The Bradlow Report — January 7, 2022
7 January 2022
Volume 3, Issue 1
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Happy new year and feliz ano novo! It’s shaping up to be another busy semester of teaching, in which I also finalize my book manuscript. I’m excited about both of the undergraduate courses that I’m teaching, which feed pretty directly into my current book, as well the next long-term project that I’m developing. “Comparative Urban Political Economy” is a course that I’ve taught before, but have reshaped somewhat substantially for this iteration. “Climate Change, Power, and Global Inequality,” is brand new. I share the reading lists below. Both courses are heavily weighted towards quite recent material. I may cut a few readings from either list as I get closer to the beginning of classes, but I figure there’s no harm in sharing the “expanded editions.” I’d love to hear what you think and your suggestions of other readings you think are interesting for either/both topics. And maybe there’s something on these lists that will interest you too!
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COMPARATIVE URBAN POLITICAL ECONOMY
Week 1: Economic development
January 24
Bearak, Max. 2021. “Africa’s Rising Cities: How Africa will become the center of the world’s urban future.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/africa-cities/
January 26
Sassen, Saskia. 2001. “The Producer Services” in The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press.
Logan, John and Harvey Molotch. 1987. “The Dependent Future” in Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. University of California Press.
Stone, Clarence. 1989. “Urban Regimes: A Research Perspective” in Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988. University of Kansas Press.
Week 2: Concentrated poverty
January 31
Wacquant, Loic. 2008. Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Polity. (selections)
February 2
Wilson, W.J. 1996. “Introduction” and “From Institutional to Jobless Ghettoes” in When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. Knopf.
Week 3: Informality
February 7
Davis, Mike. 2004. “Planet of Slums.” New Left Review. 26(March/April):5-34.
Roy, A. 2009. “Why India Cannot Plan Its Cities: Informality, Insurgence and the Idiom of Urbanization”. Planning Theory. 8(1):76-87.
February 9
Banks, Nicola, Melanie Lombard & Diana Mitlin. 2020. “Urban Informality as a Site of Critical Analysis.” The Journal of Development Studies. 56:2, 223-238
Pieterse, Edgar. 2011. “Rethinking African urbanism from the slum.” LSE Urban Age Essays.
Week 4: Colonial legacies
February 14
Robinson, Jennifer. 2010. “Cities in a world of cities: the comparative gesture,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35, 1: 1-23.
Watson, Vanessa. 2013. “African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares.” Environment & Urbanization. 26(1): 215-231.
February 16
Heller, Patrick. 2001. “Moving the State: The Politics of Democratic Decentralization in Kerala, South Africa, and Porto Alegre”. Politics & Society. 29(1): 131-163.
Chatterjee, Partha. 2011. “Democracy and Economic Transformation” in Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Post-Colonial Democracy. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Week 5: Migration
February 23
Landau, Loren. 2014. “Conviviality, Rights, and Conflict in Africa’s Urban Estuaries.” Politics & Society. 42(3): 359-380.
Lustgarten, Abrahm. 2020. “The Great Climate Migration.” The New York Times Magazine. July 23. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html
Week 6: Class
February 28
Garrido, Marco. 2019. The Patchwork City: Class, Space, and Politics in Metro Manila. University of Chicago Press. (selections)
March 2
Guilluy, Christophe. 2020. Twilight of the Elites: Prosperity, The Periphery, and the Future of France. Yale University Press. (selections)
Wacquant, Loic. 2008. Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Polity. (selections)
Week 7: Race
March 7
Jenkins, Destin. 2021. The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City. University of Chicago Press. (selections)
Pacewicz, Josh and John Robinson III. “Pocketbook Policing: How Race Shapes Reliance on Fines and Fees in Suburban Chicago.” Socio-Economic Review. 19(3):975-1003.
March 9
Khan-Perry, Keisha. 2017. “Black Women and State-Sanctioned Violence in the Brazilian City”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Cheney-Rice, Zak. 2022. “Why did Keisha Lance Bottoms Quit?” New York Magazine. January 3. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/keisha-lance-bottoms-atlanta-mayor-quits.html
Week 8: Elites
March 21
Weinstein, Liza. 2014. “’One-Man Handled’: Fragmented Power and Political Entrepreneurship in Globalizing Mumbai”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 38(1): 14-35.
Bradlow, Benjamin. 2021. “Weapons Of The Strong: Elite Resistance and the Neo-Apartheid City.” City & Community.
March 23
Ghertner, Asher. “Why gentrification theory fails in ‘much of the world’.” City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action. 19(4): 552-563.
Valle, Melissa. 2021. “Globalizing the Sociology of Gentrification.” City & Community. 20(1): 59-70.
Week 9: Movements
March 28
Bayat, Asef. 2000. “From ‘Dangerous Classes’ to ‘Quiet Rebels’: Politics of the Urban Subaltern in the Global South”. International Sociology. 15(3): 533
Castells, Manuel. 1983. The City and the Grassroots. University of California Press. (selections)
March 30
Paret, Marcel. 2018. “The Politics of Local Resistance in Urban South Africa: Evidence from Three Informal Settlements.” International Sociology 33(3): 337-356.
