Understanding Weak Local Governance in the Neoliberal City through the Case of Skopje 2014

Abstract

While Skopje 2014 intended to rebrand the city for international companies and tourists, the lack of local accountability over the project raises questions about what happened to the powerful local governance under Yugoslavia. Bringing local governance into analysis of the city’s physical changes helps show how its capacity weakened under neoliberalism and how municipalities shifted toward nationalist placemaking because of their inability to address other problems. These factors set the stage for Skopje 2014. In pushing Skopje 2014, the Gruevski government also exhibited patterns of authoritarian neoliberalism found in urban redevelopment in other post-communist states. Project opponents gaining control of the Centar Municipality was important in unraveling the project and regime, but building local citizenship remained a challenge as municipalities still lack the conditions to create and sustain their own agendas and legitimacy. By taking a longer historical view, the case helps distinguish mechanisms of local government capture in authoritarian neoliberal urban redevelopment from broader problems of urban governance and local citizen disempowerment under neoliberalism.