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Rebel cities: Radical municipality and direct democracy in Spain and Catalonia.

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One of the challenges Podemos has faced is that, at the state level, it's difficult to get people involved in decision making in a genuine way. The way to do that, as the theory of the municipal movement goes, is at the local level, because that's where the institutions are closest to the people. There's a powerful idea that democracy was born in cities in ancient Greece, and that's where we can claim it back.

Live from Barcelona, democracy advocate Kate Shea Baird profiles Barcelona en Comú (BComú,) part of a wave of citizen-lead municipal platforms that have claimed political power in response to government corruption and post-finance crisis austerity policies, and explains how emerging democratic movements are balancing hyper-local identities with hyper-global challenges.

Kate wrote the essay The Disobedient City and the Stateless Nation for ROAR Magazine.

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Kate Shea Baird

Kate Shea Baird is a Barcelona-based researcher and local democracy advocate.

katesheabaird.wordpress.com

 

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