Appadurai, Arjun. 2001. “Deep democracy: urban governmentality and the horizon of politics.” Environment and Urbanization. 13(2): 23-43.
Week 10: The state
April 4
Harvey, David. 1989. “From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation of urban governance in late capitalism”. Geogr. Ann. 71 B (1): 3-17.
Dreier, P., J. Mollenkopf, T. Swanstrom. 2014. “Urban Politics Matter: Liberal, Progressive, and Conservative Cities” inPlace Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century. 3rd Edition.
April 6
Bae, Y. and J. Sellers. 2007. “Globalization, the Developmental State and the Politics of Urban Growth in Korea: A Multilevel Analysis.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31 (3):543-60.
Bradlow, Benjamin. 2022. “Embeddedness and Cohesion: Regimes of Urban Public Goods Distribution.” Theory and Society. OnlineFirst.
Week 11: Land and Geography
April 11
Brenner, Neil. 2019. “Cities and the Political Geographies of the ‘New’ Economy.” In New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question. Oxford University Press.
April 13
Levien, Michael. 2018. Dispossession Without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India. New York: Oxford University Press. (selections)
Jaros, Kyle. 2019. China’s Urban Champions: The Politics of Spatial Development. Princeton University Press. (selections)
Week 12: Climate change
April 18
Ranganathan, Malini Ranganathan. 2022. “Caste, racialization, and the making of environmental unfreedoms in urban India.” Ethnic and Racial Studies. 45(2): 257-277.
Aldana Cohen, Daniel 2021. “New York City as ‘fortress of solitude’ after Hurricane Sandy: a relational sociology of extreme weather’s relationship to climate politics.” Environmental Politics. 30(5): 687-707.
April 20
Ren, Xuefei. 2020. Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution.Princeton University Press.
Millington, Nate, and Suraya Scheba. 2020. “Day Zero and The Infrastructures of Climate Change: Water Governance, Inequality, and Infrastructural Politics in Cape Town’s Water Crisis.” International Journal of Urban & Regional Research. 45(1): 116-132.
Week 13: Violence
April 25
Sharkey, Patrick. 2018. Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence. W.W. Norton & Company. (selections)
Moncada, Eduardo. 2016. Cities, Business and the Politics of Urban Violence in Latin America. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. (selections)
***
CLIMATE CHANGE, POWER, AND GLOBAL INEQUALITY
Week 1: The anthropocene
January 24
Sengupta, Somini. 2021. “Chile Writes Its Constitution, Confronting Climate Change Head On.” New York Times. December 29.
January 26
Lewis, Simon L. and Mark A. Maslin. 2018. The Human Planet: How We Created The Anthropocene. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (selections)
Klinenberg, Eric, Malcolm Araos and Liz Koslov. 2020. “Sociology and the Climate Crisis.” Annual Review of Sociology. 46:649-669.
Week 2: Industrial capitalism and development
January 31
Polanyi, Karl. 1944. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Beacon Press. (selections)
Malm, Andreas. 2016. Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming. Verso Books. (selections)
February 2
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1972. “The Development of Underdevelopment.” Pp. 3-18 in Dependence and Underdevelopment, ed. By James Crockroft, A. Frank, and Dale Johnson. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Chang, Ha-Joon. 2002. Kicking away the ladder: development strategy in historical perspective. London: Anthem. (selections)
Week 3: Colonialism and Empire
February 7
Norgaard, Kari Marie. 2019. Salmon and Acorns Feed Our People: Colonialism, Nature, and Social Action. Rutgers University Press. (selections)
Mitchell, Timothy. 2013. Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. Verso Books (selections)
February 9
Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O. 2022. Reconsidering Reparations. Oxford University Press. (selections)
**Prof. Taiwo will be joining the class**
Week 4: Growth / de-growth
February 14
McCarthy, James. 2015. “A socioecological fix to capitalist crisis and climate change? The possibilities and limits of renewable energy.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 47(12): 2485-2502.
Arboleda, Martín. 2020. Planetary Mine: Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism. Verso Books. (selections)
February 16
Exchange between Branko Milanovic and Jason Hickel. 2017.
Milanovic: “The illusion of ‘degrowth’ in a poor and unequal world.” http://glineq.blogspot.de/2017/11/the-illusion-of-degrowth-in-poor-and.html
Hickel: “Why Branko Milanovic is wrong about degrowth.” https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2017/11/19/why-branko-milanovic-is-wrong-about-de-growth
Milanovic: “The illusion of ‘degrowth’: Part II.” http://glineq.blogspot.de/2017/11/the-illusion-of-degrowth-part-ii.html
Hickel: “De-growth is feasible: people want a new economy.” https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2017/11/22/why-branko-milanovic-is-wrong-about-degrowth-ii
Week 5: Technology
February 23
Meckling, Jonas. 2021. “Making Industrial Policy Work for Decarbonization.” Global Environmental Politics. 21(4): 134-147.
Wallace-Wells, David. 2021. “Climate Reparations: The Case for Carbon Removal.” New York Magazine. November 1.
Week 6: Migration and Urbanization
February 28
Lustgarten, Abrahm. 2020. “The Great Climate Migration.” The New York Times Magazine. July 23.
