Warren Magnusson - Böcker

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.

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.

City Politics in Canada offers a new perspective on Canadian municipal politics. Its concern is not with the mechanics of government, but with the practice of politics at the local level. Its focus, moreover, is on seven specific political systems at the heart of what are arguably the most important metropolitan areas in Canada. This book marks the beginning of an effort to specify what is distinctive about Canadian politics at the munisipal level, in relation to practice at other levels and in ther countries. The essays that form the core of City Politics in Canada were commissioned from leading authorities on local politics in the citizes concerned: Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Helifax, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Edmonton. The result is a set of accessible and highly informative essays, each written from a different perspective and based on a diferent approach to the subject, but each contributing to a general portrait of Canadian city politics. Warren Magnusson's introductory essay is itself a sketch for such a portrait. Especially designed for readers who are new to the subject, this essay reviews the development of local government and politics in Canada as a whole. It explains those features of municipal politics that the authors of the case studies have had to take for granted, and it sets the context for comparative analysis. Such analysis is Andrew Sancton's concern in his concluding essay. He bases his observations on the studies in this book, and pays particular attention to the way in which the pattern revealed differs from the American and the British. As he says, Canadian city politics is almost exclusively about boosterism, land development, and the enhancement of property. This is its unifying and distinguishing feature -- a feature that is clarified by the analyses in each chapter of City Politics in Canada.