진보적 지방정치의 역사적 경험들 - 시기별 특징과 그 함의

Abstract

In late 19th century's Europe, when socialist and workers' parties were emerging in the late 19th century, local societies have been dominated by conservative forces. Against such a conservative hegemony, the left forces came to promote the making of the working class communities in their cities and towns, particularly in Italy and Sweden. In Sweden, the people's houses were built as spaces gathering trade unions, cooperatives, socialist parties and so on, free from local bourgeois hegemony. In Italy, such local centers of social movements were called the 'chambers of labor'. Then, as the expansion of the suffrage allowed left political parties to be in power in municipalities, a new vision emerged among socialist movements, which asserted the possibility to change capitalist societies from their localities. Such ideas were named the 'municipal socialism'. In effect, the austrian Social Democratic Workers' Party ran the administration of Vienna and made it a laboratory of municipal socialism, building housing complexes for working class and anticipating the future welfare states, during the times between the wars. In UK, some Labour politician like G. Lansbury took the advantage of local power as weapons against the conservative central government. After the 2nd word war, many Communist parties in the countries like Italy, France etc. revived the examples of social democratic parties in their municipalities, adding it such an innovation as the creative policies of promoting and supporting cooperatives. Since 1970's, as the neo-liberal rights came to dominate the scene of central politics, the local governments emerged as important fields of struggles and experiments, again. New generations of left political forces governing municipalities pursued new alternative economic models, which differed from the dominant neo-liberalism and characterized by their novel forms of social ownership and popular participation. In UK, the Greater London Council governed by Labour left during 1981-86 struggled against the offensive of M. Thatcher's central government. Even in USA, the home of neo-liberal capitalism, Burlington(Vermont) administration governed by B. Sanders and his progressive colleagues showed so much different policies from R. Reagan's federal government. New generations of left local politics preferred the name of 'local socialism' more than the traditional 'municipal socialism'. Nowadays, the critical places of local socialism shifts to Latin America and India, namely, the Global South. Left parties in Brazil, Uruguay etc. and Communist Party of India(Marxist) governing in the state of Kerala are experimenting on participatory democracy, such as budget schemes planned, deliberated and determined by people's participation. Odyssey of left politics in localities is still going on.