Municipalism coming to the rescue. Rights, subjects and relocalised politics: the case of Barcelona

Abstract

In Spain, after the 2008 crisis and the profound impact the consequent weakening of rights had on the social majorities, the mobilisation of the citizenry was expressed, among other forms, through the 'municipalist commitment' that emerged in 2015. This paper aims to offer a reflection on the scope, challenges and limits of this commitment based on a specific example, the one offered by the city of Barcelona with the rise to local power of Barcelona en Comú, a party that emerged largely from such mobilisations, led by Ada Colau, who was the main spokesperson of the Platform of People Affected by
Mortgages (PAH), one of the most notorious phenomena of social mobilisation in recent years. This study is based on a critical conception of social rights, in the sense of rejecting their reduction to depoliticised, state-centred benefits in
the form of access to services or the provision of materials. From this perspective, it is questioned the way in which municipalist policies have or have not been able to offer other types of responses and to interact constructively with
social movements.