ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the power of people to engage in city politics. The primary goal of this chapter was to show the multiple forms of power that people employ and the political actions they undertake to gain citizenship. It compares the inclusiveness of the two neighborhoods in terms of political participation. It also analyzes whether party politics, voting power, and networks with national leaders help gain political inclusion. It explores political action simultaneously as a measure of inclusion and a strategy to gain inclusion. In this chapter, I introduce diverse political actors with whom the residents interact, collude, compromise, and confront to gain inclusion. Then I describe several modes of political action such as party politics, voting, and election campaigns, lawsuits, collective protests, and community participation. This chapter shows how national leaders’ activities, interests, and involvement are different in the two neighborhoods and have varying consequences for the inclusion of their residents. Political parties valued the residents of informal housing residents more than the formal housing inhabitants because it had a large voting bank, party workers, utility businesses, and local leaders’ political support. For example, Korail’s local authorities in particular have become more included due to their active involvement with powerful actors; for them this is a deliberate strategy of political inclusion. This chapter discusses both cooperative and confrontational political strategies through which people organize, survive, and make a space within the urban design.
