IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecolab/v27y2016i1p29-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Enabling dissent’: Contesting austerity and right populism in Toronto, Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Thomas
  • Steven Tufts

Abstract

Following the 2008 financial crisis, austerity measures have been introduced in many national contexts to reorganise public sector work and redesign labour laws and labour policies. At the same time, right-populist discourses and movements have arisen in ways that give both legitimacy and voice to the politics of austerity. Toronto, Canada, provides a world-renowned case of populist experimentation at the metropolitan scale, as the actions of Mayor Rob Ford typified this nexus of austerity and populism. Set in the context of Ford’s term as Mayor of Toronto (2010–2014), this article asks how the combined rise of austerity and right populism creates both new challenges and new opportunities for public sector labour in urban spaces. We argue that public sector unions are central in both the making and unmaking of populist austerity and identify potential trajectories for organised labour in the face of the continuation of austerity-driven politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Thomas & Steven Tufts, 2016. "‘Enabling dissent’: Contesting austerity and right populism in Toronto, Canada," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 27(1), pages 29-45, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:27:y:2016:i:1:p:29-45
    DOI: 10.1177/1035304616628409
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1035304616628409
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1035304616628409?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Margit Mayer, 2013. "First world urban activism," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 5-19, February.
    2. Ian Thomas MacDonald, 2014. "Towards Neoliberal Trade Unionism: Decline, Renewal and Transformation in North American Labour Movements," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 725-752, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Esin Özdemir & Ayda Eraydin, 2017. "Fragmentation in Urban Movements: The Role of Urban Planning Processes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 727-748, September.
    2. Ross Beveridge & Philippe Koch, 2021. "Contesting austerity, de-centring the state: Anti-politics and the political horizon of the urban," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(3), pages 451-468, May.
    3. Pera, Marina, 2020. "Potential benefits and challenges of the relationship between social movements and the commons in the city of Barcelona," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    4. Talia Margalit & Adriana Kemp, 2019. "The uneven geographies of post-political planning: Objections to urban regeneration projects in peripheral and central Israeli cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(4), pages 931-949, June.
    5. Mustafa Dikeç & Erik Swyngedouw, 2017. "Theorizing the Politicizing City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 1-18, January.
    6. Jessica Tanghetti & Roberta Comunian & Tamsyn Dent, 2022. "‘Covid-19 opened the pandora box’ of the creative city: creative and cultural workers against precarity in Milan [A heterodox re-reading of creative work: the diverse economies of Danish visual art," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 15(3), pages 615-634.
    7. Peter Fairbrother, 2015. "Rethinking trade unionism: Union renewal as transition," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 26(4), pages 561-576, December.
    8. Cesare Di Feliciantonio, 2017. "Spaces of the Expelled as Spaces of the Urban Commons? Analysing the Re-emergence of Squatting Initiatives in Rome," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 708-725, September.
    9. Morgana G Martins Krieger & Marlei Pozzebon & Lauro Gonzalez, 2021. "When social movements collaborate with the state towards the right to the city: Unveiling compromises and conflicts," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1115-1139, August.
    10. Martin Kohler & Anita Engels & Ana Paula Koury & Cathrin Zengerling, 2021. "Thinking Urban Transformation through Elsewhere: A Conversation between Real-World Labs in São Paulo and Hamburg on Governance and Practical Action," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-23, November.
    11. Amelia Thorpe, 2023. "PREFIGURATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE: Mobility, Citizenship, and the Agency of Objects," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 183-199, March.
    12. Andrew Smith, 2021. "Sustaining municipal parks in an era of neoliberal austerity: The contested commercialisation of Gunnersbury Park," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(4), pages 704-722, June.
    13. Gregor Murray & Christian Lévesque & Glenn Morgan & Nicolas Roby, 2020. "Disruption and re-regulation in work and employment: from organisational to institutional experimentation," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 26(2), pages 135-156, May.
    14. Baptiste Antoniazza & André Mach & Michael Andrea Strebel, 2023. "THE URBAN LEFT IN POWER: Comparing the Profiles of ‘Municipal Socialists’ and the ‘New Urban Left’ in Swiss Cities," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 745-772, September.
    15. Badach Joanna Maria & Stasiak Anna & Baranowski Andrzej, 2018. "The role of urban movements in the process of local spatial planning and the development of participation mechanism," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 22(4), pages 187-196, December.
    16. Sinan Erensü & Ozan Karaman, 2017. "The Work of a Few Trees: Gezi, Politics and Space," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 19-36, January.
    17. Nicole Gurran & Madeleine Pill & Sophia Maalsen, 2021. "Hidden homes? Uncovering Sydney’s informal housing market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(8), pages 1712-1731, June.
    18. Alison L Bain & Julie A Podmore, 2021. "Placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1305-1326, May.
    19. Sean O'Brady, 2020. "Partnering against Insecurity? A Comparison of Markets, Institutions and Worker Risk in Canadian and Swedish Retail," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 142-167, March.
    20. Mengi, Onur & Bilandzic, Ana & Foth, Marcus & Guaralda, Mirko, 2020. "Mapping Brisbane’s Casual Creative Corridor: Land use and policy implications of a new genre in urban creative ecosystems," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Austerity; Canada; neoliberal urbanism; populism; public sector unions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:27:y:2016:i:1:p:29-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.