Revanchism via Pedestrianism: Street‐level Bureaucracy in the Production of Uneven Policing Landscapes

Abstract

The emergence over the last decade of large numbers of vulnerable EU citizens begging on Swedish streets has led to ambivalent responses from the Swedish state, including from local police forces charged with policing public order. Based on research including interviews with vulnerable EU citizens and with police officials in two socio‐economically divergent areas of Stockholm, this paper seeks to understand how policing practices are motivated and enacted towards this group and how these practices are experienced by those targeted. The results reveal a set of policing practices which, whilst framed within a depoliticised logic of what Nicholas Blomley calls “pedestrianism”, work to produce spatially uneven punitive landscapes for those begging. The paper argues that understanding the role of police as “street‐level bureaucrats” (following Michael Lipsky), with the agency to escalate or soften revanchist landscapes, is fundamental to understanding the contingencies at the heart of punitive urbanisms.

Street-Level Workers and the Construction of Social Infrastructure in Suburban Neighbourhoods

“…This challenges the understanding of workers as outsiders whose relationships with local residents are hierarchical, power-laden, instrumental, and impersonal (see Blokland, 2017;Junnilainen, 2019;Lipsky, 1980). The finding is in line with the previous research reporting the commitment and agency of street-level workers-or bureaucrats-who genuinely aim at making a difference in these neighbourhoods (e.g., Jansen et al, 2021;Lavee & Cohen, 2019;Levy, 2021;Proudfoot & McCann, 2008;Rice, 2012).…”

“…In order to understand the everyday realisation of social infrastructures in suburban neighbourhoods, we targeted our interest on street-level workers. We are partly contingent on the previous literature on streetlevel bureaucrats (e.g., Brodkin, 2012;Jansen et al, 2021;Lavee & Cohen, 2019;Levy, 2021;Lipsky, 1980;Proudfoot & McCann, 2008;Rice, 2012), but our usage of the term "street-level workers" illustrates that in addition to "public agencies that represent authorities" (Brodkin, 2012), our data includes resident-activists and representatives of the third sector. Characteristic to street-level bureaucrats is that they are "frontline workers who interact daily with citizens, providing…services, while enforcing and implementing dictated policies and regulations" (Lavee & Cohen, 2019, p. 476).…”

“…Many studies also highlight the agency of street-level workers and how, due to inadequate resources, they develop coping mechanisms, strategies, and informal practices that help them carry out their work and make a difference in neighbourhood spaces (Brodkin, 2012;Jansen et al, 2021;Proudfoot & McCann, 2008). Sometimes they are also able to influence policy design or shape societal structures (Lavee & Cohen, 2019;Levy, 2021;Rice, 2012).…”

Punishment, support, or discipline? Taking stock of recent debates about homeless governance in neoliberal cities

“…Herring (2019a) demonstrates residents, politicians, park rangers, public works officials, and human service agencies pressure police officers to displace the homeless from their neighborhood. The effect of a complaint is mediated by the agency of police officers who decide whether to implement a quality‐of‐life ordinance (Levy, 2020). Research suggests exclusionary policing is disproportionately used against racial minorities (Herring et al., 2020; Swanson, 2007).…”

“The Echoes of Echo Park”: Anti-Homeless Ordinances in Neo-Revanchist Cities

“…Some scholars have recently characterized cities as “post-revanchist” (DeVerteuil 2019; Murphy 2009), as the passage of homeless service and affordable housing initiatives like “Housing First” programs have a less punitive bent toward those experiencing homelessness (Hennigan 2017; Padgett, Henwood and Tsemberis 2016). Pertinent to our article, however, critics of “post-revanchist” analyses have recharacterized cities as “neo-revanchist” because many continue to adopt “quality-of-life” ordinances and conduct police sweeps that produce anti-homeless landscapes, while failing to build long-term affordable housing to shelter their unhoused population (Clarke and Parsell 2020; Levy 2021). To assess the fluctuations in “neo-revanchist” enforcement, spatial banishment, and the production of anti-homeless spaces, we ask two questions: How do cities regulate homelessness through legal and spatial enforcement? How have cities developed neo-revanchist landscapes and strategies, and how were these strategies further enabled in LA during the COVID-19 pandemic? To ground our focus, we review “quality-of-life” ordinances in sixteen US cities and further focus on one of these cities, LA.…”