longiteuisianapetro-populismandtheneworleanspublic.docVIP

Louisiana Petro-Populism and public services in the city of New Orleans Christian Roselund1 and Brian Marks2 (1) Journalist and Independent Scholar 4300 Burgundy Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70117 (2) PhD Candidate School of Geography and Development University of Arizona Harvill Building, Box #2 Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: (520) 621-1652 Fax: (520) 621-2889 bmarks1@ Keywords: Social democracy, neoliberalism, Louisiana Petro-Populism, public services, urban political economy, New Orleans Abstract Hurricane Katrina highlighted New Orleans’ dependence on a public services regime marked by chronic crises. Public schools, hospitals, and housing under-girded the social reproduction of many New Orleanians but also made those residents particularly vulnerable to catastrophic shocks like the 2005 disaster and its aftermath. The most contentious struggles in the city since the storm have centered on the future of these institutions, further underscoring their importance for New Orleans and beyond. National commentators on the city’s reforms have characterized these struggles in terms of contemporary debates around free markets, the role of government, race, and poverty. We understand these struggles as a clash between social democratic and neoliberal ideologies, but argue New Orleans’ public services regime must be understood in this city’s particular historical and geographical context, embedded in a regional form of populist social democracy and an economic base founded on energy extraction and underdevelopment. New Orleans’ modern public service sector was constituted in a framework of ‘Louisiana Petro-Populism’ – a class compromise exchanging energy-intensive underdevelopment for a social wage of public services paid for with energy rents, manifested in populist electoral mobilizations and public service institutions. During the late New Deal period, New Orleans was a national pioneer of large-scale public projects like ‘Big Charity’ and the