The Search for Political Space: Globalization, Social Movements, and the Urban Political Experience

Joseph Garcea is a professor of political Studies at the University of
Saskatchewan.

The principal focus of this book is on major trends in urban politics
related to globalization and the dynamics of social movements. The
author’s overarching objective is to convince the reader that “world
politics must now be conceived as urban politics, and that states should
be understood as glorified municipalities.”

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 provides an analysis of
theoretical perspectives on municipal politics. Here the author
underlines the need for a radical readjustment and reviews some of the
major developments that have affected various radical social movements
(e.g., environmentalism and aboriginalism) operating at the local level
in Canada and the United States. Part 2 focuses on the challenges that
have been posed by the New Left and the New Right to the postwar
political settlement on the structure of the state at the national and
local levels; contemporary ideas regarding the organization of local
government in the light of a competitive global economy are also
examined. Part 3 examines the effect of the international political
economy on local authorities in British Columbia and Britain; the
foreign-policy initiatives of municipal governments on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean during the Cold War; and the efforts of women’s
organizations to deal with housing problems in Vancouver.

Consisting of articles written by the author over the past decade, this
volume suffers from

a general lack of cohesiveness and from a dense writing style that
demands considerable patience on the part of the reader. Nevertheless,
the book has much to offer and should be parti-cularly welcomed by
neo-Marxist scholars.