God from the Machine? Urban Movements Meet Machine Politics in Neoliberal Chicago

This paper examines the anti-Wal-Mart and immigrant rights movements in Chicago in order to understand how local political institutions influence dynamics of exclusion and incorporation. Tracing the post-1970s reconfiguration of the city's machine politics, I argue that a mayor-centered neoclientelism has enabled the local state to flexibly manage the political challenges posed by movements. This analysis seeks to contribute to broader conceptions of contemporary urban governance, suggesting how a ‘deviant’ set of local institutions may facilitate the sort of hybridized formations upon which a neoliberal politics relies.