Why We Don’t Resist Anymore: The New Urban Politics of Quiet Submission

Abstract

This article examines the decline of urban protests in contemporary Europe by presenting a case study of Munich. It advances the hypothesis that despite growing social, economic, cultural and political grievances, people generally don’t want to protest and/or cause trouble. Drawing on Henri Lefevre’s Right to the City, the paper argues that contemporary urban governance produces quiescent citizens through structural precarity, moral self-regulation, fear, and illusion of freedom and autonomy. The analysis is based on qualitative data derived from in-depth interviews with 30 current students living in Munich. The findings indicate that everyday pressures, post-political governance, fear of consequences, and the normalization of compliance suppress resistance. As a result, citizens appear and often believe themselves to be free, but are effectively constrained within what the study metaphorically describes as the “doll factory” of modern urban life. They often give up on their rights and freedom voluntarily just to be the ‘model citizens’. Citizens are increasingly shaped as self-managing, responsibilised, and digitally integrated subjects who perceive compliance as rational and resistance as inconvenient or futile.