IAS A6051 Markets, Power, and People
Privatization, devolution, and decentralization in many ways define neoliberal governance; these processes of shifting government services and political participation to the local level have redefined the role of the public sector not only in the US but internationally. We will raise questions about the public values we associate with the provision of government services as well as how the notion of "citizenship" changes as it becomes reframed within a "consumer-citizen" model. We will ask how the increasing emphasis on efficient and competitive "market-driven governance" has structured economic as well as political access and exclusion. The course readings will cover the following themes: encountering development; neoliberalism and the Washington consensus; governance, privatization, decentralization, and devolution; neoliberalising citizenship, consumer citizens; defining and decentering neoliberal urbanism; selling cities, culture, leisure and the production of urban space; fractured cities, fortress cities.
Contact Hours
3 hr./wk.