PLA 1503 Planning and Social Policy
Instructor: Prof. Sue Ruddick
Office Hours: Wednesday 4 pm – 6 pm or by appointment Sidney Smith Hall 5059
Course Time & Place: Thursday 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. RM 2124A
Contact Information: 416-978-1589 OR
What is social policy? What are the underlying objectives of policy delivery? What are the most effective methods of implementation? Twenty years ago, analysts and researchers were more or less confident about the answers to such questions as the objectives and parameters of redistribution were framed within the norms of the Keynesian welfare state. Debates were centered largely around “how much” and not “how to.”
Today, however, analysts and researchers are confronted with a new context, including shrinking resources for redistribution, reconfigurations of service delivery systems between levels of government, changing scales of service delivery, between public, non-profit and private sectors, new forms of poverty and marginality, and a rhetoric of globalization and privatization.
Course Objectives:
The purpose of this course is to introduce the students to the innovations in social policy and more importantly their normative implications. Key to the course then, is an understanding of how these shape a landscape of inclusion and exclusion.
Concurrent with the shift from a Keynesian to a neo-liberal welfare state, community groups, ngos and a range of institutions are exploring different mechanisms for collective and collaborative community. New in the “how to” toolkit are discussions around the practice of “commoning.” Once thought to be restricted to forms of common land such as community land trusts, the new commons cover everything from public infrastructures such as libraries and water, to information technologies to community gardens. In this course we will explore the philosophies and practices around the emergence of a new commons as it is distinguished from other forms of collective distribution of goods such as “public goods,” “collective consumption” and “collaborative consumption.” Questions we will explore include the limits and possibilities of a commons for social transformation or cooptation, the challenges of scaling a commons.
Organization of the course and relationship to curriculum:
Necessary requirement for social policy specialization in planning; open to graduates in geography and other disciplines. This is a gateway course to the specialization in Social Policy in Planning.
Grading Scheme:
Class Participation: 10%
Weekly report: 10%
This consists of your reflections on the readings -- due at 6 pm Tuesday evenings, two days before class. Please bring a paper version of your contribution to class. You are expected to comment on 3 weeks of readings.
Proposal: 10% (3-5 pages) due week 5 in class
Point form Draft of Your Paper: 20% due week 11 in class.
Paper: 50% (20-25 pages) due one week after the last day of class.
Your paper can focus on an exploration of the varied meanings of the commons, underlying concepts and critique or it might look at a practical application of commoning at an urban regional or global scale, or it might be a combination of a conceptual investigation and exploration of theory in practice. While most of the course material will focus on how ideas of the commons shape policy and social planning in urban settings in the global north you are welcome to explore the concept and its implementation at different scales and in global south. The choice is yours. Please communicate the general direction you want to take in your paper early on in the semester (around week 3 or 4).
SYLLABUS
(working draft : there may be some substitution of readings over the semester)
Week 1 Introduction
Challenges for social planning
Week 2 Neoliberalism, Social Planning and austerity urbanism1
McBride, S. and K. McNutt Devolution and Neoliberalism and the Canadian Welfare State Global Social Policy 7:2 177-201
Jamie Peck (n.d.) Austerity Urbanism The Neoliberal Crisis of American Cities Online at http://www.rosalux-nyc.org/wp-content/files_mf/peck_austerity_urbanism_eng.pdf
Peter Graefe (2005) Roll-out Neoliberalism and the Social Economy Online at https://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2005/Graefe.pdf
Bob Jessop (2002) Liberalism neoliberalism and urban governance Antipode, 34(3) 06 452-472 (online)
This American Life 459: What Kind of Country? 03.02.2012
Week 3 Neoliberalism, Social Planning and austerity urbanism2
Le Crosnier (2012) Subtle but effective: modern forms of enclosure in The Wealth of the Commons The Levellers Press (online)
Hodkinson (2012) The new urban enclosures City 16:5, 500-18
Alvaro Sevilla-Buitrago (2015) Capitalist Formations of Enclosure: Space and the Extinction of the Commons Antipode 47(4) 999-1020
Week 4 Neoliberalism and competing visions of the “commons”
Haradin (2001) The tragedy of the commons The Social Contract (online)
Caffentzis (2004) A tale of two conferences: Globalization, the crisis of neoliberalism and question of the commons. Prepared for the Alter-Globalization Conference San Miguel de Allende Mexico. (online)
Barnes (2006) Capital 3.0 A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons Berret-Koehler Publishers (online) (excerpts)
Capacity Building and the commons
Week 5 Principles of the emerging commons
Ash Amin (2016) Thinking the commons Chapter 1 in Amin and Howell (eds.) Releasing the Commons: Rethinking the future of the Commons Routledge
Kraztwald (2012) Rethinking the Social Welfare State in Light of the Commons in The Wealth of the Commons Levellers Press (online)
Caffentzis The Future of ‘The Commons’: Neoliberalisms ‘Plan B’ or the original disaccumulation of Capital?
Week 6 Common goods, public goods
Helfrich (2012) Common Goods don’t simply exist they are created in The Wealth of the Commons The Levellers Press (online)
Quilligan (2012) Why Distinguish Common Goods from Public Goods? In The Wealth of the Commons.
