ASTK18291U The City in Political Theory

Johannesburg adopts innovative measures to address climate change. Protestors in Hong Kong occupy urban infrastructure in their fight against the expansion of state power. Grassroots movements from Salvador, Brazil to Baltimore, USA confront the inequalities of gentrification. Everywhere we look, cities and urban spaces are remaking the terms of our politics. Currently, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and the United Nations projects that number will rise to 68% by 2050. With rapid urbanization, cities have become places of tremendous geopolitical, economic, and ecological significance. Political theory has a long history of thinking about the city from at least as early as Aristotle’s definition of the human as the animal who is a member of a polis (city). Contemporary political theory has drawn upon this tradition to theorize the politics of cities that far exceed the size and scale of the ancient polis. This course asks how returning to the political theory of the city can shed new light on ideas of community, agency, security, equality, and democracy. The course will address the following questions: How do power relations within cities differ from those that define the nation-state? What possibilities for democratic practice and egalitarian redistribution does the “right to the city” offer? How has the city’s return to prominence in politics brought with it the expansion of surveillance and the securitization of everyday life? In an era of ecological crisis, can collective action in cities “scale up” to have global effects?

Outline of Topics

1. The Polis and Politics
2. Understanding Urban Inequality
3. The ‘Right to the City’ and the Commonwealth
4. Urban Militarization
5. The Democratic Politics of Infrastructure
6. Returning to the Polis Today