ABSTRACT

Using cases of Warsaw urban development programs as well as national government policies, the chapter describes the struggles in the field of urban policy, resolving between public (local and national administration), private (business) and civil society actors (urban movement grassroots initiatives). This struggle is strongly connected with the concept of livability and plays out around different narratives and norms present in the field of Polish urban policy. Although diverse in nature, the process and the involved actors can be described and analyzed by using the recently developed framework of Strategic Action Fields (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011, 2012). Using the context of livability idea, we can illustrate how new groups of civil society actors—urban movement initiatives—became important in the “game of the city” in Poland—thus re-negotiating a crucial part of the urban politics field in-between a retreating city-level public sector and the entrance of corporate actors.