New institutions and the politics of the interstices. Experimenting with a face-to-face democracy in Naples

Mauro Pinto, Luca Recano and Ugo Rossi
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Mauro Pinto: Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy
Luca Recano: Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale, Italy
Ugo Rossi: Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy

Urban Studies, 2023, vol. 60, issue 11, 2176-2194

Abstract: This article analyses the politics of new municipalism in Naples in relation to the constellation of ‘new institutions’ that has arisen from this politics. These ‘new institutions’ are illustrative of a politics of the interstices as a distinctive trait of the convergence between city government and social movements in Naples, as the latter have opted for staying neither outside nor inside official institutions and the city government has adapted its conduct to this strategy. To illustrate this point, the article explores the emerging constellation of ‘new institutions’ in Naples, which is understood as an embryonic form of radical ‘face-to-face democracy’ (in Murray Bookchin’s terms) at the municipal level, that departs from mainstream conceptions of participatory democracy and commons-based democracy. Through this analysis, the article argues that the experience of new municipalism in Naples offers evidence of a kind of participatory urban democracy understood not in a procedural sense but in a genuinely political vein, where civic participation and political conflict productively coexist with institutional creativity.

Keywords: community; governance; informality; local government; new municipalism; politics; urban democracy; ç¤¾åŒºã€ æ²»ç †; é žæ­£è§„æ€§; 地方政府; 新地方自治主义; 政治; 城市民主 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:11:p:2176-2194

DOI: 10.1177/00420980221091064

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