to be a function of trust enjoyed by the leader and faith of the inhabitants in their own potential as a group.
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Conclusions Using qualitative data concerning several urban initiatives in Warsaw and other Polish cities, we claim that urban unrest can be viewed as a distinct field, as defined by Fligstein and McAdam (2012), where the involved actors interact around a set of more or less distinct rules of the game, in a social landscape that has formed and developed in the intersection of, as well as by the tensions generated by, a number of earlier and more established fields. In this process, we argue that we can already observe the process of “field-‐maturing”, with a number of already well-‐established main actors and common definitions emerging, although the field in itself is far from being institutionalized. On the other hand, since there is not yet one dominant discourse and even the language and terminology of what is going on is still developing, clear tensions exist between different parts and actors of this rather heterogeneous movement which can be understood as an on-‐going negotiation of the boundaries as well as the core of the field. Also, a growing division between formal and informal local urban initiatives can be observed, which could be interpreted as a backlash against growing NGO-‐isation of civil sector in Poland (Graff 2010, Korolczuk 2011). Right to the city movement develops in Poland in context of growing marketization of the cities as well as an increased mobility (the influx of people to the cities) and individualization of Polish society. The accelerated urban development, that took place since the shift to market economy, was characterized by the loss of control by planners and lack of long-‐term reflection on the changing and future needs of the residents. Main reason for this lack of vision of the city is that authorities abandoned the role of an investor in the cities – so the city development is mostly governed by market actors and forces. Main result of this market invisible hand” regulation of cities development is a decline in the quality of life in urban areas (slums, suburbanization, etc.). In this context, grassroots activists argue that the changing nature of cities requires an open discussion and urgent intervention, involving city residents in the decision-‐making processes, as they are the main “users” of the city. To summarize, in this paper, we posit that a number of citizens’ initiatives in Warsaw as well as other cities in Poland should be understood as part of a larger, possibly transnational, (re)emerging social movement for urban renewal. We argue that these initiatives should be understood as a new form of citizens’ struggle for increased influence over their urban environment in this city, a struggle in a field (Fligstein and McAdam 2012) where a variety of actors take part – public sector (the city), for-‐profit corporations (urban developers as well as retail capital) and civil society (urban activist initiatives and associations) – and also have different interests in the game of the city (Domaradzka 2014: 4). Not only are these initiatives part of a wider movement, we also find some of them at the center of a process where old boundaries and previous understandings are renegotiated and where it is “the changing contours of common knowledge that are the object of the game” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998: 911), at least for some of the actors. We analyze these initiatives in this paper as a form of “norm entrepreneurs” (ibid.) in what we view as an emerging or at least renegotiated strategic action field, to speak with Fligstein and McAdam (2011; 2012). From our perspective, one of the most central contours or borders now being renegotiated by these groups is where the boundary between private and public should be re-‐drawn in the new social contract of the city, thus our over-‐arching question or concern whether this should be understood as a transformation towards a more semi-‐public or semi-‐private state of the affairs than before. New paths and recently opened fields emerge in the new social urban landscape, offering new spaces for old as well as new actor. At the same time previous paths and openings become overgrown, forcing some of the residents to change their living patterns or strategies. In the light of a slowly retreating city administration in combination with a
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steadily growing interest from commercial developers, the new urban borderland between the public and the private sphere is being slowly re-‐negotiated in the growing number of Polish cities, potentially with a number of much smaller and more recent civil society initiatives appearing at the margins of the negotiations. The strategic behavior of these new actors, and their capacity to form alliances and strike bargains, has the potential to affect the development and in this approach we follow Finnemore and Sikkink (1998: 911) in their conviction that “processes of social construction and strategic bargaining are deeply intertwined”. While our paper focuses on Polish context, we would argue that the ideas present in the national urban unrest field are also a part of a global “right to the city” movement. Based on the available data, we could observe how the postulates of “reclaiming the city” – both in terms of public space and political debate – were popularized in Poland by the group of norm entrepreneurs, through existing international networks of urban researchers and activists. Thus, both the theoretical framework and empirical conclusions create a good starting point for analyzing a wider international picture, of what we may suspect to be a new international strategic action field of urban unrest. References Appadurai, A. (2001). Deep democracy: urban governmentality and the horizon of politics “Environment&Urbanization” Vol 13, No 2. Bailey, S. J. (1995). Public Sector Economics: Theory, Policy and Practice, London: MacMillan. Barometr współpracy (2009). Survey “Barometer of cooperation” conducted by Foundation for Development of Local Democracy and KLON/JAWOR between 2000 and 2009. http://wiadomosci.ngo.pl/wiadomosci/543144.html Bendyk, E. (2013). Na Kongres Ruchów Miejskich http://antymatrix.blog.polityka.pl/ 2013/10/11/na-‐kongres-‐ ruchow-‐miejskich/ Benford, R.D., Snow, D.A. (2000). Framing Process and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment. “Annual Review of Sociology” 26, 611–39. Domaradzka, A. (2014). Changing the Rules of the Game: Impact of the Urban Movement on the Public Administration Practices, in: M. Freise, F. Paulsen, A. Walter (eds.) Civil Society and Innovative Public Administration. Baden-‐Baden: Nomos Publishers. (in print) Domaradzka, A. (2010). Filling the Gaps? The Role of Civil Society on the Individual Level: The Case of Polish Women’s Organizations, in: M. Freise, M. Pyykkönen, E. Vaidelyte (eds) A Panacea for all Seasons? Civil Society and Governance in Europe, Baden-‐Baden: Nomos Publishers, 287-‐303. Domaradzka, A. (2009). Liderki organizacji kobiecych – próba typologii [Leaders of women’s organizations – a typology], in: B. Budrowska (ed.) Kobiety-‐Feminizm-‐Demokracja. Wybrane zagadnienia z seminarium IFiS PAN z lat 2001-‐2009, Warszawa: IFiS. Evers, A. (1995). Part of the welfare mix: the third sector as an intermediate area, “Voluntas”, 6 (2), 159–182. Finnemore, M., Sikkink, K. (1998). International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. “International Organization” 52, 4, Autumn 1998, 887–917. Fligstein, N., McAdam, D. (2011). Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields. “Sociological Theory”, 29:1, March 2011, 1-‐26. Fligstein, N., McAdam, D. (2012). A Theory of Fields. New York: Oxford University Press.
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