Currently available with free access from our Special Issue, Worlds of Austerity! Governing austerity in Dublin: Rationalization, resilience, and resistance, by Niamh Gaynor

Often hailed as “the poster child of Europe” for its discipline and compliance in managing austerity despite the severity of the cuts meted on its population, Dublin presents an interesting case in austerity governance. This article focuses on the specific mechanisms whereby such compliance and public acquiescence have been achieved. Drawing on field research conducted from 2015 to 2017, it identifies three key practices of austerity governance: a collectivization of blame and shame; a cutting, shaping, and disciplining of civil society; and a reconstruction of the citizen-subject. It then goes on to uncover a diverse range of public responses to these practices that, oscillating between resistance and resilience, are playing a key role in rebuilding solidarity and community across neighborhoods throughout the city. The findings presented here respond to recent calls for a re-insertion of the political into contemporary urban research and highlight the importance of dispersed networks of resistance and resilience in contemporary urban political struggle and transformation.