When political theorists discuss public space they generally take it to be a metaphor that refers to the myriad ways in which citizens separated in time and space can participate in collective deliberation, decision-making and action, a concept interchangeable with ‘the public realm’ or ‘the public sphere’ (for example Benhabib 1992; Nagel 1995). Thus ‘public space‘ is taken by many to refer to things like the media, the internet, and networks of citizens in civil society, such that “the literal meaning has almost been wiped out” (Hénaff and Strong 2001, p. 35).
This shift has taken place for good reasons. From the standpoint of democratic theory, the issues are scale and complexity. The members of large-scale, complex societies cannot all gather together in a physical forum to argue, deliberate and decide. Yet they need to participate in public debate in some way if that society is to be called democratic, even if only to debate their choice of representatives. But while the pursuit of metaphorical conceptions of public space is clearly a worthwhile endeavour, and one that is doing much to broaden conceptions of democracy, I think it would be a pity to wipe out the literal meaning. In this chapter I contend that physical public space matters to democracy, and that neglecting the physical can have detrimental consequences for a democratic society's health.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Backscheider, P. (1993). Spectacular Politics: Theatrical Power and Mass Culture in Early Modern England. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press
Barnett, C. and Low, M. (Eds.) (2004). Spaces of Democracy: Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation. London: Sage
Beetham, D. (Ed.) (1994). Defining and Measuring Democracy. London: Sage
Benhabib, S. (1992). Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jürgen Habermas. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Benjamin, W. (1999). The Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA/London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Borden, I., Rendell, J., Kerr, J. and Pivaro, A. (Eds.) (2001). The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Urban Space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Dryzek, J. (1996). Democracy in Capitalist Times: Ideals, Limits, Struggles. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press
Dryzek, J. (2000). Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Edelman, M. (1988). Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
Fishkin, J.S. (1997). The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy. 2nd ed., New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
Gibson, R. and Miskin, S. (2002). Australia Deliberates? A Critical Analysis of the Role of the Media in Deliberative Polling. In J. Warhurst and M. Mackerras (Eds.), Constitutional Politics: The Republic Referendum and the Future. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press
Goodin, R. (2007). Enfranchising All Affected Interests, and Its Alternatives. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 35(1), 40–68
Gutmann, A. and Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action (translated by T. McCarthy). Boston, MA: Beacon Press
Habermas, J. (1996). Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (translated by W. Rehg). Cambridge, MA: Polity Press
Hajer, M. (2003). A Frame in the Field: Policymaking and the Re-invention of Politics. In M. Hajer and H. Wagenaar (Eds.), Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hajer, M. (2005). Setting the Stage: A Dramaturgy of Policy Deliberation. Administration and Society, 36(6), 624–647
Harrington, J. and Mitchell, E. (Eds.) (1999). Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern Ireland. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press
Hénaff, M. and Strong, T. (Eds.) (2001). Public Space and Democracy. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press
Hendriks, C. (2006). Integrated Deliberation: Reconciling Civil Society's Dual Role in Deliberative Democracy. Political Studies, 54(3), 486–508
Hindson, P. and Gray, T. (1988). Burke's Dramatic Theory of Politics. Aldershot: Avebury
Kateb, G. (1981). The Moral Distinctiveness of Representative Democracy. Ethics, 91(3), 357–374
Kingdon, J.W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown
Kock, N. (2007). Media Naturalness and Compensatory Encoding: The Burden of Electronic Media Obstacles Is on Senders. Decision Support Systems, 44(1), 175–187
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Mabley, E. (1972). Dramatic Construction: An Outline of Basic Principles. Philadelphia, PA: Chilton
Madanipour, A. (2003). Public and Private Spaces of the City. London: Routledge
Mansbridge, J. (1992). A Deliberative Theory of Interest Representation. In M. Petracca (Ed.),The Politics of Interests: Interest Groups Transformed. Boulder: Westview Press
Mansbridge, J. (1999). Everyday Talk in the Deliberative System. In S. Macedo (Ed.), Deliberative Politics: Essays on ‘Democracy and Disagreement’. New York: Oxford University Press
May, J. D. (1978). Defining Democracy. Political Studies, 26(1), 1–14
Nagel, T. (1995). Personal Rights and Public Space. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 24(2), 83–107
Orgel, S. (1975). The Illusion of Power. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press
Papacharissi, Z. (2004). Democracy Online: Civility, Politeness, and the Democratic Potential of Online Political Discussion Groups. New Media and Society, 6(2), 259–283
Parkinson, J. (2006). Deliberating in the Real World: Problems of Legitimacy in Deliberative Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Parkinson, J. (2007). The House of Lords: A Deliberative Democratic Defence. Political Quarterly, 78(3): 374–381
Reinisch, C. and Parkinson, J. (2007). Swiss Landsgemeinden: A Deliberative Democratic Evaluation of Two Outdoor Parliaments. Paper given at the European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions, Helsinki
Rhodes, R. A. W. (1997). Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity, and Accountability. Buckingham and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press
Sauter, W. (2000). The Theatrical Event: Dynamics of Performance and Perception. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press
Saward, M. (1998). The Terms of Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press
Saward, M. (2006). The Representative Claim. Contemporary Political Theory, 5(3), 297–318
Soja, E. (1989). Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London and New York: Verso
Sunstein, C. (2001). Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Watson, S. (2006). City Publics: The (dis)Enchantments of Urban Encounters. Abingdon: Routledge
Whitehead, L. (1999). The Drama of Democratization. Journal of Democracy, 10(4), 84–98
Whitehead, L. (2002). Democratization: Theory and Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Young, I.M. (2000). Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Zaller, J. (2003). A New Standard for Judging News Quality: Burglar Alarms for the Monitorial Citizen. Political Communication, 20(2), 109–130
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Parkinson, J.R. (2009). Does Democracy Require Physical Public Space?. In: Geenens, R., Tinnevelt, R. (eds) Does Truth Matter?. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8849-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8849-0_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-8848-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-8849-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)