Prologue

In the Street ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Interpretive Analysis ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
May 68

Through an interpretive analysis of the surprising refiguration of the iconic May ’68 poster “Beauty is in the Street” in Istanbul during the Gezi Protests of 2013, the Prologue sets the stage for the book by making three closely related points. First, it draws attention to the emancipatory potential of such refigurations of past struggles in the present and highlights the importance of keeping a record of democratic events. Second, it establishes the centrality of 1968 in democratic theory by demonstrating how Negri, Habermas, and Rancière formulated their own unique conceptualizations of democratic action in response to the questions that first emerged in the aftermath of the experience of 1968 and continue to shape current debates. Third, it argues that to rescue contemporary democratic events from their ongoing trivialization, it is necessary to develop an alternative conceptual lens that reveals what other accounts erase, namely the on-the-ground efforts of political actors.

Jacques Rancière

In the Street ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 121-150
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Theory Of Education ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
Action Taking ◽  
As If

This chapter demonstrates that Rancière’s journey to democratic theory started in the aftermath of May 1968 with his efforts to overcome the problematic transformation of political theory into “a theory of education.” For Rancière, unpredictability is integral to democratic politics. Thus, in an anti-Rousseauian move, he emphasizes the theatrical aspect of democratic action: taking on a role other than who they are, acting as if they are a part in a given social order in which they have no part, political actors stage their equality, disrupting the existing distribution of the sensible. Rancière’s focus on the moments of disruption, however, opens him to the charge of reducing democratic politics to immediate acts of negation. Insofar as he erases the role of intermediating practices in the stagings of equality, Rancière imposes on his accounts a kind of purity that his own work, with its emphasis on broken, polemical voices, cautions against.

Enacting Political Friendship in Gezi

In the Street ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 151-188
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
May 68 ◽  
The Moment

This chapter deploys the alternative conceptual lens developed in the book, according to which democratic action is a theatrical experience created and sustained through the intermediating practices of political friendship, to analyze the Gezi protests of 2013. What emerges from this analysis is a richer account of events that moves beyond the limiting frameworks of success/failure and spontaneity/organization by bringing to light both the on-the-ground practices of political actors and the messiness and impurity of democratic politics even in the moment of its staging. Focusing on such intermediating practices as deliberation, judging, negotiation, artistic production, common use, and the organization of the mundane aspects of everyday life, the chapter demonstrates that those who took part in Gezi borrowed from past struggles, including May ’68, re-activated political habits, and, acting in unexpected ways, created new, if imperfect and fragile, forms of commonality among diverse figures, showing that another way of doing things is possible.

Democratic Action, Spontaneity, and the Intermediating Practices of Political Friendship

In the Street ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 7-38
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
Spontaneous Action

This chapter accomplishes two goals. First, it critically engages with the contemporary debates on the last decade’s democratic uprisings to demonstrate the ongoing influence of Rousseau’s emphasis on immediacy in democratic theory. By casting organization as that which precedes politics and moments of spontaneous action as sudden explosions, contemporary accounts reduce spontaneity to immediacy. Thus, they both erase on-the-ground practices of the political actors, and, taking an antidemocratic Rousseauian turn, construe the transience and unpredictability of democratic events as problems to be resolved under the guidance of the theorist. Second, the chapter appropriates Aristotle’s notion of political friendship, laying the groundwork for the conception of democratic action developed in the book, and arguing that democratic events are created in and through “intermediating practices,” including deliberation, judging, negotiation, artistic production, and common use. Through intermediating practices, people establish relations with strangers, constitute a common amid disagreements, and stage their equality as political friends.

Correlates of Influence in Local Government: An Exploratory Investigation

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin S. Rallings
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Local Council ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Organizational Behaviour ◽  
Exploratory Investigation ◽  
Leadership Influence

Over a number of years, and with concerns as far apart as democratic theory and organizational behaviour, many commentators have studied the patterns of recruitment in local government and the contents of the job that elected officials take upon themselves. Most of these analyses have convincingly shown a tendency for political actors to possess a higher average socioeconomic status than the population from which they are drawn. One student is explicit in saying that ‘politics is a middle-class job and the training appropriate for middle-class jobs is also a training for politics’. What has not, however, been subject to such extended consideration is the question of differences among groups of legislators themselves. This Note attempts to restore the balance by reporting briefly on a limited and exploratory investigation of patterns of leadership/influence in one Scottish local council.

Everyday Deeds: Enactive Protest, Exit, and Silence in Deliberative Systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 587-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby Rollo
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Recent Innovation ◽  
Important Shift

The deliberative systems approach is a recent innovation within the tradition of deliberative democratic theory. It signals an important shift in focus from the political legitimacy produced within isolated and formal sites of deliberation (e.g., Parliament or deliberative mini-publics), to the legitimacy produced by a number of diverse interconnected sites. In this respect, the deliberative systems (DS) approach is better equipped to identify and address defects arising from the systemic influences of power and coercion. In this article, I examine one of the least explored and least understood defects: the exclusion of non-speaking political actors generated by the uniform privileging of speech in all sites within a system. Using the examples of prefigurative protest, Indigenous refusal to deliberate, and the non-deliberative agency of disabled citizens, I argue that the DS approach allows theorists to better understand forms of domination related to the imposition of speech on those who are either unwilling or unable to speak.

