Introduction

Abstract

The previous two decades have seen the field of urban politics transformed from an institutionally rooted, eclectic specialism to a range of studies at the frontiers of our knowledge about the fundamental social and political processes in contemporary societies. Within this new literature an important sub-field, concerning the role of non-party urban movements as initiators of social change, rapidly emerged and now holds a central place in the debates. This theme reflected the abundant and diverse reality of urban protest across the globe, ranging from the black ghetto riots in the USA in the 1960s, to the squatter movements based in the shanty towns of rapidly urbanising societies, to the neighbourhood movement in Spain at the termination of the Franquist era, to the urban protest (particularly the mass movement of tenants) in Italy in the mid-1970s, to the less violent and less intense experience of the council house tenants’ movements, redevelopment action groups and environmental organisations that were and remain a familiar feature of city politics in Britain. What do these movements and organisations represent? What effect have they had on social structures and in the policy arena? To what extent does their existence suggest a collapse of the formal procedures of political systems in expressing social conflict?