Feb 17, 2007 Volker Eick Security, Private Security

Special Issue - Privatization and Resistance: Contesting Neoliberal Globalization

Some of you attenting the INURA Retreat in Trebnitz (close to Berlin) in 2003 may remember that we discussed the issue of security and neoliberal globalization. Well - Volker Eick and Ellen Reese went on with it and just published with Adalberto Aguirre a special issue of Social Justice (Vol 33, No. 3). Here is what they say:

Missing Image for the News on the Special Issue of Social Justice (33,3) — Plain Dump (Image by midgard)

"This issue explores the danger of neoliberal globalization regarding social issues such as the privatization of housing, economic welfare, security, and the delivery of goods and services. Contributions on economic welfare and municipal services discuss how neoliberalism in the global North and South has undermined workers economic rights and their rights to basic goods and services.

The section on security explores how security concerns are mingled with safe-and-clean programs to identify, control, discipline, contain, or expel the "undesirables " in urban and non-urban environs.In terms of housing and urban development, critics of neoliberalism argue thatneoliberal policies are a guise for the use of the political state by wealthy individuals and corporations to increase their share of valued resources in a global society.

Contributions on resistance to privatization show that alternatives always exist, as do people who resist neoliberalization and develop practical alternatives to the global devastations of neoliberalism on the local scale. In sum, the articles in this issue highlight the challenges of resisting neoliberal policies and the conditional nature of effective resistance. Nevertheless, neoliberalism is not, as is constantly stated, without an alternative. Instead, it is a highly contested terrain, with opportunities for a better life.200 pages. See also "Justice for Workers in the Global Economy " (Vol. 31, No. 3, 2004)".

Here is the table of contents:

Introduction: Neoliberal Globalization, Urbarizatization,and Privatization, and Resistance

Adalberto Aguirre, Jr., Volker Eick, and Ellen Reese

Part I: EconomIc Welfare & Municipal ServIces

Privatization, Neoliberal Development, and the Struggle for Workers’ Rights in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Alan Emery

A New Logic of Infrastructure Supply: The Commercialization of Water and the Transformation of Urban Governance in Germany

Markus Wissen and Matthias Naumann

Welfare Is Not for Sale: Campaigns Against Welfare Profiteers in Milwaukee

Ellen Reese, Vincent Rolandas Giedraitis, and Eric Vega

Race, Neoliberalism, and "Welfare Reform " in Britain

Tracy Fisher

Part II: SecurIty

Preventive Urban Warfare: Rent-a-Cops and Neoliberal Glocalization in Germany

Volker Eick

Securing the City: Emerging Markets in the Private Provision of Security Services in Chicago

Nik Theodore, Nina Martin, and Ryan Hollon

Part III: Housing and urban Redevelopment

Eminent Domain and City Redevelopment in California: An Overview and Case Study

Adalberto Aguirre, Jr., and Frances Vu

Urban Renewal and the End of Social Housing: The Roll Out of Neoliberalism in East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg

Andrej Holm

Housing for the Working Class of Mexico City: A New Version of Gated Communities

Beatríz Garcia Peralta and Andreas Hofer

Part IV: Resistance to Privatization

Public or Private? The Pope Squat and Housing Struggles in Toronto

Ute Lehrer and Andrea Winkler

The Dialectics of Privatization and Advocacy in New York City’s Workfare State

John Krinsky

The Pace of Neoliberal Globalization: A Comparison of Three Popular Movement Campaigns in Central America

Paul Almeida and Erica Walker