Metropolitics

Electoral Organizing During a Pandemic: Lessons from Wisconsin

Aaron Shapiro — 2021-01-12T06:00:00Z

The global Covid‑19 pandemic has radically altered social and political practices. Aaron Shapiro reflects on the impact the pandemic had on electoral organizing leading up to the 2020 general election in Wisconsin and how organizers responded.
2020 was a year and an election season like no other. Any campaign with Donald Trump on the ballot was sure to be unorthodox, but the pandemic radically altered every aspect of social life and left an indelible mark on electoral organizing. Voter

- From the Field / Wisconsin, United States, US election, presidential election, elections, vote, coronavirus, Covid-19, mobilization, pandemic, Working Families Party

Post-Election Dispatches from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania

Jamie Longazel — 2020-12-22T06:00:00Z

Jamie Longazel reflects on organizing for the 2020 general election in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. A longtime Democratic stronghold, the County voted for Trump in the 2016 election. Longazel discusses the role deindustrialization, job loss, and immigration have played in election politics.
On a warm August evening in 2018, I gave a speech outside of a Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The stage was the top of a grassy hill that sloped downward from a shopping-center parking lot.

- From the Field / community organizing, civic organizing, mobilization, US election, presidential election, elections, vote, Donald Trump, immigration, Latinx, protest, United States, Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre

Political Organizing Beyond the Election: An Interview with Rosa Saavedra in North Carolina

Rosa Saavedra & Edwin Mayorga — 2020-11-02T18:33:02Z

Edwin Mayorga interviews organizer Rosa Saavedra from North Carolina. They discuss the political landscape and community organizing beyond voter mobilization. A lightly edited transcript is published below.
Edwin Mayorga: Buen día, I'm Edwin Mayorga, an associate professor of educational studies at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and a member of Metropolitics.
I recently spoke with political organizer Rosa Saavedra about the political landscape in North and South Carolina as the 2020 US

- Interviews / audio, US election, presidential election, elections, vote, community organizing, North Carolina, United States, mobilization

Electoral Organizing in North Carolina: An Interview with Tomás Garduño

Tomás Garduño & Kate Selden — 2020-10-27T06:00:00Z

Kate Selden interviews Tomás Garduño, a social-justice organizer, about his work in Lenoir County, North Carolina, leading up to the 2020 general election and the importance of organizing in rural areas. A lightly edited transcript of their conversation is published below.
Kate Selden: My name is Kate Selden, I'm an urban planner in Brooklyn, and I work in affordable housing development.
I'm here with Tomás, who I will let introduce himself.
Tomás Garduño: My name is Tomás Garduño, I'm

- Interviews / US election, presidential election, elections, vote, social justice, North Carolina, United States, rural, community organizing, video

National and Urban Politics Converge in Moscow: Will Local Activism Prevail?

Anna Zhelnina — 2019-10-01T05:00:00Z

Recent elections in Moscow and across Russia reflect the convergence of local activism and national anti-Kremlin politics.
Late on the night of September 8, 2019, when Muscovites checked the results for that day's Moscow City Council election, they realized that their vote actually meant something for the first time in many years. The candidates backed by United Russia, the ruling party, had lost in 20 districts out of 45. United Russia kept the majority, but compared to the 38 seats they

- From the Field / elections, Moscow, Russia, activism, local action, local politics

Political Conservatism and the Working Classes in France

David Gouard & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-01-25T06:00:00Z

In her latest book, Le Vote FN au village (“The National Front Vote in the Village”), sociologist Violaine Girard presents a rigorous study of working-class trajectories “in search of respectability.” Resisting any temptation to offer an overarching, oversimplistic vision of the far-right vote, this work instead skillfully makes use of a municipal monograph to examine a village's political ecosystem in detail.
Since the late 2000s, studies of electoral behavior in France have sought to

- Reviews / periurban, local councillors, village, suburbs, elections, Front national, mayors, far right wing

Far from the Ballot Box: The Political Exclusion of the Working Classes in France

Camille Peugny & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-07-04T05:00:00Z

Following the French presidential and parliamentary elections of 2017, the question of equal access to the electoral process once again came to the fore. Sociologist Camille Peugny, who has exhaustive measured different forms of non-participation (linked to nationality, non-registration or abstention), reveals the extent to which political exclusion affects working-class populations, and underlines the role of collective work in the (uneven) politicization of these populations.
Each time the

- Essays / France, democracy, inequalities, vote, exclusion, elections, working classes, presidential election

This is Not How it Ends: Post-Election Immigration Organizing in the United States

Folasade K. Famakinwa — 2016-12-07T06:00:00Z

In response to a tense post-election moment in the US, the Metropolitics editorial committee has initiated Rapid-Response Peer Review, with a commitment to quickly reviewing and publishing articles that examine organizing and activism around crucial urban issues. Our first call was for papers related to immigration policy. Below, Folasade Famakinwa reports on what US pro‑immigrant organizations and pro‑immigrant mayors are doing, urging them to deploy more prosocial programming to strengthen

- Essays / immigration, United States, elections, resilience, community development, sanctuary cities

Remaking Black Political Spaces for Black Liberation

Akira Drake Rodriguez — 2016-12-01T06:00:00Z

What are the political implications of the redistribution of the Black population in the US? Akira Drake Rodriguez looks back at the long-running strategies of Black political mobilization and the political economic contexts that have hindered them. She calls for moving beyond place-based electoral strategies with a full embrace of the Movement for Black Lives policy platform.
Following a politically volatile and racially charged election, this moment marks a particularly precarious state for

- Essays / gentrification, elections, race, space, Blackness, electoral geography, Black politics, political geography

On Clinton, Obama, Trump and the Failures of Liberal Urban Policy

James DeFilippis — 2016-11-15T15:03:01Z

Many progressives are still in shock at the outcome of the recent US presidential election. In this contribution to the “Debates” section of Metropolitics, James DeFilippis advances a policy-based explanation for anemic voter turnout in key Democratic cities.
In the closing days of the seemingly endless 2016 US presidential campaign, it became increasingly clear to political observers that Hillary Clinton was explicitly adopting a platform of continuity with President Barack Obama's

- Debates / urban policy, elections, US election, presidential election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump