The role of the urban scale in anchoring authoritarian neoliberalism: a look at post-2012 neoliberalization in Belgrade, Serbia

Abstract

In recent years, ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’ has emerged as a leading framework for understanding the specificities of neoliberalization post-2007/8 financial crisis. The concept has acquired particular salience in the study of urban transformations as cities have been portrayed as key sites for the articulation of authoritarian neoliberalism. This paper argues against a purely territorial conceptualization of authoritarian neoliberalism in cities, conceiving the latter as targets of neoliberal restructuring construed within an overarching, centralized state. Rather, it argues that understanding the state as a multiscalar field of social compromises allows us to better flesh out this complex phenomenon. Empirically, it traces processes of regulatory rescaling surrounding the implementation of the Belgrade Waterfront project in Serbia which has simultaneously led to a strengthening of decision-making at the national level and rendered the urban scale more permeable to contestation, paving the way for the emergence of key grassroots organizations like Ne Da(vi)mo Beograd.