Glocal London: the Double Crisis of Governability and Governmentality

In a conference called ‘London: City of Paradox’ we need to examine the different ways in
which London is a ‘glocal city’, as so many of the issues discussed in this conference are
specific to London and/or the UK but, at the same time, are also a reflection of much wider
global phenomena. As Saskia Sassen (2012) writes in her paper, global cities are the frontier
battle zone in the contemporary world and London probably more so than many others,
especially in the year of the Olympics spectacle.
Recent election results across Europe have seen growing disenchantment with incumbent
governments which have been perceived as being unable or unwilling to deal with the
financial crisis while also maintaining the living standards of ordinary people. Meanwhile in
many countries a series of scandals in the banking sector has led to increasing but as yet
unavailing calls for a major overhaul of the industry which I take to be symptomatic of a crisis
of faith in financial institutions.
This paper reflects on the overall context in which these events are taking place, and the
ways in which they are related to each other. My argument is that these phenomena are
signs of neoliberalism’s systemic, multi-faceted, global political and economic crisis, a crisis
that is central to relationships between states and societies and to constructions of
subjectivity; and that we are seeing a related crisis of both governability and governmentality.
In the limited space available here I can only outline this crisis in general terms before going
on to focus briefly on some of its implications for political action. But I hope that analysing
events within this context will be suggestive, and point others towards undertaking similar
investigations. My focus here will be on the implications of this double crisis for the growth of
the global phenomenon of autochthonic political projects of belonging, both locally and
globally; and also for the simultaneous growth of libertarian activist citizenship movements of
resistance.