Politics of Urbanism: Seeing Like a City [Paperback]

To see like a city, rather than seeing like a state, is the key to understanding modern politics. In this book, Magnusson draws from theorists such as Weber, Wirth, Hayek, Jacobs, Sennett, and Foucault to articulate some of the ideas that we need to make sense of the city as a form of political order.

Locally and globally, the city exists by virtue of complicated patterns of government and self-government, prompted by proximate diversity. A multiplicity of authorities in different registers is typical. Sovereignty, although often claimed, is infinitely deferred. What emerges by virtue of self-organization is not susceptible to control by any central authority, and so we are impelled to engage politically in a world that does not match our expectations of sovereignty. How then are we are to engage realistically and creatively? We have to begin from where we are if we are to understand the possibilities.

Building on traditions of political and urban theory in order to advance a new interpretation of the role of cities/urbanism in contemporary political life, this work will be of great interest to scholars of political theory and urban theory, international relations theory and international relations.

Introduction: Re-Imagining the Political  1. Urbanism as Governmentality  2. Ontologies of the Political  3. The Politics of Urbanism as a Way of Life  4. The Art of Government  5. Seeing Like a State, Seeing Like a City  6. Oikos, Nomos, Logos  7. The Politics of Scale  8. The Principle of Local Self-Government Conclusion: Otherwise than Sovereign

The central argument of this book is that we need to abandon our state-centric approach to political understanding and learn to see like a city if we are to make sense of contemporary politics.

This text is a significant and innovl=