March 2
Taylor, Zac J. and Manuel Aalbers. 2022. “Climate Gentrification: Risk, Rent, and Restructuring in Greater Miami.” Annals of the American Association of American Geographers. OnlineFirst.
Aldana Cohen. 2016. “The Rationed City: The Politics of Water, Housing, and Land Use in Drought-Parched São Paulo.” Public Culture. 28(2 (79)):261-289.
Week 7: Global politics
March 7
United Nations Brundtland Commission. 1987. Our Common Future. (selections)
Falzon, Danielle. 2021. “The Ideal Delegation: How Institutional Privilege Silences ‘Developing’ Nations in the UN Climate Negotiations.” Social Problems. OnlineFirst.
March 9
Battistoni, Alyssa. 2021. “Picking Winners.” Sidecar (New Left Review). November 24.
Gallagher, Kelly Sims. 2022. “The Coming Carbon Tsunami: Developing Countries Need a New Growth Model — Before It’s Too Late.” Foreign Affairs. January/February 2022.
Green, Jessica F. 2021. “Follow the Money: How Reforming Tax and Trade Rules Can Fight Climate Change.” Foreign Affairs. November 12.
Week 8: Elite actors
March 21
Ciplet, David, and J. Timmons Roberts. 2017. “Climate change and the transition to neoliberal environmental governance.” Global Environmental Change. 46: 148-156.
Farrell, Justin, Kathryn McConnell and Robert Brulle. 2019. Evidence-based strategies to combat scientific misinformation. Nature Climate Change. 9:191-195.
Kalili, Laleh. 2021. “How to get rich.” London Review of Books. 43(18).
March 23
Tooze, Adam. 2021. “Climate, carbon and class.” Chartbook 24.
Tooze, Adam. 2021. “Can Elites Start The Climate Revolution.” Foreign Policy. June 3.
Meyer, Robinson. 2019. “How Climate Change Could Trigger The Next Global Financial Crisis.” The Atlantic. August 1.
Week 9: Mass actors
March 28
Riofrancos, Thea. 2020. Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (selections)
Driscoll, Daniel. 2021. “Populism and Carbon Tax Justice: The Yellow Vest Movement in France.” Social Problems. OnlineFirst.
March 30
Meek, James. 2021. “Who holds the welding rod? On wind power, green jobs, and global capitalism.” London Review of Books. 43(14).
Choose 1:
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New Press. (selections)
Jerolmack, Colin. 2021. Up To Heaven and Down To Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town. Princeton University Press. (selections)
Week 10: The state
April 4
Dubash, Navroz. 2021. “Varieties of climate governance: the emergence and functioning of climate institutions.” Environmental Politics. 30: 1-25.
Hochstetler, Kathryn. 2020. Political Economies of Energy Transition: Wind and Solar Power in Brazil and South Africa. Cambridge University Press. (selections)
April 6
Teng, Fei, and Pu Wang. 2021. “The evolution of climate governance in China: drivers, features, and effectiveness.” Environmental Politics. 30: 141-161.
Thompson, Helen. 2022. Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century. Oxford University Press. (selections)
Week 11: Finance
April 11
Gabor, Daniela. 2021. “The Wall Street Consensus.” Development and Change. 52(3): 429-459.
Ip, Greg. 2021 “Why Financing the Multi-Trillion-Dollar Transition to Net Zero Isn’t That Hard.” Wall Street Journal. November 4.
Fink, Larry. 2021. “Rich Countries Must Bear the Cost if We Can Ever Hope to Achieve a Net-Zero World.” New York Times. October 13.
Krahé, Max. 2021. “For sustainable finance to work, we will need central planning.” Financial Times. July 11.
Optional
Braun, Benjamin and Daniela Gabor. 2021. “In Search of a Green Macro-Financial Regime.” Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism video series.
April 13
Unger, Roberto. 2019. The Knowledge Economy. Verso Books. (selections)
Kelton, Stephanie. 2020. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. Public Affairs. (selections)
Week 12: Making policy
April 18
Stokes, Leah. 2020. Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States. Oxford University Press. (selections)
April 20
Cullenward, Danny, and David G. Victor. 2020. Making Climate Policy Work. Polity. (selections)
Week 13: Green New Deals and their Discontents
April 25
Cohen, Daniel Aldana. 2019. “A Green New Deal For Housing.” Jacobin. February 8.
Aranoff, Kate, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. A Planet to Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal. London, UK: Verso Books. (selections)
Bedi, Heather Plumridge. 2021. “Solar power for some? Energy transition injustices in Kerala, India.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. OnlineFirst.
April 27
Allan, Bentley, Joanna I. Lewis, and Thomas Oatley. 2021. “Green Industrial Policy and the Global Transformation of Climate Politics.” Global Environmental Politics. 21(4): 1-19.
Meadway, James. 2021. “We need more than a Green New Deal.” Pandemic Capitalism.
Butler, James. 2021. “A Coal Mine for every Wildfire.” London Review of Books. 43(22).
Tooze, Adam. 2021. “Ecological Leninism.” London Review of Books. 43(22).