Urban governance in the age of austerity: Crises of neoliberal hegemony in comparative perspective

Abstract

Drawing from neo-Gramscian theory, the paper explores how urban austerity governance mediates crises of neoliberal hegemony. Focusing on the decade after the Global Economic Crisis of 2008–2009, it compares four European cities disclosing five intersecting characteristics of urban political economy that contributed to sustaining and disrupting austere neoliberalism. Austere neoliberalism was sustained through three characteristics: economic rationalism, state revanchism and weak counter-hegemony, but undermined by both weakening hegemony and the combustibility and generativity of urban struggles. Hence, although state revanchism is a prominent feature of urban politics, and novel counter-hegemonic forms are elusive, struggles for equality and solidarity remain contagious, tenacious and vibrant. Urban governance is a crucial arena for studying the interregnum, signposting multiple ways in which neoliberalism survives, mutates and dies.