Neoliberalism | EPFL Graph Search

Neoliberalism, also neo-liberalism, is a term used to signify the late-20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent factor in the rise of conservative and right-libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominantly advocated by them, it is generally associated with policies of economic liberalization, including privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. The neoliberal project is also focused on designing institutions and has a political dimension. The defining features of neoliberalism in both thought and practice have been the subject of substantial scholarly debate. As an economic philosophy, neoliberalism emerged among European liberal scholars during the 1930s as they attempted to r

A Third Way Alternative; Critical Assessments from the Model of the Yugoslav City

Jana Konstantinova

This dissertation aims to demonstrate the development, meaning and significance of cultural infrastructure in the cities of Skopje, Belgrade and Sarajevo (1945-1991). In the historic context, culture became the fundamental critical tool with which to yield a vivid cultural scene, and it coincides with the emergence of remarkable cultural artefacts - including 'the right architecture'. The thesis recognizes a common (Yugoslav) Creative Model behind this âmovementâ, which stimulated and anticipated the emergence of the elements that eventually form the cultural artefacts. For the purpose of studying the strengths and weaknesses of the model, the exercise investigates the extensive body of cultural creations which emerged through the model. As such, the thesis highlights the flow of creativity, and the particular understanding of creativity as a âlife qualityâ in support of the theoretical concept of balance which emerged in the local context - striving for equilibrium between the man-made, the human (civic) and the natural environment. The aims of the research are threefold. Firstly, to understand the objectives on which the model is created; secondly, to reposition the object â cultural artefact â as a departure point of analysis of the model; and thirdly, to analyze the evolution of the cultural infrastructure in the environments to trace the transformations of the model. To that end an analysis of the entire cultural creation of the epoch has been carried out in relation with the specific interest of the thesis. The exercises are conducted by drawing from the primary data sets (the press: both architectural and cultural magazines) and the secondary sets of data (original documents and testimonials with the protagonists: wider cultural milieu). Bridging the epistemological gap in the academic discourse, exemplifying the selected cities not as isolated case studies but in comparative synthesis, the thesis positions these rich cultural, spatial and social qualities (collected in the form of a critical archive) and their common Creative Model as the possibility to depart from the neo-liberal paradigm still affecting regions globally and to re-imagine our own current models for human settlements in ways more open to people, nature and culture.

EPFL2021

‘No Cost’ Houses in the Making: Brokering Incremental Urbanism

Tobias Stefan Baitsch

Incremental urbanism once again is advocated as an alternative mode of urban development promising not only housing at low or even no cost for the state but social mobility for its residents (Wakely and Riley 2011). Positioned in opposition to ‘planning’, incremental development is perceived as sort of ‘pristine’ mode of development particularly fit for the poor in the global south, which is at fundamental opposition to urban production of more ‘advanced’ societies (Turner 1967). Such conceptualizations continue a ‘developmentalist’ discourse (Robinson 2006) forcing us to read urban realities in preconceived categories. Rather than assuming a schism between the incremental and the ‘planned’, the dominant and the subaltern, the different paths to urbanization have to be approached symmetrically (Robinson 2006; Pattaroni and Baitsch 2015). In that light this paper follows Pushpa Arabindoo’s call for renewed ethnographic engagement to understand the emerging spatial practices of the urban poor (Arabindoo 2011) and adopts a perspective of those, who actually build ‘no cost’ houses and analyzes how incrementally developing settlements are produced, maintained, and unmade. Examining contractors, the key figures engaged in construction in Mumbai’s incrementally developing neighbourhoods, as local actors brokering the production of ‘no cost’ houses, this paper contributes to a due reassessment of incremental urbanism. Since only careful description and focus on processes allows going beyond preconceived conception about cities, urban development and linked disjunctive dichotomies. While doing so, this paper aims at shedding light on the advantages and limits of incremental urbanism under today’s neoliberal conditions of urbanization.

2016

Les grands projets urbains entre global et local : une étude de cas comparative de Casablanca et de Genève à travers les logiques de marché et les résistances locales.

Kamil Hajji

Globalization implies profound changes in territories that involve the emergence of major urban renewal projects. It has the effect of increasing competition between metropolises. In order to make a place for themselves in this increasingly competitive global context, cities are seeking to attract these material and immaterial flows to their territories. The various stakeholders in the metropolitan area then implement a set of measures or strategies, more or less coordinated, to enhance the attractiveness of their territory. Major urban renewal projects are one of the most iconic examples of such strategies. Neo-liberalism, the political and economic counterpart of globalization, is considered as a homogeneous process that is spread across the globe in an identical manner. This comparative meso-scale analysis between Casablanca and Geneva of the role and interactions between stakeholders aims to reveal the similarities and differences between the deployment of this neoliberalization process in the two studied contexts. This thesis is based on the idea, which is increasingly prevalent in the academic literature, that neoliberalism does not allow a precise reading of the processes at work and that it is ontologically parasitized by social, political and economic specificities of each context. Starting from the initiation phase of the projects up to their development, we reconstruct through this work their genealogies for comparative purposes. We compare them through the two lenses of market logics and local resistances which, in a certain way, are in conflict with each otherâs. By working on Geneva and Casablanca, two contexts that are remarkably different, we aim to demonstrate that market logics are at the heart of standardization processes but, simultaneously, processes of heterogenization based on contextual specificities are taking place. Finally, does globalization imply that these processes of urban construction, through the neoliberal injunction that underlies them, are identical in different political and socio-economic contexts? What is the reason for the homogenizing effect of these projects and how does the local context contribute to giving them their own identity? It is these central questions that this thesis attempts to answer.

EPFL2020