International municipal meeting, Barcelona, June 16, 2017. Marc Lozano. Some rights reserved.
In the current political context marked by the crisis of neoliberalism and of the old left and the rise of the extreme right – one political approach that appears to be gaining strength is municipalism. Most obviously in Spain, we can also see municipalist projects advancing in the United States, Poland, Italy and certain Latin American cities such as Valparaíso or Rosario, among other examples. The Fearless Cities gathering (Ciudades sin Miedo) that took place in Barcelona in the beginning of June, 2018, brought together more than 700 participants from around the world, highlighting the emergence of this new global municipalist political agenda. Since then, several regional summits have happened in cities such as Warsaw, New York, Brussels and Valparaiso, and the Fearless Cities movement keeps on growing.
Evidently, municipalism is not a new idea. It can be traced through traditions such as libertarian anarchism or republicanism, whilst recurring themes can be found in a history of urban movements from around the world. Even today, several state-focused parties in Spain – such as Podemos {a left-populist party that emerged after the 15-M movement} and Partido Popular {the dominant right-wing party} – talk about municipalism as if it were an issue with which everyone identifies, like ‘justice’ or ‘freedom’. But what exactly are we talking about when we refer to the “new municipalism” or “municipalist transformation” as defined by the Fearless Cities movement?
