Urban Political Podcast · Ross Beveridge, Markus Kip, Mais Jafari, Nitin Bathla, Julio Paulos, Nicolas Goez, Talja Blokland

90 - Looking Back at Eight Years of Municipalist Government in Barcelona

·1 hr 25 min·1 clip

Urban Political presents a long conversation about the eight years of new municipalist government in Barcelona. Markus Kipp hosts the session and introduces Elia Gran, a long-term activist with Barcelona en Comu who worked as communications manager during the party’s time in office and now works with the Sentit Comu foundation. Gran speaks with Luzi Gerstenhofer and Silke van Dijk from the University of Jena. Their discussion grows out of a sociological research project called Public Policy and the future of the commons, part of the collaborative research center Structural Change of Property. The project ran for four years and included site visits, expert interviews, and document analysis. It looked at Barcelona and Liverpool, but this episode stays with Barcelona. The episode treats municipalist politics as a live tension between democracy and capitalism. It keeps asking what a movement party can actually do once it enters city hall. It also looks at what gets left untouched when the party decides some areas are outside its expertise. Economics and policing come up as examples of responsibilities that stayed with the socialist government. From there, the conversation moves into the social and solidarity economy. Co-ops and food justice appear as early points of intervention. The speakers also touch on the idea of a more doughnut-shaped economic model for the city. Gran points to concrete changes such as a municipal energy company and the idea of a municipal crematory. These are treated as part of a broader attempt to shift the city’s priorities, not as proof of a total overhaul. That restraint matters. The episode does not sell municipalism as a clean success story. It shows partial wins, contested decisions, and the limits of working inside a much larger urban system. Superblocks come up too, as a policy that future governments may revise. Even so, Gran argues that the movement’s existence politicized a lot of people and gave more residents a sense that they could speak up and act. The closing stretch turns more reflective. Gran describes those eight years as a different kind of experience from the present moment, and the conversation settles into something closer to memory than argument. The episode ends with appreciation for the struggle, the research, and the chance to think through the legacy of Barcelona en Comu with care.

As heard by us

A careful look at municipal power, and the limits it runs into.

This episode treats Barcelona's municipalist turn as lived political history, not a slogan. It moves steadily between city hall, movement politics, and the practical problem of changing how a city is governed.

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You want a clear-eyed look at Barcelona's eight years of municipalist government, with democracy-vs-capitalism tensions front and center.

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