MIR550: European Cities in a Globalized World

Fall 2016

Monday 18.30-21.30

Instructor: Dr. Mert Arslanalp

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Course Description:

This course examines the changing role and fabric of cities in the globalized capitalist world from a critical and comparative perspective. We are going to evaluate the economic, political, and social transformations cities have been experiencing in the last decades and how urban residents have been contesting and negotiating them. We will assess the implications of these changes for governance, democratic citizenship, and social justice from a variety of theoretical approaches. Lecture and readings on weekly themes will incorporate both the experience of European cities and the developing world megacities with a specific focus on Istanbul. The course, thus, intends to be a comprehensive overview of the politics of globalizing cities by introducing key themes and debates in urban studies.

Requirements and Assessments

All students are expected to attend class regularly, read assigned materials before class and participate in class discussions. We are going to allocate the last section of our weekly classes for discussion. In addition to the readings on syllabus, students may receive short news articles on weekly themes before or during the class for discussion purposes.

Students are required to send two discussion questions on weekly readings (questions must address separate readings) by the midnight before class. These questions should raise conceptual and theoretical issues from the readings that can facilitate class discussions. Students may be called on to raise their questions.

Students will take a mid-term exam and write a short reflection essay and a long final paper to complete the course. Reflection papers (max. two pages) should critically engage the readings of a selected week. A separate prompt for final papers will be provided.

There will not be a make-up option unless the student documents a valid reason for missing the assignments.

Attendance, Discussion Questions, and Participation:20 %

Reflection essay:10 %

Mid-term exam:30 %

Final paper: 40 %

Academic Honesty

The Department of Political Science and International Relations has the following rules and regulations regarding academic honesty.

  1. Copying work from others or giving and receiving answers/information during exams either in written or oral form constitutes cheating.
  2. Submitting take-home exams and papers of others as your own, using sentences or paragraphs from another author without the proper acknowledgement of the original author, insufficient acknowledgement of the consulted works in the bibliography, all constitute plagiarism. For further guidelines, you can consult
  3. Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses and will result in:

a)an automatic “F” in the assignment or the exam

b)an oral explanation before the Departmental Ethics Committee

c)losing the opportunity to request and receive any references from the entire faculty

d)losing the opportunity to apply in exchange programs

e)losing the prospects of becoming a studentassistant or a graduate assistant in the department

The students may further be sent to the University Ethics committee or be subject to disciplinary action

SCHEDULE & READINGS

Sep. 19Introduction to the Course

Conceptual and Historical Background

Sep. 26Cities, Urbanization, and the Urban Age

  • World Urbanization Prospects 2014. United Nations Department of Economic Affairs.
  • Brenner, N., & Schmid, C. (2014). The ‘urban age’ in question.International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,38(3), 731-755.

Oct. 3Fall of Urban Autonomy and Rise of Urbanization in Europe

  • Tilly, C. (1989). Cities and states in Europe, 1000–1800.Theory and Society,18(5), 563-584.
  • Sassen, S. (2006).Territory, authority, rights: From medieval to global assemblages(Vol. 4). Princeton, NJ: Princeton university press. (Ch. 2)
  • Brenner, N. (2004). New state spaces: Urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford: Oxford university press. (114-126)

Oct.10Making of Modern Istanbul (Late 19th Century to 1980s)

  • Tekeli, I. (2010). The story of Istanbul’s modernization. Architectural Design, 32-39.
  • Keyder, Ç. (1999). The setting.Istanbul: Between the global and the local, 3-13.
  • Keyder, C. (2005). Globalization and social exclusion in Istanbul.International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,29(1), 124-134.
  • Tuğal, C. (2009). The urban dynamism of Islamic hegemony: Absorbing squatter creativity in Istanbul. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 423-437.

