On April 16, the European Union Center hosted the DOLCE Symposium, Cities and Economic Democracy: Experiments in Comparative Perspective, at the Levis Faculty Center. The event brought together scholars from across the United States and Europe to examine the role of cities as sites of democratic and economic alternatives at a time of widespread democratic backsliding. The symposium was supported by the 2025–2028 Jean Monnet Center of Excellence grant and co-sponsored by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and the Center for Advanced Study.
The symposium opened with welcome remarks by Manuel Rota and Marc Doussard of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who framed the day's inquiry around the distinctive possibilities cities offer for challenging inequality and revitalizing democratic participation.
The keynote address was delivered by Ross Beveridge of the University of Glasgow, whose talk, When Democracy Appears: People-Rule in Urban Life, explored how democratic agency manifests in urban contexts and the conditions under which ordinary people come to exercise collective power in city life.
The first panel, moderated by David Wilson, featured presentations by Anke Pinkert and Irene Farah, both of UIUC. Pinkert examined urban space and democratic possibilities through the lens of the East German city of Leipzig, drawing on histories of unrest and collective memory. Farah's presentation turned to Mexico City, analyzing how street vending organizations serve as vehicles for associational control and the persistence of subnational authoritarian structures.
The second panel featured three presentations on labor, organizing, and municipal power. Stacey Sutton of UIC explored the relationship between municipalism, institutional scaffolding, and cooperative ecosystems as pathways to economic democracy. Carolina Sarmiento of UW-Madison examined immigrant worker organizing as a form of democratic politics-making and collective defense. Nik Theodore, also of UIC, presented research on worker-driven regulation in day-labor markets, tracing how precarious workers have developed mechanisms to reclaim power in informal labor settings.
The symposium reflected the broader mission of the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence at Illinois, which supports comparative research and dialogue on democratic governance, economic policy, and the role of civil society in Europe and beyond. Events such as this one demonstrate the Center's commitment to fostering cross-institutional scholarly exchange on some of the most pressing challenges facing democratic societies today.