TY - UNPB
T1 - Does the Welfare State Play a Role in Urban Unrest? Learnings from Paris, London and Stockholm Riots
AU - Lodi Rizzini, Chiara
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Paris, 2005. London, 2011. Stockholm, 2013. Different timing, country and social model, but the
same dynamics: the police shoot and kill a man belonging to an ethnic minority. The accident triggers
the explosion of riots, first in the suburbs, then spreading around the whole city and country.
The paper aims at analysing the events from a social policy perspective, focusing on three elements
occurring in all of the reported episodes. First, the place, suburbs: riots are geographically
very circumscribed, thus showing the persistence of a centre-periphery cleavage often widened
by gentrification processes. Secondly, rioters’ age: most of them are under 25, reinforcing some
sociologists’ opinion that riots are, first of all, “a youth underclass uprising from destitute neighbourhoods”
(Roy 2005). Lastly, the high involvement of people from minorities as the result of an
incomplete integration process, even in countries such as the United Kingdom and France where
immigration is already a long-standing phenomenon.
The analysis of these three elements can fruitfully outline that rioters are a part of society living
in a sort of “limbo”: they are not in work nor in education, they are not foreign nationals nor citizens
of the country where live in, or at least they often do not feel they belong there. This state of
things seems to feed feelings of exclusion, injustice and detachment from society, especially in suburbs,
which have frequently become worlds apart from the rest of the city and the nation. Episodes
as the ones analysed suggest how the economic crisis is undermining social cohesion and widening
the cleavages between the insiders and the outsiders of society, centre and periphery, different generations,
migrants and residents. Such dangerous outcomes pose a threat to all of the “worlds of
welfare” (Esping-Andersen 1991) from “social democratic” Sweden to “liberal” United Kingdom,
as well as to “corporative” France.
AB - Paris, 2005. London, 2011. Stockholm, 2013. Different timing, country and social model, but the
same dynamics: the police shoot and kill a man belonging to an ethnic minority. The accident triggers
the explosion of riots, first in the suburbs, then spreading around the whole city and country.
The paper aims at analysing the events from a social policy perspective, focusing on three elements
occurring in all of the reported episodes. First, the place, suburbs: riots are geographically
very circumscribed, thus showing the persistence of a centre-periphery cleavage often widened
by gentrification processes. Secondly, rioters’ age: most of them are under 25, reinforcing some
sociologists’ opinion that riots are, first of all, “a youth underclass uprising from destitute neighbourhoods”
(Roy 2005). Lastly, the high involvement of people from minorities as the result of an
incomplete integration process, even in countries such as the United Kingdom and France where
immigration is already a long-standing phenomenon.
The analysis of these three elements can fruitfully outline that rioters are a part of society living
in a sort of “limbo”: they are not in work nor in education, they are not foreign nationals nor citizens
of the country where live in, or at least they often do not feel they belong there. This state of
things seems to feed feelings of exclusion, injustice and detachment from society, especially in suburbs,
which have frequently become worlds apart from the rest of the city and the nation. Episodes
as the ones analysed suggest how the economic crisis is undermining social cohesion and widening
the cleavages between the insiders and the outsiders of society, centre and periphery, different generations,
migrants and residents. Such dangerous outcomes pose a threat to all of the “worlds of
welfare” (Esping-Andersen 1991) from “social democratic” Sweden to “liberal” United Kingdom,
as well as to “corporative” France.
KW - conflitti urbani
KW - politiche sociali
KW - urban unrest
KW - welfare state
KW - conflitti urbani
KW - politiche sociali
KW - urban unrest
KW - welfare state
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/121242
UR - http://secondowelfare.it/allegati/wp2wel-4:2016.pdf
M3 - Working paper
BT - Does the Welfare State Play a Role in Urban Unrest? Learnings from Paris, London and Stockholm Riots
PB - Centro di Ricerca e Documentazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino
ER -