Area Development and Policy Annual Lecture 2021: “Coalitions and Alliances; Understanding Their Contribution to Urban Transformation”

Speaker: Diana Mitlin, University of Manchester, UK

Discussants:

Lalitha Kamath, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India

Susan Parnell, University of Bristol, UK/University of Cape Town, South Africa

Chair: Ivan Turok, South African NRF Research Chair in City-Region Economies, South Africa

Recognising the importance of political action to achieve reform, this contribution draws on experiences with civil society initiated coalitions and alliances in urban Africa and Asia. Analysing their efforts to reduce poverty and inequality, I examine what has worked, suggest why it has worked, and identify challenges.

There is widespread acknowledgement of the need for urban reform by many disadvantaged constituencies living and working in towns and cities of the global South. Reform is also more widely recognised as required to address multiple city challenges such as responding to climate change, secure city-wide improvements in, for example, basic services such as water and sanitation and strengthening urban economies. Urban social movements that campaign for improved access to resources, protection from exploitation and abuse, and recognition have acknowledged the efficacy of working with broad-based alliances to achieve change. And the contribution of territorially-based reform coalitions as instigators of transformative change both within and beyond cities has also been more widely recognised.

Coalition building brings together those who recognise the potential of alliances to achieve common goals. In some cases, those involved create an organization to support their work; however, alliances also take the form of looser and less permanent aggregations. An analysis of inclusive urban transformation suggests that such coalitions have been important in strengthening narratives of poverty reduction, promoting more equitable policies for secure tenure and basic services, and helping to protect residents against exploitation and dispossession. Such alliances may be particularly important in highly stratified social contexts in which the legitimacy and capabilities of movements themselves are challenged.

This lecture seeks to answer the following questions:

What have we learned from the last 20 years of coalition building Who are the key groups in coalitions, and why are they important? How do coalitions change over time in their search for greater effectiveness? How do coalitions work with the polity, political parties and politicians? And finally what do coalitions offer to the work of the African Cities Research Consortium