scholarly journals Penggunaan Akun Bot Media Sosial untuk Mempengaruhi Opini Publik : Sebuah Tinjauan Hukum Di Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-68
Author(s):  
Devi Rahma Fatmala ◽  
Amanda Amelia ◽  
Fitri Agustina Trianingsih
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actor ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law

Today’s political discourse can’t be disattached from the usage of social media. There are plenty of political actors using it to campaign their issues and attack their political rival in order to influence public opinion. One of the instruments used by the political actor in using the social media is bot accounts. Bot accounts are an automated online account where all or substantially all of the actions or posts of that account are not the result of a person. The usage of bot accounts are viewed as harmful for democracy by many experts on law and democracy. However, a lot of states have no regulation regarding the usage of bot accounts, including Indonesia. This article is intended to bring legal review on the usage of bot accounts to influence public opinion in Indonesia. Using deliberative democratic theory, this article views that the usage of bot accounts could prevent the objective achievement of democracy based on UUD 1945. The authors recommend the regulation of bot accounts through the revision of UU No. 19 Tahun 2019 about Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronik with bringing up various important argumentations regarding the law implementation. Keywords : Bot Accounts; Social Media; Public Opinion; Democracy; Legal Review.

In the Street

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Street Politics ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Antonio Negri ◽  
Ways Of Being

The 2010s were a decade of protests, and if the initial few months of 2020 are any indication, various forms of street politics, including spontaneous protests, demonstrations, acts of civil disobedience, and occupations are here to stay. Yet, contemporary discussions on the democratic significance of such events remain limited to questions of success and failure and the relative virtues of spontaneity and organization. In the Street: Democratic Action, Theatricality, and Political Friendship moves beyond these limited and limiting debates by breaking the hold of a deeply engrained way of thinking of democratic action that falsely equates spontaneity with immediacy. The book traces this problematic equation back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s account of popular sovereignty and demonstrates that insofar as commentators characterize democratic moments as the unmediated expressions of people’s will and/or instantaneous popular eruptions, they lose sight of the rich, creative, and varied practices of political actors who create those events against all odds. In the Street counters this Rousseauian influence by appropriating Aristotle’s notion of “political friendship” and developing an alternative conceptual framework that emphasizes the theatricality of democratic action through a critical engagement with the works of Antonio Negri, Jürgen Habermas, and Jacques Rancière. The outcome is a new conceptual lens that brings to light what is erased from contemporary discussions of democratic events, namely the crystallization of political actors’ hopes in the novel ways of being that they staged and the alternative forms of social relations that they created in and through the intermediating practices of political friendship.

scholarly journals The use of social media bot accounts on influencing public opinion: a legal review in Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Devi Rahma Fatmala ◽  
Amanda Amelia ◽  
Fitri Agustina Trianingsih
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actor ◽  
Electronic Information ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Law ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Today’s political discourse cannot be separated from the usage of social media. There are plenty of political actors using it to campaign their issues and attack their political rivals to influence public opinion. One of the instruments used by the political actor in using social media is bot accounts. Bot accounts are an automated online account where all or substantially all of the actions or posts of that account are not the result of a person. The usage of bot accounts is viewed as harmful for democracy by many experts on law and democracy. However, lots of states have no regulation regarding the usage of bot accounts, including Indonesia. This article intends to bring legal review on the usage of bot accounts to influence public opinion in Indonesia. By using deliberative democratic theory, this article views that the usage of bot accounts could prevent the objective achievement of democracy based on the 1945 Constitution. The authors recommend the regulation of bot accounts through the revision of Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions with bringing up various notable arguments regarding the law implementation.

The legislative representation of public opinion policy priorities in Italy

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Visconti
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political System ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Longitudinal Analyses ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Legislative Agendas ◽  
Legislative Representation ◽  
Policy Problems

Normative democratic theory requires political actors in parliament and government to represent not only the citizens’ policy preferences, but also their issue priorities. This article investigates Italian dynamic agenda representation – the transmission of public priorities into the policy priorities of the Italian political system. To assess the public’s policy priorities, data on the Most Important Problem from the Eurobarometer polls are used, while the legislative agendas of the members of parliament (MPs) and government are built following the rules of the Comparative Agendas Project. The results of longitudinal analyses across 10 policy areas and 20 semesters (2003–13) suggest a persistent link between the public’s agenda and the prioritization of legislation by the Italian parliament, majority MPs, and government. Contrary to expectations, the opposition does not seem to be responsive to public opinion policy problems when introducing bills.

Antonio Negri

In the Street ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 63-92
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Factory Workers ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Theory Of Education ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Antonio Negri ◽  
Exclusive Focus

This chapter focuses on Antonio Negri’s turn to democratic theory in the wake of Italy’s “Long ’68.” As an activist thinker involved in the political struggles of his time, starting in the early 1970s, Negri challenged the Marxist orthodoxy’s exclusive focus on factory workers through a series of conceptual innovations, such as the “multitude,” highlighting the emancipatory potential of diverse political actors and their innovative resistance practices. Despite this crucial contribution, the chapter contends, Negri’s account, too, is haunted by the Rousseauian dream of immediacy: for Negri, insurgencies are moments of democracy because they are the immediate expressions of the multitude. And while Negri refuses to characterize such short-lived moments as failures, he still, like Rousseau, considers their transience a problem, which he tries to resolve through the cultivation of “adequate” revolutionary consciousness—a problematic move, the chapter concludes, which reproduces the antidemocratic Rousseauian tendency to turn political theory into a theory of education in Negri’s work.

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