Greig de Peuter and Nick Dyer-Witheford (2010) Commons and Cooperatives Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture and Action 4(1) 30-56
Week 7 Social Centers
Mudu Pierpaolo “Resisting and Challenging Neoliberalism: The Development of Italian Social Centers” Antipode 2004 917-941
Serrano, Maria “Positions, Situations, Short-circuits: La Eskalera Karakola, A Deliberate Space” Gender and Power in the New Europe, 5th Feminist Research Conference, Aug 20-24, 2003 Lund, Sweden
Shaw, Kate “The place of alternative culture and the politics of its protection in Berlin” Planning Theory and Practice Vol. 6 No. 2 2005 149-169
Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force (2005) Strong Neighbourhoods. A Call to Action 44 p.
Building Capacity, Sharing Values: Shared Spaces and Social Purpose Real Estate: A Scan and Discussion Paper of What is Happening and Could Happen in Canada
Week 8 Social exclusion /Social Inclusion
Stavrides (2014) Emerging common spaces as a challenge to the city of crisis City 18(4-5) 546-550
Blomely (2008) Enclosure common right and the property of the poor Social and Legal Studies 17(3) 311-331
Jones and Ward (1998) Privatizing the commons reforming the ejido and urban development in Mexico International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22(1) 76-93
Eizenberg (2012) Actually Existing Commons: Three Moments of Space of Community Gardens in New York City Antipode 44(3) 764-782
Newman (2012) Gatekeepers of the Urban Commons? Vigilant Citizenship and Neoliberal Space in Multiethnic Paris Antipode 45(4) 947-964
Carding and the Community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYZ3aNH-_CQ
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=7b0c1459a55e4410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
It all begins with space – Toronto social planning and space
Mexico City Creates Charter Right to the City Progressive Planning Magazine Summer 2010 (online)
Nicholas Blomely Talks: Commoning the City - the right not to be excluded (online Youtube)
Week 8 Sharing vs the “sharing economy”
Bresnihan and Byrne (2014) Escape into the City: Everyday Practices of Commoning and the Production of Urban Space in Dublin 47(1) 36-54
Davidson and Infranca (2016) The Sharing Economy as an Urban Phenomenon Yale Law and Policy Review
Ozanne and Ballantine (2010) Sharing as a form of anti-consumption? An examination of toy library users Journal of Consumer Behanviour 9:485-498
Albinsson and Perera (2012)Alternative marketplaces in the 21st century: Building community through sharing events Journal of Consumer Behaviour 11:303-315
Juliet Schor (2014) Debating the Sharing Economy A Great Transition Initiative
http://torontoist.com/2013/10/the-toronto-tool-library-nails-down-its-new-east-end-location/
Week 9 Social Reproduction
Bruun Communities and the commons Open Access and community ownership of the urban commons Ch 7 in Borch and Kornberger (eds.) Urban Commons: Rethinking the City Routledge
Federici (2014) From Commoning to Debt: Financialization, Microcredit and the Changing Architecture of Capital Accumulation South Atlantic Quarterly 113:231-244
Federici (2012) Feminism and the politics of the commons The Wealth of the Commons Leveller Press (online)
Week 10 Governing the commons
Garnett (2012) Managing the Urban Commons University of Pennsylvania Law Review 160:195-2026
Politics in common in the digital age [check kindle]
Evans (2005) The New Commons vs. The Second Enclosure Movement: Comments on an Emerging Agenda for Development Research Studies in Comparative International Development 40(2) 85-94
Foster (2011) Collective Action and the Urban Commons Notre Dame Law Review 73:1 57-134
TED TALKS: Cameron Sinclair My Wish A Call for Open Source Architecture
Christian Wilks Open Source Urban Design (TEDX Capetown)
Week 11 Cautionary Tales 1
Chari (2010) State Racism and Biopolitical Struggle: The Evasive Commons in Twentieth-Century
Durban, South Africa Radical History Review 108:73-90
Maddison (2010) Radical Commons Discourse and the Challenges of Colonialism Radical History Review 108:29-48
Greig de Peuter and Nick Dyer-Witheford (2010) Commons and Cooperatives Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action, 4(1): 30-56.
Larner (2005) After Neoliberalism? Community Activism and Local Partnerships in
Aotearoa New Zealand 37(3) 402-424
Week 12 Cautionary Tales 2
Orlando Alves dos Santos (2014) Urban common space, heterotopia and the right to the city: Reflections on the ideas of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey Brazilian Journal of Urban Management 6(2) 146-157
De Angelis (2010) On the Commons: A Public Interview with Massimo De Angelis and Stavros Stavrides E-Flux Commons 17 (online http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8888150.pdf
Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) From the Communism of Capital to Capital for the Commons: Towards an Open Co-operativism Journal for Global Sustainable Information Society 12(1)
Giordano (2003) The geography of the commons: The role of scale and space. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93, (2): 365-375
De Angelis (2012) Crisis Capital and cooptation: Does capitalism need a commons fix? In The Wealth of the Commons Leveller Press (online)
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