The peaking of liberal democracy: energy scarcity, food security, and insurgent governance
tion. The land occupations and urban food initiatives in Cuba constituted
a form of ‘insurgent planning’, a term originally used to refer to informal, organic urban development (Sandercock 1999; Holsten 2008), or
oppositional activities of communities, in the global South, confronting
neoliberalism (Miraftab 2009). Insurgent planning is transgressive and
challenges established norms. It can be oppositional, and/or creative and
precedent-setting. In the context of energy, food, resource and climate
crises, it brings an important contribution to adaptive governance.
Adaptive governance is a term used in resilience thinking in relation
to socio-ecological systems, and describes approaches that are needed
to address complex interaction and manage uncertainty and periods of
change. It is characterised by collaborative, flexible and learning-based
management across different scales (Folke et al 2005; Olssen et al 2006