Globalization

Oct. 17Globalization and Cities: Political-Economic Transformations

  • Sassen, S. (1991). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton.NJ: Princeton. (Ch.1,pp. 3-15)
  • Brenner, N., & Theodore, N. (2002). Cities and the geographies of “actually existing neoliberalism”.Antipode,34(3), 360-379.
  • Shatkin, G. (2007). Global cities of the South: Emerging perspectives on growth and inequality.Cities,24(1), 1-15.
  • Harvey, D. (2012). Urban roots of capitalist crises. Rebel cities. London: Verso. (only 42-64).

Oct. 24Globalization and Cities: Transformations in Statehood and Governance

  • Kokx, A., & Van Kempen, R. (2010). Dutch urban governance: Multi-level or multi-scalar?.European Urban and Regional Studies,17(4), 355-369.
  • Kern, K., & Bulkeley, H. (2009). Cities, Europeanization and multi‐level governance: governing climate change through transnational municipal networks.JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies,47(2), 309-332.
  • Goldfrank, B. (2007). The politics of deepening local democracy: decentralization, party institutionalization, and participation.Comparative Politics, 147-168.

Oct.31Globalization and Cities: Transformations in Citizenship and Contestation

  • Purcell, M. (2003). Citizenship and the right to the global city: reimagining the capitalist world order.International journal of urban and regional research,27(3), 564-590.
  • Heller, P., & Evans, P. (2010). Taking Tilly south: durable inequalities, democratic contestation, and citizenship in the Southern Metropolis.Theory and Society,39(3-4), 433-450.
  • Alsayyad, N., & Roy, A. (2006). Medieval modernity: on citizenship and urbanism in a global era.Space & Polity,10(1), 1-20.

Nov. 7Midterm

Social Issues

Nov. 14Inequality, Exclusion,and Segregation

  • Wacquant, L. (2015). Revisiting territories of relegation: Class, ethnicity and state in the making of advanced marginality.Urban Studies, 0042098015613259.
  • Bartu Candan, A. & Kolluoglu, B. (2008). Emerging spaces of neoliberalism: A gated town and public housing project. New perspectives on Turkey, 5-42.
  • Auyero, J. (2014). Toxic waiting: Flammable Shantytown Revisited.Cities From Scratch: Poverty and Informality in Urban Latin America.

Nov. 21Immigration, Multiculturalism, Precariousness

  • Koopmans, R. (2013). Multiculturalism and immigration: A contested field in cross-national comparison.Annual Review of Sociology,39, 147-169.
  • Uitermark, J., Rossi, U., & Van Houtum, H. (2005). Reinventing multiculturalism: urban citizenship and the negotiation of ethnic diversity in Amsterdam.International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,29(3), 622-640.
  • Eder, M. (2015). Turkey’s neoliberal transformation and changing migration regime: The case of female migrant workers. Social Transformation and Migration: National and Local Experiences in South Korea, Turkey, Mexico and Australia.

Nov. 28Urban Informality

  • Fernandes, E. (2011).Regularization of informal settlements in Latin America. Cambdridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. (Ch. 1,3, and 5)
  • Roy, A. (2003). The gentleman’s city: Urban informality in the Calcutta of New Communism. Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia, 147-165.

Dec. 5Urban Redevelopment and Gentrification

  • Swyngedouw, E., Moulaert, F., & Rodriguez, A. (2002). Neoliberal urbanization in Europe: large–scale urban development projects and the new urban policy.Antipode,34(3), 542-577.
  • Kuyucu, T., & Ünsal, Ö. (2010). 'Urban Transformation' as State-led Property Transfer: An Analysis of Two Cases of Urban Renewal in Istanbul.Urban Studies.
  • Weinstein, L. & Ren, X. (2009). The changing right to the city: Urban renewal and housing rights in globalizing Shangai and Mumbai. City & Community, 407-432.

Dec. 12Urban Futures: Utopias and Dystopias

  • Harvey, D. (2012).Rebel cities: from the right to the city to the urban revolution. Verso Books. (Preface, Ch. 5)
  • Harmansah, O. (2014). Urban utopias and how they fell apart: The political ecology of Gezi Park. The making of a protest movement in Turkey, 121-133.
  • Graham, S. (2011).Cities under siege: The new military urbanism. Verso Books. (Ch 3)