A project to explore how the commons transform public action in Europe
Republished from Enacting the Commons
In a context of waves of privatization of public properties and services, of austerity policies in recent decades, Italy saw in the 2000s the emergence of a social movement around urban commons, and citizens increasingly the governance of the resources that concern them.
The recent history of the
municipalities in Italy is characterised in particular by the definition
of the legal category of common property by the Rodotà Commission,
established by the Prodi Government in 2007: “property that is
functionally useful for the exercise of fundamental rights and the free
development of the person”. While the law that was supposed to translate
the commission’s work into Italian law was never adopted, it has
nevertheless largely contributed to debates and experimentations in the
countr ;, so has the national Referendum on “Aqua Beni Communi” in 2011,
in which 95% of voters voted to keep water public.
These two events helped to forge a
context for a multitude of initiatives, political and academic
reflections on commons that are being deployed today, marked in
particular by new developments in the legal field.
The Bologna Charter is emblematic of this movement :
a pact drawn up in 2014 by a laboratory of lawyers and the
municipality, taking the opportunity of a legal vacuum to offer a
framework for “collaboration between citizens and the administration for
the maintenance and regeneration of urban commons”; the pact is a
regulatory commitment allowing individuals, legal persons or
non-instituted collectives, to participate themselves in the performance
of part of tasks of general interest or public service, with the
support and under the supervision of the administration. Nearly 180
various cooperation agreements have been concluded; a vast urban
co-governance programme has been set up, with the objective of laying
the foundations for a “co-city”, a collaborative ecosystem to meet the
basic needs of the population by developing the local cooperative
economy and collaborations between the public, private and common
sectors.
The initiative has also inspired many
other cities, such as Turin and the Co-City project (with the support
of EU Urban inovative action), which aims to explore how resource
management in the form of commons through the legal instrument of pacts
can provide responses to poverty and socio-spatial divides. This aim is
now guiding all the pacts developed with the municipality’s support.
Among the questions we will explore during this first expedition:
1 – A new role and new modalities of action for the public actor ?
How does the public actor integrate his new role as an intermediary and
support for self-organized joint initiatives? How, in a variety of
local contexts, do legal mechanisms allow for a redistribution of
powers, new partnership modalities, etc.? To which extent can they
inspire French actors ?
2 – Do the pacts contribute
to expand the democratic space, find new answers to territorial issues…
or support the retirement of public actors ? By promoting
direct citizen engagement, do pacts allow new responses to social,
economic and other challenges to be found? How do these initiatives
challenge the impact of public action? Do they pose the risk of
disempowerment of public institutions, ultimately relying on citizens to
ensure the maintenance of collective services from which they emerge ?
3 – Towards new political narratives ?
Can this approach of the commons contribute to the reconstruction of a
strong political narrative in a context of democratic crisis? Is the
multitude of initiatives led by local authorities succeeding on a larger
scale – national, European, to move forward? Behind an approach by the
commons that is far from being generic, what controversies, what
diversity of visions of public action can be read ?
Expedition # 1 – Italy, juridical creativity at the service of the commons?
In a context of waves of privatization of public properties
and services, of austerity policies in recent decades, Italy saw in the
2000s the emergence of a social movement around urban commons, and
citizens increasingly g the governance of the resources that concern
them.
The recent history of the
municipalities in Italy is characterised in particular by the definition
of the legal category of common property by the Rodotà Commission,
established by the Prodi Government in 2007: “property that is
functionally useful for the exercise of fundamental rights and the free
development of the person”. While the law that was supposed to translate
the commission’s work into Italian law was never adopted, it has
nevertheless largely contributed to debates and experimentations in the
countr ;, so has the national Referendum on “Aqua Beni Communi” in 2011,
in which 95% of voters voted to keep water public.
These two events helped to forge a
context for a multitude of initiatives, political and academic
reflections on commons that are being deployed today, marked in
particular by new developments in the legal field.
The Bologna Charter is emblematic of this movement :
a pact drawn up in 2014 by a laboratory of lawyers and the
municipality, taking the opportunity of a legal vacuum to offer a
framework for “collaboration between citizens and the administration for
the maintenance and regeneration of urban commons”; the pact is a
regulatory commitment allowing individuals, legal persons or
non-instituted collectives, to participate themselves in the performance
of part of tasks of general interest or public service, with the
support and under the supervision of the administration. Nearly 180
various cooperation agreements have been concluded; a vast urban
co-governance programme has been set up, with the objective of laying
the foundations for a “co-city”, a collaborative ecosystem to meet the
basic needs of the population by developing the local cooperative
economy and collaborations between the public, private and common
sectors.
The initiative has also inspired many
other cities, such as Turin and the Co-City project (with the support
of EU Urban inovative action), which aims to explore how resource
management in the form of commons through the legal instrument of pacts
can provide responses to poverty and socio-spatial divides. This aim is
now guiding all the pacts developed with the municipality’s support.
Among the questions we will explore during this first expedition:
1 – A new role and new modalities of action for the public actor ?
How does the public actor integrate his new role as an intermediary and
support for self-organized joint initiatives? How, in a variety of
local contexts, do legal mechanisms allow for a redistribution of
powers, new partnership modalities, etc.? To which extent can they
inspire French actors ?
2 – Do the pacts contribute
to expand the democratic space, find new answers to territorial issues…
or support the retirement of public actors ? By promoting
direct citizen engagement, do pacts allow new responses to social,
economic and other challenges to be found? How do these initiatives
challenge the impact of public action? Do they pose the risk of
disempowerment of public institutions, ultimately relying on citizens to
ensure the maintenance of collective services from which they emerge ?
3 – Towards new political narratives ?
Can this approach of the commons contribute to the reconstruction of a
strong political narrative in a context of democratic crisis? Is the
multitude of initiatives led by local authorities succeeding on a larger
scale – national, European, to move forward? Behind an approach by the
commons that is far from being generic, what controversies, what
diversity of visions of public action can be read ?
The post Enacting the Commons: Expedition 1, Italy appeared first on P2P Foundation.